🚀 go-pugleaf

A while back I asked about getting rid of cut marks from ptroff output.
Since I had someone ask me about anything I found out, I'm assuming that I
wasn't the only person interested.

What I found, to my relief, is that the problem is not in the troff source
or in the transcript source (I suppose it really isn't a problem, its a
feature, but...).  Anyway, I found that the cutmarks are defined in the
macro packages (at least on Ultrix 1.2 and 2.2, so I assume other Berkely type
systems are the same, I don't know about AT&T).  In
/usr/lib/tmac/tmac.{e,s,an} and any others you might use, look for lines in
the new page macro of the form .if t - where - is a call to another macro.
This macro is likely to be the "cut mark" macro.  In ms it is called CM, and
is even mentioned in the man page.  In the CM macro look for a line like
.tl '--' '--'.  Replace the -'s with blanks. (Deleting the line caused my
pages to be thrown off by a line).  Then you are set.  Follows are the diffs
of tmac.e tmac.s and tmac.an respectively.

RCS file: RCS/tmac.e,v
retrieving revision 1.1
diff  -r1.1 tmac.e
188c188,189
< .tl '\(rn''\(rn'
---
> \" .tl '\(rn''\(rn'
> .tl '  ''  '

RCS file: RCS/tmac.s,v
retrieving revision 1.1
diff  -r1.1 tmac.s
664c664,665
< .tl '--''--'
---
> \" .tl '--''--'
> .tl '  ''  '

RCS file: RCS/tmac.an,v
retrieving revision 1.1
diff  -r1.1 tmac.an
88c88,89
< .tl '|--'
---
> \" .tl '|--'
> .tl '   '
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dave Goldberg	             ARPA: dsg@mitre-bedford.arpa
The Mitre Corporation        UUCP: linus!mbunix!dsg
MS B015
Bedford, MA 01730
617-271-2460