evan@telly.UUCP (Evan Leibovitch) (04/10/89)
I'm in the process of upgrading lasers. Though I would love to afford
Postscript, I'll probably have to settle for Laserjet emulation.
Having said that, can anyone offer opinions on the relative strengths
and weaknesses of the various kinds of DWB-based products. So far, my
options appear to be:
- Vanilla old ditroff, still sold by SCO and others, together with the
publicly posted jetroff Laserjet drivers/fonts;
- Elan, chosen by SCO as its future DWB;
- SoftQuad, apparently being recommended by AT&T.
Since I've seen Usenet postings from the folks responsible for all three
of these, I'd be interested in hearing what the differences are. What
font size ranges are supported by the three? Which pre-processors and
macro packages do they support/supply? Xwindow support for previewers?
No flame wars, please. Just one comment each from the above three should
be sufficent, added to whatever actual users can say. Thanks.
_____________________________________________________________________
Evan Leibovitch, System Telly, located in beautiful Brampton, Ontario
evan@telly.on.ca / {uunet!attcan,utzoo}!telly!evan
And, in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make."rick@pcrat.UUCP (Rick Richardson) (04/13/89)
In article <906@telly.UUCP> evan@telly.UUCP (Evan Leibovitch) writes: >... I'll probably have to settle for Laserjet emulation. > >- Vanilla old ditroff, still sold by SCO and others, together with the > publicly posted jetroff Laserjet drivers/fonts; JetRoff runs best with the ditroff found in DWB 2.0. I don't think SCO is supplying DWB. Last I heard, they were still supplying the really old C/A/T troff. >- Elan, chosen by SCO as its future DWB; > >- SoftQuad, apparently being recommended by AT&T. > Both are respectable packages for the money. Urban Applied Science (800) 872-8763 also sells "Leverage" which includes DWB 2.0 and JetRoff. The price starts at $175. >Since I've seen Usenet postings from the folks responsible for all three >of these, I'd be interested in hearing what the differences are. What >font size ranges are supported by the three? Which pre-processors and >macro packages do they support/supply? Xwindow support for previewers? * In combination with DWB 2.0, JetRoff supports all of the standard preprocessors: grap, pic, eqn, and tbl. * The shareware version supplied fonts R, I, B, S, and CW in sizes 6,7,8,9,10,11,12,14,16,18,20,24, and 28. * The registered users version added fonts H, HI, HB, and HD, and sizes 4,5,32,36, and 40. All the fonts have been tweaked. * Both the shareware and registered users versions of JetRoff support the addition of third party soft fonts. Subject to the limitations of your printer, you can go up to size 120 or so. * JetRoff doesn't supply any macro packages, they come with the DWB. * We haven't found a stable and low cost X environment yet. -Rick -- Rick Richardson | JetRoff "di"-troff to LaserJet Postprocessor|uunet!pcrat!dry2 PC Research,Inc.| Mail: uunet!pcrat!jetroff; For anon uucp do:|for Dhrystone 2 uunet!pcrat!rick| uucp jetroff!~jetuucp/file_list ~nuucp/. |submission forms. jetroff Wk2200-0300,Sa,Su ACU {2400,PEP} 12013898963 "" \d\r\d ogin: jetuucp
woods@tmsoft.uucp (Greg Woods) (04/14/89)
In article <906@telly.UUCP> evan@telly.UUCP (Evan Leibovitch) writes: >- Vanilla old ditroff, still sold by SCO and others, together with the > publicly posted jetroff Laserjet drivers/fonts; This one is fine, especially if all you have is a laser-printer of some sort. However, be absolutely sure you have DWB 2.0 (i.e. di-troff). Making old troff work with modern printers is painful (I know). JetRoff is a commercial quality shareware package that is extremely powerful and flexible. It will work any HP LJ emulation (or the real thing) to the limit. There are also several ditroff->PostScript translators available, and at least the one I tried worked fine. I've seen a ditroff->TEK4014 filter, and 'proof' is available for the AT&T 630 terminals. The only real limitation with the HP LJ is that it is limited to 16 "fonts" (typefaces and point sizes) per page. This is more than enough for even your fanciest sales literature, but can be restrictive for eqn. >- Elan, chosen by SCO as its future DWB; > >- SoftQuad, apparently being recommended by AT&T. There's also Image Network's product. They all appear to be much the same from the sales literature. I've seen SoftQuad's manuals, and have seen it in use (at AT&T Canada) on fast PostScript printers. It certainly does the job. Some of their extensions may indeed be unique, and they support a full-screen semi-WYSIWIG word-processor. My personal favorite is SoftQuad, but then I know people who've worked on it, and it is Canadian. All three (I think) provide X preview software and support many printers and systems. If you want to pay lots for extended and enhanced DWB, go for what you can afford. Otherwise, get the "standard" release of DWB 2.0 from your Unix vendor, and JetRoff. It will also do the job. Of course some vendors won't want to supply DWB2.0 (Everex, for example). ********* comment/opinion ********* Just today I was reading the AT&T DWB 2.0 manual (yeah, the one in the red binder). It's not that thick, is quite easy to read, and covers all of the essentials of mm, tbl, nroff/troff, etc. It includes the man pages, tutorials, reference manuals, and the works. For the past three months I've been assisting users with WordPerfect 4.2 and Word Era. Both of these word-processors have tremendously thick manuals, and incredibly convoluted user interfaces (did you know you have to find the function key sequence representing "Screen" AND press return to re-draw a scrambled screen in WordPerfect?!?!?!?! And the same key sequence to save and exit will kill your typing if you are in insert mode in Word Era!?!?!?!). MS-Word is only slightly better. I have read NUMEROUS references to the ease of teaching fundamental {n,t}roff (with help of a macro package like mm, me, or ms) to ANYONE who can type in less than an hour. I had no trouble learning it, and have had no trouble teaching anyone else to use it. In fact there are other so called word processors out there based on the same model (Word-Pro, Paperclip, etc.). Our client paid many dollars for all the people who use WordPerfect to attend a full day course in which they learned very little that I didn't have to re-teach, or they didn't have to re-learn from the manual. WordPerfect isn't cheap itself! Then there's TEX. I'd bet it's even easier to learn/use (with LaTEX) than troff, though I'd never admit it in public, and you'll never catch ME using TEX! :-) Sorry Evan (and everyone else)... this has turned into something that looks and awful lot like a flame.... :-( -- Greg A. Woods. woods@{{tmsoft,utgpu,gate,ontmoh}.UUCP,utorgpu.BITNET,gpu.utcs.Toronto.EDU} +1-416-443-1734 [h], +1-416-595-5425 [w] Toronto, Ontario, Canada
johnb@sq.com (John Brown) (04/14/89)
In article <906@telly.UUCP> evan@telly.UUCP (Evan Leibovitch) writes: > >No flame wars, please. Just one comment each from the above three should >be sufficent, added to whatever actual users can say. Thanks. In an effort to support the proper use of the net, SoftQuad's policy is to respond by email to postings asking for product information. We have done so in this instance and are happy to pass a copy on to any others who would like to receive it. SoftQuad Inc. 720 Spadina Avenue Toronto, Ontario Canada M5S 2T9 800-387-2777 (from U.S.A. only) Uucp: {utzoo|utai}!sq!mail 416-963-8337 Internet: mail@sq.com
jimi@h-three.UUCP (jimi) (04/21/89)
The June 1988 issue of UNIX Review contains a comparative review of Eroff Desktop Typesetting System (Elan CG Inc.), profficient (prototype/inc.), Softquad Publishing Software (Softquad Inc.) and Xroff (Image Network). We can provide technical and distribution information about profficient, an implementation of DITROFF and other DWB programs. Interested readers can call or reply to one of the addresses below. -- Jim Ingram uunet!h-three!jimi | jimi%h-three@uunet.uu.net h-three Systems Corporation P.O. Box 12557 RTP NC 27709 919 549 8334
kg@elan.UUCP (Ken Greer) (04/22/89)
From article <671@h-three.UUCP>, by jimi@h-three.UUCP (jimi):
> The June 1988 issue of UNIX Review contains a comparative review of
troff ...
Readers should note - the "Score Card" in this issue
was printed **backwards** from what it should have been. That is,
the best product came out last, and the worst product came out on top!!
Nice move Unix Review!!!
The corrected score card appears in the July or August '88 issue if I recall.
Elan's EROFF shared 1st place with SoftQuad (in the corrected score card.)
To be honest, even though our product (EROFF) came out on top, I actually
considered the review, written by Rich Morrin, to be too perfunctory
and generally of very low quality for a product review.
Ken Greer
Elan Computer Group, Inc.
{ames,uunet}!elan!kg
415-964-2200