help wanted with odd/even margins in plain TeX

[Norman Ramsey]

I have a legacy document written in plain TeX which I wish to print
and bind. I would like to print it double-sided, but I can't figure
out how to get a large margin on the left side of odd-numbered pages
and on the right side of even-numbered pages. (This is necessary to
keep the text out of the binding.) Does anybody have any ideas? I
suspect I may have to hack the \output routine...

Norman
--
Norman Ramsey
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~nr

[Donald Arseneau]

In article <6qqe53$8b8$1...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>, n...@labrador.cs.virginia.edu (Norman Ramsey) writes...

>
>I have a legacy document written in plain TeX which I wish to print
>and bind. I would like to print it double-sided, but I can't figure
>out how to get a large margin on the left side of odd-numbered pages
>and on the right side of even-numbered pages. (This is necessary to
>keep the text out of the binding.) Does anybody have any ideas? I
>suspect I may have to hack the \output routine...

..But not by much

\newdimen\pageshift \pageshift=0pt
\output{\plainoutput}
\def\plainoutput{\shipout
\vbox{\moveleft\ifodd\pageno-\fi\pageshift
\vbox{\makeheadline\pagebody\makefootline}}%
\advancepageno
\ifnum\outputpenalty>-\@MM \else\dosupereject\fi}
%

Donald Arseneau as...@triumf.ca