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Article #2131Re: troff on non-laser printers
From: Timo Lehtinen
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 1990 22:18
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 1990 22:18
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I think Nils-Peter is right in that the cost savings in using a
dot-matrix printer or similar raw bitmap device are easily lost in
added costs for disk storage and slower printing times due to dumping
the bitmaps to printers over slow lines. Ensuring that files are only
stored in troff source form or using compress(1) can help on the
storage problem, but then again that will put a heavier load on the CPU.
However, I can see two justifications for troff output for bitmap
devices:
1.) The world is full of dot-matrix printers. It would seem that any ways
to prevent them from becoming obsolete would be justified in this
respect.
2.) Troff output is sometimes required not only for hardcopy but also for
diplays, facsimile etc. PostScript solutions to these are generally
quite expensive !
Having said that...
We have a bitmap postprocessor for ditroff. It can handle troff graphics
as well as text. The font support in it is based on the Computer Modern
Typeface fonts. It actually outputs bitmaps in a generic format of a
PostScript image. That can then easily be filtered to a suitable output
format for the required bitmap device. If anyone's interested in this
send me mail.
Timo Lehtinen
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<1990Nov15.221817.18398@sti.fi>Path:
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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!usc!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!bloom-beacon!eru!hagbard!sunic!news.funet.fi!funic!fuug!sti!ttl From: ttl@sti.fi (Timo Lehtinen) Newsgroups: comp.text Subject: Re: troff on non-laser printers Message-ID: <1990Nov15.221817.18398@sti.fi> Date: 15 Nov 90 22:18:17 GMT References: <294@pepper.rc.nokia.fi> <1990Nov12.205327.3513@cbnewsl.att.com> Reply-To: ttl@sti.fi (Timo Lehtinen) Organization: Stream Technologies Inc. Lines: 35