kurt@ibmarc.uucp (Kurt Shoens) (06/07/89)
I plucked the thack program from comp.sources.misc. Thack converts old style troff C\A\T output into PostScript. The program compiles cleanly on IBM's AIX system and runs pretty well. The one problem that I'm having with thack is that header lines disappear. For example, when formatting the manual section thack.1 included in the thack package, I supply the troff flag -rM1 to suppress the cut marks that the manual macros like to put at the top of each page. When I specify -rM1, the top line of each page is not printed (this is the line that indicates the command name and page number). If I do *not* use -rM1, the cutmarks are produced and no lines are lost. However, without -rM1, the text does not fit on a single 8.5 by 11 inch page, so the text position creeps down on successive pages. I experienced the same behavior with the macros supplied with the netnews 2.11 documentation (which prints no cut marks by default, hooray!). Both the manual sections and netnews documents format correctly using ordinary nroff. The printer that I'm generating output for is an IBM 4216 (300 dpi PostScript). Another minor problem: the PostScript output does not begin with the PostScript comment symbols %!. As a result, my printer software thinks ordinary text is being printed. Kurt Shoens, IBM Almaden Research Center, ...!uunet!ibmarc!kurt
davidsen@sungod.crd.ge.com (William Davidsen) (06/09/89)
I changed thack to produce a %! header on the first line, but it doesn't do page reversal. Since I'm not a super Postscript hacker I will probably spend a few hours finding this one. bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM) {uunet | philabs}!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me