🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <FISCHER.91Jun6235823@jordan.iesd.auc.dk> fischer@iesd.auc.dk (Lars P. Fischer) writes:
>>>>>> On 5 Jun 91 19:04:05 GMT, clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca (Chris Lewis) said:

>Chris> Or, if you don't have the money for Transcript, or the disk space for
>Chris> GNU (and you need lots!), get thack (Sun 4's are usually C/A/T troff)
>Chris> or psroff.  Psroff works quite well on Sun 4's.

>Ah, yes, but then the GNU Troff (groff) package gives you additional
>tools, especially "pic".

So does psroff - it includes postscript arbitrary order page flippers,
PK/SFP/PS font manipulation and conversion tools, has a great HP Laserjet
driver which groff doesn't, can use Laserjet III builtin fonts, allows pic to
work on C/A/T troff, supports psfig and pspic, and has lots of width table
generation/manipulation tools - so it's easy [easier than groff] to add new
fonts.

>Also, the new release of groff adheres to the
>version 3 of the Document Structuring Conventions,

Psroff does too (I think I've fixed it).

>includes a previewer for X11,

Psroff doesn't need to include one because it works with the existing ones, either
postscript or ditroff format.  (groff has introduced a couple of changes to the
ditroff intermediate file format, which I think are all disableable if you muck
around with the width tables)

>etc, etc.

etc, etc, ;-)

>Groff works nicely with 2-up printing tools, too.

So does psroff - in fact, support for the n-up tool I posted in comp.sources.misc
volume 16 (psnup) is built-in.

>True, you'll need quite a bit of disk space to compile these tools,

Heck, I don't even have enough room to unpack the thing, let alone get
gcc and g++ on my machine ;-)

>but once compiled they don't take up that much space. 

Psroff is also considerbly faster than groff.

>Recommended.

ditto.  (but I'm biased ;-)

Seriously, both groff and psroff have their places.

If you don't have ditroff or C/A/T troff, or only have C/A/T troff and
need to do "fancy" stuff like lots of pic or grap, or need the kerning that
groff can do, then groff is by far the best solution.

If you're just trying to pretty-print man pages, drive laserjets, not use
pic much with C/A/T troff, don't go hog wild with 15 typefaces per line of
text (only a problem with C/A/T troff), and already have a troff of some sort
without suitable drivers, psroff is the way to go - groff is extreme overkill.

Heck, you can even use psroff as a laserjet driver for groff.

comp.sources.unix seems to becoming unclogged at last - check psroff out.

[Yes, psroff makes C/A/T troff work with pic, extensible character sets,
postscript inclusion and the like.  It ain't pretty under the hood, but it
works well.  Psroff works *great* with ditroff]

BTW: the original posting that led to this thread wasn't because he didn't
have a troff to postscript converter, but because "man -t" didn't know about
it.
-- 
Chris Lewis, Phone: (613) 832-0541, Domain: clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca
UUCP: ...!cunews!latour!ecicrl!clewis; Ferret Mailing List:
ferret-request@eci386; Psroff (not Adobe Transcript) enquiries:
psroff-request@eci386 or Canada 416-832-0541.  Psroff 3.0 in c.s.u soon!