Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!MANTA.CS.WASHINGTON.EDU!mackay
From: mackay@MANTA.CS.WASHINGTON.EDU (Pierre MacKay)
Newsgroups: comp.laser-printers
Subject: ditroff metrics
Message-ID: <8910131629.AA17002@crayola.cs.UMD.EDU>
Date: 13 Oct 89 00:16:08 GMT
References: <8910100244.AA08879@crayola.cs.UMD.EDU>
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Approved: laser-lovers@brillig.umd.edu

If you are using Transcript, I am a bit puzzled to learn why you use ditroff
instead of ptroff.  

Ptroff goes right back to the old C/A/T 432 units/inch resolution, and lets
the Postscript RIP do the scaling.  Simple and effective.  Not the solution
I would use for TeX, but it works fine for all my Troff (manual page) needs.

I have one quarrel with ptroff.  The prologue that it adds to ps output 
uses the value 432 (exactly the old C/A/T resolution) to set dimensions
and you can see the results in -man format where the bottom line goes off
the paper.  The problem is evidently rounding in the RIP.  Change the
432 to 440, (it's a divisor) and the output shrinks to just about the
correct size.  This is true for both the older and the newer LaserWriters.
You may have to experiment with other PostScript processors.


Email:  mackay@cs.washington.edu		Pierre A. MacKay
Smail:  Northwest Computing Support Center	TUG Site Coordinator for
	Thompson Hall, Mail Stop DR05		Unix-flavored TeX
	University of Washington
	Seattle, WA 98195
	(206) 543-6259