Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!turnkey!itcorp!geoff From: geoff@ITcorp.com (Geoff Kuenning) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: troff (Typesetter busy) Keywords: troff Message-ID: <1990Nov5.023629.10043@ITcorp.com> Date: 5 Nov 90 02:36:29 GMT References: Organization: Interrupt Technology Corporation, Manhattan Beach, CA Lines: 22 In article john@csrnxt1.ae.utexas.edu (John R. Schutz) writes: > whenever I try to use troff, it always reports 'typesetter busy'. There > is no one else on the system. Any ideas? By default, troff tries to use the C/A/T typesetter which was once attached to some Unix machine at Bell Labs. If you use "troff -t", the C/A/T typecodes are written to standard output, which is somewhat more useful but still not very handy. However, if you use "troff -t ... | pscat" or "troff -t ... | pscat -x72" (you'll have to experiment to see which works), you'll get Postscript written to stdout. Pipe that into lpr, and you'll get nice results. There are also some scripts which do this, named "ptroff" and "psroff". One works on the Next, the other doesn't. Both take switches just like troff and put the output to the printer (well, they would if they both worked). The method taken from the paragraph above is from one of my makefiles and is thus guaranteed to work. (Terms of guarantee: if I'm wrong, I'll send you a piece of stale Halloween candy :-) -- Geoff Kuenning geoff@ITcorp.com uunet!desint!geoff