chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) (12/24/86)
It is perhaps too late for old troff, but I wish to offer an observation: Cut marks, if any, should be generated not by the input macros, nor by the formatter, but by the post processor. (The formatter must, of course, tell the post processor where each page break occurs.) -- In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7690) UUCP: seismo!mimsy!chris ARPA/CSNet: chris@mimsy.umd.edu
robs@tektools.UUCP (Robert Sleator) (01/06/87)
In article <4880@mimsy.UUCP>, chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) writes: > > Cut marks, if any, should be generated not by the input macros, > nor by the formatter, but by the post processor. Which would probably make it a royal pain for the user to modify cutmarks for smaller pages (e.g., five by nine inch pages). It is relatively easy for me to edit the macros. I don't want to have to deal with psdit or daps or whatever. Robert Sleator tektronix!tektools!robs
chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) (01/07/87)
>In article <4880@mimsy.UUCP> I wrote: >>Cut marks, if any, should be generated not by the input macros, >>nor by the formatter, but by the post processor. >In article <2062@tektools.UUCP> robs@tektools.UUCP (Robert Sleator) writes: >Which would probably make it a royal pain for the user to modify cutmarks >for smaller pages (e.g., five by nine inch pages). Not so. Either you are printing on continuous roll paper or not. If you are printing onto sheet paper, you want cut marks if and only if you will use less than a full page; in this case, you can add cut marks by writing or modifying macros. If you are using continuous forms, you will always want cut marks; the only variable is their placement. If the pages are larger than usual, and the output language is properly designed, the postprocessor's cut marks will mark the larger-than-normal pages; if not, the postprocessor's cut marks will mark a normal size page, and you can then ignore (or disable) these marks and use the same macros as in the sheet paper case to generate the same cut marks. Either way, it is wrong for the formatter to generate cut marks by default, and it is wrong for a continuous roll output device not to have cut marks by default. But only the post processor (and the user) knows whether the ultimate output is continuous or sheet fed. Yes, the formatter must be able to generate cut marks or alignment marks, but it should not do so by default. -- In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7690) UUCP: seismo!mimsy!chris ARPA/CSNet: chris@mimsy.umd.edu
tbm@homxc.UUCP (01/10/87)
missed most of the discussion, but we use - .de )k .. And they dissappear quite nicely on standard sized output. Tom Merrick ATT BTL Andover, MA
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (01/15/87)
> > Cut marks, if any, should be generated not by the input macros, > > nor by the formatter, but by the post processor. > > Which would probably make it a royal pain for the user to modify cutmarks > for smaller pages (e.g., five by nine inch pages)... No, you misunderstand the relationship between ditroff and postprocessor. Ditroff *tells* the postprocessor where the page boundaries are -- the postprocessor doesn't have to guess. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry