Pic advice (almost a bug)

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5 total messages Started by Kaare Christian Tue, 18 Mar 1986 04:10

#504

Author: Kaare Christian
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1986 04:10

29 lines
1962 bytes

Here is my latest pic discovery.  Although this is not a bug
report per se, the following advice may prove very helpful if you
want your pic-tures to come out right.

My version of the pic distribution is setup for the Linotron 202.
One subtle consequence of this is the following. (Note none of this
is #ifdef'd for the lino202.) In an apparent attempt to make pic
usable with the old troff, pic draws short lines using the new
line drawing commands, and draws longer lines using repeated base line
rule characters.  In the file pltroff.c there is a printf
statement that elicits a troff vertical motion before outputing a
string of base line rules. Presumably this vertical motion makes
the base line rule get drawn in just the right place. You might want
to adjust this vertical motion to match the actual placement of the
base line rule for your font/printer. The suplied value is .25m, but
for my QMS laser printer the value zero works better.

Alternatively you can suppress output of horizontal lines using
the baseline rule character, and go with horizontal lines drawn
with the line drawing primitives as built into the newer (di)
troff. You can do this by setting the variable 'useDline' to a one
near the top of the pltroff.c file.

Either way, if you get boxes and lines that don't quite match up,
look to the pltroff.c file for the answer. Tho this isn't a bug,
these printer dependencies could be handled more gracefully.

Kaare Christian
cmcl2!rna!kc

Re: Pic advice (almost a bug)

#507

Author: Jim Webb
Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1986 21:51

18 lines
1277 bytes

> Here is my latest pic discovery.  Although this is not a bug
> report per se, the following advice may prove very helpful if you
> want your pic-tures to come out right.
> 
> In an apparent attempt to make pic
> usable with the old troff, pic draws short lines using the new
> line drawing commands, and draws longer lines using repeated base line
> rule characters. 
> 
> If you get boxes and lines that don't quite match up,
> look to the pltroff.c file for the answer. Tho this isn't a bug,
> these printer dependencies could be handled more gracefully.
> 

Or, you could use the -D option on pic, which says to use all \D requests
instead of multiple rules...
-- 
Jim Webb                                        ihnp4!houxm!hropus!jrw

Re: Pic advice (almost a bug)

#520

Author: William LeFebvre
Date: Sun, 30 Mar 1986 01:59

27 lines
1678 bytes

In article <364@hropus.UUCP>, jrw@hropus.UUCP (Jim Webb) writes:
> > If you get boxes and lines that don't quite match up,
> > look to the pltroff.c file for the answer. Tho this isn't a bug,
> > these printer dependencies could be handled more gracefully.
> 
> Or, you could use the -D option on pic, which says to use all \D requests
> instead of multiple rules...
> -- 

I just made it the default for everyone here.  The hack method of
using \l and \L was put in to make printing pic-ed things on the
CAT/4 (or /8) phototypesetter faster.  You see, they did graphics on the
CAT by printing a WHOLE BUNCH of periods.  You can imagine how slow that
was.  So, using \l and \L (the horizontal and vertical line drawing
troff commands) was MUCH faster, although not as accurate.

Such a trick isn't needed on today's laser printers, since there is
(typically) so much graphics support built in.  So, essentially, the
"quick" method, as it was called, is obsolete and everyone should use -D,
so why not make it the default?

-- 
			William LeFebvre
			Department of Computer Science
			Rice University
			<phil@Rice.edu>

Re: Pic advice (almost a bug)

#521

Author: Peter Honeyman
Date: Wed, 02 Apr 1986 19:45

4 lines
697 bytes

pic -D is the default in eighth edition.  in fact, v8 pic doesn't have
a -D option (man page notwithstanding).

	peter

Re: Pic advice (almost a bug)

#524

Author: Ray Holmes
Date: Sat, 05 Apr 1986 19:19

5 lines
750 bytes

I've been trying to locate a source for PIC for some time.  Maybe someone
here can help me.  Thanks in advance.

					Ray

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