[comp.editors] troff and non-laser printers

stickler@rc.nokia.fi (Patrick Stickler RC 910) (11/12/90)

Does anyone know if troff (and not merely nroff) can be used with
any inexpensive dot-matrix or ink jet printers? The particular
printers that I have in mind are the HP Deskjet or Cannon BJ-10e.
What sort of graphics emulation is necessary to get 'reasonable'
output? Epson FX, IBM Proprinter (X-24E)...? Can the HP Deskjet
emulate an HP Laserjet?

Please no suggestions to use some other typesetting software (e.g. 
TeX). I have to use troff and need some inexpensive way to get
'local' draft copies of documents. I need 'true' troff output - the
differences between nroff and troff are too great.

If anyone has had experience with using troff on a non-laser printer,
I would *very* much appreciate any advice you could offer.

Thanks,

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
 Patrick Stickler  Nokia Research Center    stickler@rc.nokia.fi
  (BIX:stickler)   University of Helsinki   stickler@hylka.helsinki.fi
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

wnp@iiasa.AT (wolf paul) (11/13/90)

In article <291@pepper.rc.nokia.fi> stickler@rc.nokia.fi (Patrick Stickler RC 910) writes:
>Does anyone know if troff (and not merely nroff) can be used with
>any inexpensive dot-matrix or ink jet printers? The particular
>printers that I have in mind are the HP Deskjet or Cannon BJ-10e.
>What sort of graphics emulation is necessary to get 'reasonable'
>output? Epson FX, IBM Proprinter (X-24E)...? Can the HP Deskjet
>emulate an HP Laserjet?

there is a product called "Tplus" written and sold by Textware in
(I believe) Harvard Square, MA. It used to handle both old (CAT) troff
and DI-troff (DWB) to various dot matrix printers, as well as to
LaserJets and phototypesetters. I don't know what versions are 
currently available. The author is Brent Byer, uunet!textware!brent.

Then there is Rick Richardson's JetRoff (uunet!pcrat!jetroff), which
has some support for the HP DeskJet.

Hope this helps ...

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