rns@mullauna.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Robert Noel STURROCK) (05/09/91)
Please pardon my ignorance, but i dont know a thing about laserprinters or postscript. However, i have access to an apple laserwriter connected to a macintosh se. A fairly large project which i am involved in requires some documentation. I want to use *roff (with MM macros) to do this documenting. I have had a fair bit of experience with nroff, since i run it on my 286 at home, however, ive never tried to use troff to output stuff to a laserprinter. My question is this: Is there a way i can get my document from my pc at home (in troff format) to the mac for laserprinting? ie. how do i get troff to generate a file suitable for the laserprinter, and given that, how do i send that file to the laserprinter? please note that i dont have any drivers for laser printers or for generating postscript code, and my version of troff is pretty old ... 1897 i think! thanx in advance.. rob (rns@mullauna.cs.mu.oz.au) ======= Robert Sturrock University Of Melbourne, Australia rns@mullauna.cs.mu.oz.au
bill@twg.bc.ca (Bill Irwin) (05/10/91)
rns@mullauna.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Robert Noel STURROCK) writes:
: please note that i dont have any drivers for laser printers or
: for generating postscript code, and my version of troff is pretty
: old ... 1897 i think!
Boy, what a vintage program! I didn't think that troff was
around in 1897. What computer did you run it on back then?
--
Bill Irwin - The Westrheim Group - Vancouver, BC, Canada
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
uunet!van-bc!twg!bill (604) 431-9600 (voice) | Your Computer
bill@twg.bc.ca (604) 430-4329 (fax) | Systems Partnerclewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca (Chris Lewis) (05/10/91)
In article <rns.673790627@mullauna> rns@mullauna.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Robert Noel STURROCK) writes: > Is there a way i can get my document from my pc at home (in troff > format) to the mac for laserprinting? ie. how do i get troff to > generate a file suitable for the laserprinter, and given that, how > do i send that file to the laserprinter? I haven't a clue about the last question, but lots on how to generate Postscript from troff. > please note that i dont have any drivers for laser printers or > for generating postscript code, and my version of troff is pretty > old ... 1897 i think! 1897?! I wonder what sort of printer it drove - quill pens perhaps ? ;-) 1987 could be just about any version of troff. 1978 probably has to be CAT troff. First, find out what kind of troff you got, type: troff If it returns "typesetter busy" or such like you have "CAT troff". If it spits out something that looks like: x init x ... Cnn Then you have ditroff. If neither, send me mail with what O/S you're running and what it does do and I'll figger it out. If you have CAT Troff, these are your main alternatives: 1) Transcript from Adobe - a commerical package. 2) Psroff - free 3) Thack - free (comp.sources.unix archives) If you have ditroff, these are your main alternatives: 1) Transcript 2) Psroff 3) tpscript - free (comp.sources.unix archives) Other alternatives: 1) toss troff and buy a complete troff typesetting package, eg: Softquad's, Elan's or AT&T's. 2) toss troff and obtain groff. Tho, last I heard this doesn't work with MM, and doesn't come with a grap preprocessor. 3) toss troff and go TeX. I've not personally used thack, but people who have used both psroff and thack use psroff now. Tpscript is a good package, but has a few minor quirks corrected in psroff. I've not used transcript, but by all accounts it is a pretty good package. Psroff 3.0 (which supports ditroff) is in the queue for comp.sources.unix and should be out in the middle of this month - after Rich Salz comes back from his honeymoon. Psroff 3.0 is the swiss-army-chainsaw troff filter (sorry Larry ;-) - it does everything, including trying to emulate ditroff extensions in CAT troff, is compatible with every Postscript system I know of (including several non-Adobe postscript implementations), and can drive HP laserjets in native mode with incremental downloading and convert CAT troff output to ditroff for other families of devices. Plus lots of extra utilities for fooling around with fonts. Psroff 2.0 (which doesn't support ditroff) is archived in various places, but don't retrieve the uunet comp.sources.unix version of psroff because that's psroff 1.0 patch 0 and it stinks. I can say that because I wrote it. -- Chris Lewis, Phone: (613) 832-0541, Domain: clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca UUCP: ...!cunews!latour!ecicrl!clewis; Ferret Mailing List: ferret-request@eci386; Psroff (not Adobe Transcript) enquiries: psroff-request@eci386 or Canada 416-832-0541. Psroff 3.0 in c.s.u soon!