fmbutt@cloud9.Stratus.COM (Farooq Butt) (08/14/89)
I have a Sun 3/280 running SunOS 4.0. I have the standard yecchy
C/A/T troff that comes with Berkeley running on it but am dying
to get a more reasonable DItroff running on it.
I have already gotten a copy of what I think is SysV ditroff but
it does not seem to have a "psc" (postscript) device driver system
( i.e. When I try to say: troff -Tpsc foo | psdit | lpr, troff
complains that I don't have "devpsc" in/usr/lib/font).
Questions:
1. What is the *best* ditroff to run on a Sun ?
2. If ditroff is TRULY device independent why would I need a
a postscript device driver, as opposed to a generic DIT -> PS
converter such as psdit supplied by Sun with Transcript ?
3. If all I need is the "devpsc" postscript driver stuff, where can I
get it. (Anonymous postings greatly appreciated).
4. If I really do need a completely new ditroff as opposed to
the SysV.3.2 one I already have, where should I go to get it
and how (I only have uucp here)? [[ I do tend to believe that
the SysV ditroff should probably be the one to use, but
then again I don't know about any "joes_own_ditroff" that
may be better. Please enlighten me. ]]
5. What about macros and fontfiles ? Will I get them with
ditroff or do I have to scrounge around else where for 'em ?
I hope I have not asked many stupid questions but then again I am
a troff-illeterate TeX hacker......
THANKS!!
fmbhenry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (08/15/89)
In article <7040@cloud9.Stratus.COM> fmbutt@cloud9.Stratus.COM (Farooq Butt) writes: >it does not seem to have a "psc" (postscript) device driver system >( i.e. When I try to say: troff -Tpsc foo | psdit | lpr, troff >complains that I don't have "devpsc" in/usr/lib/font). > > 2. If ditroff is TRULY device independent why would I need a > a postscript device driver, as opposed to a generic DIT -> PS > converter such as psdit supplied by Sun with Transcript ? What it is complaining about is not the lack of a device driver, but the lack of a description file to tell it what fonts, sizes, characters, etc. are available for your device. There is a common misconception that ditroff output is device-independent; NOT SO. The output *format* is device-independent but the *content* is built with the capabilities and limitations of the particular device very much in mind. (For example, ditroff cannot possibly justify text without some idea of how wide each character is on the output device.) >I hope I have not asked many stupid questions but then again I am >a troff-illeterate TeX hacker...... In case you're wondering why TeX doesn't run into this problem... TeX deals with it by trying to pretend that all output devices are the same. This is close enough to being true that it works for a fairly wide range of the better devices, but it tends to fall down for poor ones. -- V7 /bin/mail source: 554 lines.| Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology 1989 X.400 specs: 2200+ pages. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu