Xref: utzoo comp.text:7710 comp.unix.ultrix:5508 comp.lang.postscript:6919
Path: utzoo!mnetor!tmsoft!eci386!ecicrl!clewis
From: clewis@ecicrl.UUCP (Chris Lewis)
Newsgroups: comp.text,comp.unix.ultrix,comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Psroff 2.0 meets Ultrix 4.0 troff width table format
Message-ID: <988@ecicrl.UUCP>
Date: 4 Dec 90 14:51:27 GMT
Reply-To: clewis@ecicrl.UUCP (Chris Lewis)
Followup-To: comp.text
Organization: Elegant Communications Inc., Ottawa, Canada
Lines: 39
Followup-To:

A couple of the people trying to use psroff have encountered the fact
that DEC changed the width table formats for Ultrix 4 CAT troff 
without seeming to ship any width table files in the new format
or documentation on it whatsoever.  Ultrix 4 CAT Troff can't even
read the width tables it came with....  And, of course, since Ultrix
troff is unsupported software, the support center is unwilling to help.
If it wasn't supported, why the bleep did they change it?!!!!
Twits-of-the-week.  Sigh...

It seems to want some sort of ASCII files rather than the more
common binary.

I seem to remember someone posting at least 6 months ago a patch
to some piece of software to cope with the "new width table format
for troff on the xxx OS" (where I can't remember xxx...) which was
ASCII....  Which given my defective memory, might be what we're looking
for.  As an idiot myself, I neglected to save it.

If anyone can help, either on Ultrix 4 width tables specifically,
or that old posting, please e-mail me (perhaps psroff-request@eci386
would be the better address than below).  You'll make many people
very happy.

[BTW: for Ultrix 4 users, all is not lost.  You can run Psroff 2.0 as-is
by removing the ".fp"'s from "cmn.pre" temporarily.  Then troff/psroff
will use the width tables that have been compiled into troff.  Unfortunately,
the widths are somewhat (but not grossly off), and you can't do any
".fp"'s to use fonts other than R, I, B and S, but it's still useable.
I was unable to get through to one of the people reporting this problem.]

Please don't post to comp.unix.ultrix alone - my machine isn't subscribed
to it.  comp.text is better.

Thank you very much.
-- 
Chris Lewis, Phone: (613) 832-0541
UUCP: uunet!utai!lsuc!ecicrl!clewis
Moderator of the Ferret Mailing List (ferret-request@eci386)
Psroff mailing list (psroff-request@eci386)


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