Galleys, Space, and Automata
Jonathan Fine · 1993
The thread which runs through this article is the concept of a Finite State Automaton (FSA). It is introduced as a solution to the problem of how to specify and code the amount of vertical space to be left between the various type of item which can be placed upon the page. Several methods of coding FSA are described and compared. One solution is to store the transition table and other data in the ligature table of a custom font. The best use of this method requires sofware tools which cannot readily be programmed in TEX, and also some extensions to TEX. These are discussed, and the article concludes.