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<h3 class="section">20.10 Overfull &ldquo;hboxes&rdquo;</h3>

<p><a name="index-Overfull-_0040samp_007bhboxes_007d-1165"></a><a name="index-g_t_0040samp_007bhboxes_007d_002c-overfull-1166"></a><a name="index-Final-output-1167"></a>
TeX is sometimes unable to typeset a line without extending it into
the right margin.  This can occur when TeX comes upon what it
interprets as a long word that it cannot hyphenate, such as an
electronic mail network address or a very long title.  When this
happens, TeX prints an error message like this:

<pre class="example">     Overfull @hbox (20.76302pt too wide)
</pre>
  <p><a name="index-hbox-1168"></a>(In TeX, lines are in &ldquo;horizontal boxes&rdquo;, hence the term, &ldquo;hbox&rdquo;. 
&lsquo;<samp><span class="samp">@hbox</span></samp>&rsquo; is a TeX primitive not needed in the Texinfo language.)

  <p>TeX also provides the line number in the Texinfo source file and
the text of the offending line, which is marked at all the places that
TeX considered hyphenation. 
See <a href="Debugging-with-TeX.html#Debugging-with-TeX">Catching Errors with TeX Formatting</a>,
for more information about typesetting errors.

  <p>If the Texinfo file has an overfull hbox, you can rewrite the sentence
so the overfull hbox does not occur, or you can decide to leave it.  A
small excursion into the right margin often does not matter and may not
even be noticeable.

  <p>If you have many overfull boxes and/or an antipathy to rewriting, you
can coerce TeX into greatly increasing the allowable interword
spacing, thus (if you're lucky) avoiding many of the bad line breaks,
like this:

  <p><a name="index-g_t_005cemergencystretch-1169"></a>
<pre class="example">     @tex
     \global\emergencystretch = .9\hsize
     @end tex
</pre>
  <p class="noindent">(You should adjust the fraction as needed.)  This huge value for
<code>\emergencystretch</code> cannot be the default, since then the typeset
output would generally be of noticeably lower quality; the default
is &lsquo;<samp><span class="samp">.15\hsize</span></samp>&rsquo;.  <code>\hsize</code> is the TeX dimension
containing the current line width.

  <p><a name="index-Black-rectangle-in-hardcopy-1170"></a><a name="index-Rectangle_002c-black-in-hardcopy-1171"></a><a name="index-Box_002c-ugly-black-in-hardcopy-1172"></a><a name="index-Ugly-black-rectangles-in-hardcopy-1173"></a>For what overfull boxes you have, however, TeX will print a large,
ugly, black rectangle beside the line that contains the overfull hbox
unless told otherwise.  This is so you will notice the location of the
problem if you are correcting a draft.

  <p><a name="index-finalout-1174"></a>To prevent such a monstrosity from marring your final printout, write
the following in the beginning of the Texinfo file on a line of its own,
before the <code>@titlepage</code> command:

<pre class="example">     @finalout
</pre>
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