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From: npn@cbnewsl.att.com (nils-peter.nelson)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: troff on non-laser printers
Summary: Why we won't solve this problem
Message-ID: <1990Nov12.205327.3513@cbnewsl.att.com>
Date: 12 Nov 90 20:53:27 GMT
References: <294@pepper.rc.nokia.fi>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 40

In article <294@pepper.rc.nokia.fi>, stickler@rc.nokia.fi (Patrick Stickler RC 910) writes:
> Does anyone know if troff (and not merely nroff) can be used with
> any inexpensive dot-matrix or ink jet printers? The particular
> printers that I have in mind are the HP Deskjet or Cannon BJ-10e.
> What sort of graphics emulation is necessary to get 'reasonable'
> output? Epson FX, IBM Proprinter (X-24E)...? Can the HP Deskjet
> emulate an HP Laserjet?
> 


We (troff supporters) used to put a lot of effort into this,
but the testing just got out of hand.  If you can imagine, say,
making a change to tbl, then testing on nroff and troff for
PostScript, Epson, ProPrinter, LaserJet, DeskJet, APS, etc.
on each of SunOS, BSD, System 5.2, System 5.3, System 5.4, UTS,
(get the picture?)
We have pretty well dropped support for everything except
PostScript, although we do offer a rudimentary PCL (LaserJet),
Impress (Imagen) and Xerox (X9700) package. Yes, DeskJet is
annoyingly different from LaserJet, and for no good reason.

If you are doing this to "save money" you may well be spending
more money on hard disks on your host to store bitmaps than
you are saving on the printer (PostScript doesn't need bitmap
files).
Certainly, anyone with a DWB source license is welcome to take
any of the postprocessors we provide (e.g., dpcl) and modify
it to act as a translator from troff output to whatever your
printer thinks it needs.
As a business case, any one who objects to spending $2,000 to
buy a good printer is unlikely to pay much for the software
to support a dot matrix device. Perhaps the Free Software
Folks will oblige, but my message is: don't count on the
marketplace to solve this one.

We are even recommending all the internal AT&T LaserJet owners
upgrade to PostScript via the new Adobe cartridge.
My personal opinion is that to get "'reasonable' output" on
most of the devices mentioned you would have to ingest large
quantities of perception-altering substances.