Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!swrinde!mips!apple!uokmax!occrsh!fang!att!cbnewsl!npn From: npn@cbnewsl.att.com (nils-peter.nelson) Newsgroups: comp.text Subject: Re: Q: nroff character sizes Summary: Death of nroff? Keywords: nroff term Message-ID: <1991Jun12.153139.9109@cbnewsl.att.com> Date: 12 Jun 91 15:31:39 GMT References: <1889@vidiot.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 22 Poster wants to know if/why not nroff can be enhanced for variable width dot matrix printers. We supply the world with nroff; that is, all nroffs I know of come from the original Bell Labs version (except anything FSF supplies with groff). We haven't changed nroff in recent memory; the code has changed little since the 1970's. The current DWB 3.1 and 3.2 packages have a troff postprocessor called dnroff that permit you to use troff as a fixed-width printer formatter. Variable-width nroff is not contemplated. At some point we will drop nroff completely; instead, you would use the pipeline ... troff -Tnroff | dnroff | lp ... It is simply not worth maintaining and testing a program (nroff) that only works with 1970 technology devices. troff does both jobs. I will add there is a misperception that nroff is faster than troff-- it is not.