tpn+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU (Tom Neuendorffer) (07/27/90)
> Wouldn't another *roff clone work as well? How's Transcript required?
We have been trying to find a working version of c++ so we can try
groff. I have no reason to believe that it wouldn't work, and would be
very interested in hearing from anyone who has been able to try it.
With regards to Transcript, the piece that ATK uses is the psdit program
that takes the output of ditroff and translates it into postscript. I
believe that all ditroff users who print on Postscript printers are
using this package, whether they know it or not. Lpr is smart enough to
call it when it is needed. If you are printing on non-postscript
printers, then you don't need psdit, however, by the same token, you
won't be able to print the ATK objects that generate postscript rather
than troff. The most common objects that generate postscript are raster
and the drawing editor zip. When these objects are embedded in text, or
another object that generates troff, the postscript they generate is
surrounded by some special macros so that troff leaves space for the
drawing that is then passed through to the printer. ed@mtxinu.COM (Ed Gould) (07/28/90)
>With regards to Transcript, the piece that ATK uses is the psdit program >that takes the output of ditroff and translates it into postscript. I >believe that all ditroff users who print on Postscript printers [use psdit] It is certainly not true that psdit is the only available or usable ditroff-to-PostScript translator. If your lpr system understands printing to a PS printer - by whatever means - then ATK can use lpr to do the job. It works here, and we do not have TranScript. -- Ed Gould mt Xinu, 2560 Ninth St., Berkeley, CA 94710 USA ed@mtxinu.COM +1 415 644 0146 "I'll fight them as a woman, not a lady. I'll fight them as an engineer."
tpn+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU (Tom Neuendorffer) (07/28/90)
O.K. Ed I'll bite. What are the alternatives to psdit for translating ditroff output to postscript? Will they allow postscript to be passed through so that we can use them for ATK work? Are any public domain? Inquiring minds want to know :>. Tom
hansen@madis.af.mil (John Hansen) (07/29/90)
With regard to printing without ditroff and Typescript and the possibility of using groff instead, I have semi-successfully done just that. I used g++ to compile groff (make sure you have cperf or gperf for gpic) and have tested ez with no insets and it works OK. I had to preference the formatcommand to: groff -T$PRINTERTYPE -e /tmp/$s.n | I also had to ln -s a devpsc directory to the devps directory which groff uses. One of the files I tried to print attempted to use a couple of fonts that it couldn't find (I think C and CD) so I cp'd the CR (courier) font file and edited the name entry for C & CD --- I don't know enough about troff to tell what negative effects this may have on output. Also I edited the groff shell script to allow for a -Tpsc argument (is this hardwired into ATK?) Unfortunately, I haven't been able to test ZIP cause it keeps dumping core (patchlevel 5) and TABLE works but the test I ran printed the inset EZ cell properly but all the other cells were printed in very small print. (ie TINY - but barely readable) AND the boxes I drew around the cells had lines sticking up at the tl & tr corners. I don't know it this is groffs fault or Andrews. I haven't yet attempted to test EZ with insets (other than ZIP which dumped) so I can't report on any problems that might exist with using groff on such a file. Nor have I tested printing from any of the other programs. For reference sake, my machine is a Vaxstation 3200 with Ultrix 3.2 (X11.3) Hope someone finds this info interesting and useful. Getting groff to work was not TOO hard but it did require a lot more effort than it should have. Thanks, John Hansen madis!hansen@lognet2.af.mil
mdb@mva.cs.liv.ac.uk (08/01/90)
In article <Mag6r4u00Vt108m2Fa@andrew.cmu.edu>, tpn+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU (Tom Neuendorffer) writes: >> Wouldn't another *roff clone work as well? How's Transcript required? We use ditroff and the jetroff package (which is freely available) to print on HP Laserjets from Andrew with no problems. By default, jetroff uses the Tex fonts, which do not match well with the internal Andrew fonts, but it is not difficult to replace them with HP's own soft fonts, which do give highly satisfactory results. This method does not allow you to print raster or zip images, which is a nuisance, since all the pretty diagrams in help documents etc., must be dumped directly from the screen display. I have not really looked at it, but it might be possible to convert the postscript bit images into Laserjet images (they are after all mostly just bitmaps), and then pass them through jetroff. This would then provide another printing mechanism for those without ready access to postscript printers. Martin Beer, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Liverpool.
mayer@gmdzi.UUCP (Hans Mayer) (08/03/90)
From article <oagOxuu00Vt1I_kF0G@andrew.cmu.edu>, by tpn+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU (Tom Neuendorffer): > O.K. Ed I'll bite. What are the alternatives to psdit for translating > ditroff output to postscript? Will they allow postscript to be passed > through so that we can use them for ATK work? Are any public domain? > Inquiring minds want to know :>. > > Tom > There is a free psroff available. It should be in the archives (I can't remember if comp.sources.unix or alt.sources or elsewhere). From the README: In fact, this package can be used to, in effect, upgrade CAT troff to be ditroff. There are limitations, but you get what you pay for. If you can't find it it may be obtained from the author or me (Europe only - why should I ship sw back to North-America if it came from there?): Chris Lewis, Elegant Communications Inc, {uunet!attcan,utzoo}!lsuc!eci386!clewis - Hans -- Hans J. Mayer, mayer@gmdzi.gmd.de (or mayer@ddagmd11.BITNET) German National Research Center for Computer Science (GMD)