bobo@inmet.UUCP (06/10/85)
We just recently got TeX (and LaTeX) here and there seems to be one major obstacle to our use of it. We would like to be able to make non-laser printer output (i.e. for draft copies or for when our one laser printer is down). Does anyone have a driver that takes .dvi files and produces plain vanilla ascii output. If I'm overlooking some obvious TeX mode or command please excuse me and point out the error of my ways. Mark Friedman Intermetrics, Inc. ...harpo!inmet!bobo ...esquire!inmet!bobo ...ima!inmet!bobo
rusty@sdcarl.UUCP (rusty c. wright) (06/21/85)
In article <14000003@inmet.UUCP> bobo@inmet.UUCP writes: > > We just recently got TeX (and LaTeX) here and there seems to be one >major obstacle to our use of it. We would like to be able to make >non-laser printer output (i.e. for draft copies or for when our one >laser printer is down). Does anyone have a driver that takes .dvi files >and produces plain vanilla ascii output. If I'm overlooking some >obvious TeX mode or command please excuse me and point out the error of >my ways. Yep, there's no obvious mode or command to do it. Next to lack of graphics (ala pic or ideal) the lack of "ascii" mode output is a major drawback to tex. If you ask the people that wrote and maintain tex their reply is something along the lines of ``we're expecting that the rapid advances in display technology will make this unnecessary''. I guess that they think that in a few days everyone in the world is going to be buying terminals with the power of a sun, blit, etc. On the other hand it should be possible to provide such a capability. My theory on how it could be accomplished would be to 1) make up a new plain.tex (or lplain.tex for latex) that always maps font change requests into a change to a constant width font that is close to the size of the letters on the terminal. Or it would use that font initially and ignore all future font change requests. 2) next you would have to have a dvi conversion program. It would take all movement commands (horizontal and vertical) and make them modulo the height of a line or the width of the constant width characters. If you wanted to get fancy could have it generate underlining sequences for italics and double striking for bold (i guess the plain.tex file would use \special commands to communicate the fact that chars should be underlined/double struck) 3) the modified plain.tex file would also need to set the line length to 80 chars and the page length to something reasonable (say the length of a page on a daisy wheel printer). We don't have the need for such a thing here so i've never actually attempted it. -- rusty c. wright {ucbvax,ihnp4,akgua,hplabs,sdcsvax}!sdcarl!rusty
sasaki@harvard.ARPA (Marty Sasaki) (06/23/85)
A group that does documentation within DEC (sorry, I don't remember
their name) uses a special mark-up language that then gets converted
into either TeX or runoff. Additionally, they have DVI filters for laser
printers, lineprinters and the like. I didn't ask any questions, but I
assume that they have a separate set of macros for the different output
devices as well.
Members of the Languages and Tools SIG of DECUS are applying pressure to
have these tools made available, preferably free, but as products if
neccessary. If you use DEC equipment, I encourage you to join DECUS,
then to put in a vote to the L&TSIG for these tools.
--
----------------
Marty Sasaki net: sasaki@harvard.{arpa,uucp}
Havard University Science Center phone: 617-495-1270
One Oxford Street
Cambridge, MA 02138