Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!iuvax!cica!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!pt.cs.cmu.edu!sei!dmb From: dmb@sei.cmu.edu (Daniel Berry) Newsgroups: comp.text Subject: Re: What features would you like in GNU troff? Message-ID: <3817@fy.sei.cmu.edu> Date: 14 Aug 89 13:16:06 GMT References: <779@pcrat.UUCP> <355@wjh12.harvard.edu> <8388@killer.DALLAS.TX.US> <159@unmvax.unm.edu> <1989Aug3.193322.24941@algor2.uu.net> <9737@alice.UUCP> Reply-To: dmb@sei.cmu.edu (Daniel Berry) Distribution: comp Organization: Software Engineering Institute, Pittsburgh, PA Lines: 41 In article <9737@alice.UUCP> debra@alice.UUCP () writes: >In article <1989Aug3.193322.24941@algor2.uu.net> jeffrey@algor2.UUCP (Jeffrey Kegler) writes: >>In reflecting further on this, I feel that ability to produce dvi >>files would be very valuable in GNU troff. There are many drivers >>available for these files, and such a facility would render GNU troff >>usable under a much wider variety of circumstances. > >Also, most output drivers for Tex dvi format come for free whereas >troff output drivers are mostly commercial. So the Tex dvi format would >fit the GNU purpose much better. > >Paul. >-- However, the original ditroff device independent format is FAR more flexible. Besides the information stating which character goes where, there are some additional semantic markers that are NOT present in dvi: 1. end of output line marker 2. end of input word marker These two are extremely valuable for a number of ditroff postprocessors. The first allows ditroff to be made tri-directional (L-R, R-L, and T-B) for the purpose of multi-lingual formatting (Latin, Semitic, and Chinese) with NO change to ditroff (In order to do same with TeX -- a la JTeX and TeX/XeT, you have to change TeX). The second allows an indexing program to find occurrences of original words in an already formatted document. (See Abe-Berry article in SP&E January 1989) There are many other uses that this information can be put to if you think about it.. Therefore, I strongly suggest keeping the original functionality. Yes, the ditroff drivers are mostly commercial, but they are not that expensive (in the $400 range) and there are some public domain ones available. This situation is NOT unlike that for DVI drivers.. Dan -- Prof. Daniel M. Berry, Computer Science Department, Technion, Haifa 32000 ISRAEL Tel:+972-4-294325, Bitnet:DBERRY@TECHSEL Csnet & Internet:dberry@sel.technion.ac.il DASnet:[DDB1DM]dberry, MCIMail:277-9346