root@hobbes.UUCP (05/28/87)
Ok, as I promised here is a summary of the replies I got to the
question:
Can *troff do 2 column Landscape mode output on a LaserWriter?
Since the laserwriter usually prints in Portrait mode is there a way
(preferably from within *troff) to get the printer to change to
Landscape mode so that the .2C-like macros can be used to make
"booklets"?
The responses ranged from Hal Edan's in depth reply (I swear he reads
minds) to Tom Pereira's "innovative" use of tbl to others who wanted
to know what I found out. The best way seems to be to tell *troff
that the page is 11 inches wide by 8 inches long:
.ll 11i Note that this will not work with troff for the CAT (otroff)
.pl 8i
and in 2 columns:
.2C or whatever your macro package uses
and put the PostScript codes to switch to Landscape mode in the prolog
generated by psroff or ptroff (add a command line switch to troff.sh)
Thanks to all who replied!
John
The replies (duplicates and "chaff :-)" removed for brevity):
---------------------
From: haleden@sigi (Hal Eden)
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
We have a couple of ways to do that. We have added a -l flag to psroff
such that the sorts of PS codes you talk about are placed in the prolog so
that landscape printing is achieved. You can then increase your .ll and
decrease your .pl and use the .2c macro in -me to get what you want.
[ This seems what I need - Thanks ]
Our other way is a program called ps2up which takes a postscript file
(which must 1. conform to 1.0 commenting conventions[psroff output does]
and 2. not "hardwire" (i.e. use the PS bind on) showpage command [psroff
is ok here, too]), rotates the result to landscape mode, shrinks it by
5.5/8.5 ratio (64.7%), and puts two pages on one page. The result is two
5.5 x 7.12 images on the page (because I scale both directions by the same
factor). This allows us to take documents prepared to be printed
"normally" and without changing the source document, put it 2 up on a page.
The print can get pretty small, but...
The only problem is that these are built on source from Adobe, so I can't
just send them to you. If you don't have source license, ps2up might be
difficult to get to you anyway unless you run 4.3 BSD on a vax or 3.3 on a
sun, cause we would have to send you executables.
The landscape mode patch is pretty trivial, so I could probably send you
diff's to some scripts and .pro files to get you set up.
--------------------------
From: Tom Pereira <uwmacc!seismo!decvax!tektronix!teklds.TEK.COM!tomp>
Quick and dirty, should work for you, if not let me know.
.ll 11i \" set line length to 11 inches
.lt 11i \" set title length to 11 inches
.pl 8.5i \" set page length to 8.5 inches
.nr LL 11i \" just in case, set macro LL to 11 inches
.nr PO 0.25i \" left margin is set to .25 inches
.BP \" page break, probably not needed
.DS \" weirdness for tbl to work right
.TS \" table start
expand, tab(%), box; \" expand across the page, tabs are %, draw box
c|c \" center each title below in its column
lw(5.5i)|lw(5.5i). \" set column widths, line down the center
Title 1%Title 2 \" titles for each column
= \" double horiz line across table
text all about everything%text all about everything
text all about everything%more text I suppose
.TE \" table end
.DE \" end weirdness that gets tbl to work right
Format with
tbl filename | nroff -ms >FILENAME
Unless you are trying to rotate everything and print
lengthwise this should work for you.
[ but I *am* trying to rotate everything.... oh well! Thanks! ]
Tom
------------------------
From: David Fiedler <hplabs!infopro!david>
How about using the -mm package...
.ll 11.0i
.pl 8.5i
.2C
<rest of text>
Now feed it into the adobe package so it comes out landscape. This
works fine with devps.
[ Yup, this turns out to be the easiest - but I was hoping to have *troff
do the last part too ("Now feed it into the adobe package so it comes
out landscape.") ]
--
John Plocher UUCP: <backbone>!uwvax!uwmacc!hobbes!plocher
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