laser-lovers@uw-beaver (laser-lovers) (03/01/84)
From booker@NRL-AIC Thu Mar 1 12:07:23 1984
Thanks to all who responded to my request a few weeks ago
about using Troff to print in landscape mode on an IMAGEN
printer. The following summarizes what I've learned so far.
1) It is not enough to simply use the SET_HV_SYSTEM impress
instruction to change the coordinate system used for page
layout. The font *MUST* be rotated as well. This is necessary
because every glyph is defined with an absolute rotation.
A glyph is undefined in any orientation incompatible with its
specified rotation and therefore cannot be printed.
2) It turns out that Imagen has provided a solution to the font
rotation problem. The current distribution of "dviimp" (which
is one of the conversion filters used by "itroff") has
an undocumented '-L' flag which produces landscape mode.
Unfortunately, if you're using vanilla `Troff', you're still
going to be restricted to a text width of 7.5 inches, no
matter which way it's turned!
3) The bottom line is that there is no way to use
Troff to generate reasonable (ie. wider than 7.5 inches)
landscape output on an IMAGEN.
The situation is much brighter for those with access to *Device-
Independent* Troff. This version, which I understand is part of
the System V release 2 distribution of Unix, has no weird
restrictions on text width. Moreover, there is software available
to rotate the fonts and change the page layout for landscape mode.
I've been told about two sources for this software:
1) Paul Richards (richards.uiuc@csnet-relay) at U. of Illinois
has written an output filter for Device Independent Troff that
rotates the Troff (rst) format fonts used in the IMAGEN and
generates impress landscape mode output. He sent me a copy of the code
for doing the rotation. The rest of the code for the filter wasn't
included because it used Bell software which I assume is proprietary.
Perhaps he is free to share it with those having the appropriate
Western Electric licence (System V ?).
2) Several employees of Imagen told me about a product they offer
that processes Device Independent Troff output. Their software
module not only does what is needed for landscape mode, but
also provides more fonts and point sizes than those available
with Device Independent Troff alone.
Finally, Imagen offers a binary version of Device Independent
Troff - together with preprocessors like tbl, eqn, and pic - for
those not interested buying System V Unix. Contact the people at
Imagen for details and prices.
Thanks again to all who took the time to share what they know and
offer advice.
Lashon
booker@nrl-aiclaser-lovers@uw-beaver (laser-lovers) (03/03/84)
From mike@brl-vgr Sat Mar 3 01:14:02 1984 I don't see what all the fuss about old TROFF is. In order to typeset 12inch wide output, instead of 7.5, make the following change to /usr/src/usr.bin/troff/t10.c: At line 281, change: if(((j = (esct + i*(1-2*escm))) > (46*72+18-T_IESC)) || to: /* * the magic number in the next line is * # of inches max line length * #picas/inch *#bu's/pica */ if(((j = (esct + i*(1-2*escm))) > (12*6*72+18-T_IESC)) || This will widen your output from 7.66 inches (46/6) to 12 inches. Presto! Best, -Mike Muuss Advanced Computer Systems Team U. S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory