kc@rna.UUCP (Kaare Christian) (03/18/86)
Here is my latest pic discovery. Although this is not a bug report per se, the following advice may prove very helpful if you want your pic-tures to come out right. My version of the pic distribution is setup for the Linotron 202. One subtle consequence of this is the following. (Note none of this is #ifdef'd for the lino202.) In an apparent attempt to make pic usable with the old troff, pic draws short lines using the new line drawing commands, and draws longer lines using repeated base line rule characters. In the file pltroff.c there is a printf statement that elicits a troff vertical motion before outputing a string of base line rules. Presumably this vertical motion makes the base line rule get drawn in just the right place. You might want to adjust this vertical motion to match the actual placement of the base line rule for your font/printer. The suplied value is .25m, but for my QMS laser printer the value zero works better. Alternatively you can suppress output of horizontal lines using the baseline rule character, and go with horizontal lines drawn with the line drawing primitives as built into the newer (di) troff. You can do this by setting the variable 'useDline' to a one near the top of the pltroff.c file. Either way, if you get boxes and lines that don't quite match up, look to the pltroff.c file for the answer. Tho this isn't a bug, these printer dependencies could be handled more gracefully. Kaare Christian cmcl2!rna!kc
jrw@hropus.UUCP (Jim Webb) (03/20/86)
> Here is my latest pic discovery. Although this is not a bug > report per se, the following advice may prove very helpful if you > want your pic-tures to come out right. > > In an apparent attempt to make pic > usable with the old troff, pic draws short lines using the new > line drawing commands, and draws longer lines using repeated base line > rule characters. > > If you get boxes and lines that don't quite match up, > look to the pltroff.c file for the answer. Tho this isn't a bug, > these printer dependencies could be handled more gracefully. > Or, you could use the -D option on pic, which says to use all \D requests instead of multiple rules... -- Jim Webb ihnp4!houxm!hropus!jrw
phil@rice.EDU (William LeFebvre) (03/30/86)
In article <364@hropus.UUCP>, jrw@hropus.UUCP (Jim Webb) writes: > > If you get boxes and lines that don't quite match up, > > look to the pltroff.c file for the answer. Tho this isn't a bug, > > these printer dependencies could be handled more gracefully. > > Or, you could use the -D option on pic, which says to use all \D requests > instead of multiple rules... > -- I just made it the default for everyone here. The hack method of using \l and \L was put in to make printing pic-ed things on the CAT/4 (or /8) phototypesetter faster. You see, they did graphics on the CAT by printing a WHOLE BUNCH of periods. You can imagine how slow that was. So, using \l and \L (the horizontal and vertical line drawing troff commands) was MUCH faster, although not as accurate. Such a trick isn't needed on today's laser printers, since there is (typically) so much graphics support built in. So, essentially, the "quick" method, as it was called, is obsolete and everyone should use -D, so why not make it the default? -- William LeFebvre Department of Computer Science Rice University <phil@Rice.edu>
honey@down.FUN (Peter Honeyman) (04/02/86)
pic -D is the default in eighth edition. in fact, v8 pic doesn't have a -D option (man page notwithstanding). peter
holmes@dalcs.UUCP (Ray Holmes) (04/05/86)
I've been trying to locate a source for PIC for some time. Maybe someone here can help me. Thanks in advance. Ray