Path: utzoo!utgpu!cunews!micor!latour!ecicrl!clewis From: clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca (Chris Lewis) Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript Subject: Re: troff -> laserwriter. how?? Message-ID: <1480@ecicrl.ocunix.on.ca> Date: 10 May 91 02:29:49 GMT References: Distribution: na Organization: Elegant Communications Inc., Ottawa, Canada Lines: 70 In article rns@mullauna.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Robert Noel STURROCK) writes: > Is there a way i can get my document from my pc at home (in troff > format) to the mac for laserprinting? ie. how do i get troff to > generate a file suitable for the laserprinter, and given that, how > do i send that file to the laserprinter? I haven't a clue about the last question, but lots on how to generate Postscript from troff. > please note that i dont have any drivers for laser printers or > for generating postscript code, and my version of troff is pretty > old ... 1897 i think! 1897?! I wonder what sort of printer it drove - quill pens perhaps ? ;-) 1987 could be just about any version of troff. 1978 probably has to be CAT troff. First, find out what kind of troff you got, type: troff If it returns "typesetter busy" or such like you have "CAT troff". If it spits out something that looks like: x init x ... Cnn Then you have ditroff. If neither, send me mail with what O/S you're running and what it does do and I'll figger it out. If you have CAT Troff, these are your main alternatives: 1) Transcript from Adobe - a commerical package. 2) Psroff - free 3) Thack - free (comp.sources.unix archives) If you have ditroff, these are your main alternatives: 1) Transcript 2) Psroff 3) tpscript - free (comp.sources.unix archives) Other alternatives: 1) toss troff and buy a complete troff typesetting package, eg: Softquad's, Elan's or AT&T's. 2) toss troff and obtain groff. Tho, last I heard this doesn't work with MM, and doesn't come with a grap preprocessor. 3) toss troff and go TeX. I've not personally used thack, but people who have used both psroff and thack use psroff now. Tpscript is a good package, but has a few minor quirks corrected in psroff. I've not used transcript, but by all accounts it is a pretty good package. Psroff 3.0 (which supports ditroff) is in the queue for comp.sources.unix and should be out in the middle of this month - after Rich Salz comes back from his honeymoon. Psroff 3.0 is the swiss-army-chainsaw troff filter (sorry Larry ;-) - it does everything, including trying to emulate ditroff extensions in CAT troff, is compatible with every Postscript system I know of (including several non-Adobe postscript implementations), and can drive HP laserjets in native mode with incremental downloading and convert CAT troff output to ditroff for other families of devices. Plus lots of extra utilities for fooling around with fonts. Psroff 2.0 (which doesn't support ditroff) is archived in various places, but don't retrieve the uunet comp.sources.unix version of psroff because that's psroff 1.0 patch 0 and it stinks. I can say that because I wrote it. -- Chris Lewis, Phone: (613) 832-0541, Domain: clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca UUCP: ...!cunews!latour!ecicrl!clewis; Ferret Mailing List: ferret-request@eci386; Psroff (not Adobe Transcript) enquiries: psroff-request@eci386 or Canada 416-832-0541. Psroff 3.0 in c.s.u soon!