Xref: utzoo biz.sco.general:323 comp.unix.xenix.sco:2841 comp.unix.sysv386:9211 comp.text:8572 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!news.cs.indiana.edu!maytag!xenitec!news From: ronald@robobar.co.uk (Ronald S H Khoo) Newsgroups: biz.sco.general,comp.unix.xenix.sco,comp.unix.sysv386,comp.text Subject: Re: Nroff and SCO Unix Message-ID: <9106211556.AA12467@robobar.Co.Uk> Date: 21 Jun 91 14:56:50 GMT References: <9106192118.AA27899@robobar.Co.Uk> <2195@ecicrl.ocunix.on.ca> Sender: news@xenitec.on.ca (xenitec.on.ca News Administrator) Organization: Robobar Ltd., Perivale, Middx., ENGLAND. Lines: 87 Resent-From: mmdf@xenitec.on.ca Submit-To: sco-list@uunet.uu.net Cc: clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca Precedence: bulk Chris Lewis wrote: > Hi Ronald! Hi Chris! Ain't these mailing-list->news gateways annoying ? All the news-specific headers seem to get munged. But see the discussion in news.software.{b,nntp} about that ... :-) > [There seems to be a thread of confusion here w.r.t. troff vs. nroff] You're right. But why anyone would want to use nroff to drive his HPLJIII I can't understand. Now, if we could only get decent graphics cost down, we could chuck nroff altogether and tell man(1) to use Xditview instead of col | more...... > I imagine you also have neqn $ grep neqn /etc/perms/* EQN x711 bin/bin 1 ./usr/bin/neqn T01 HELP f644 bin/bin 1 ./usr/lib/help/neqn T01 Yup. > C/A/T Troff is also part of the Xenix Text Processing Package. $ troff Typesetter busy. Yup. > and even groff if you need good HP Laserjet output H'm. Maybe I ought to quit waiting on c.s.u and get FTPing then :-) No nice LaserJet II fonts though :-( Times ain't too hot on lasers. I tend to use the PostScript builtin Palatino -- it's thicker than Times, therefore comes out a lot nicer, especially if you're about to photocopy. The HP fonts that I do have don't include anything similar. Sigh. > As far as I'm aware, SCO's troff is no worse than any other C/A/T troff. Well, there's the bug with conditionals that upsets -me. The nice thing about groff is that James Clark tends to fix macro packages and so you get a modified -me and -mdoc with groff -- damned useful if you want to print Berzerkeley manuals. SCO's troff doesn't like -mdoc at all. I spent several days hacking at the macros to get useable output, and ended up hacking the output postscript as well. Now I use groff for that stuff and take the performance hit. So, yes, SCO's troff is older and buggier than the BSD one, so don't expect it to cope with everything. > There was a rumor (back in psroff 1.0 days) that there was something > odd about Xenix Troff's offset and pagelength, but I was unable to > confirm precisely what the problem was. Can't tell you. Seeing that I use A4 anyway, I always have problems with that kind of thing in any case. Especially when I'm actually doing 2-up to use up those SCO manual binders which really prefer different page offsets on odd and even pages ... :-) > I think you already have all the bits. *Except* pic and grap. If you > need to run pic (line drawing) or grap, I suggest you get groff as > Ronald has suggested. No grap with groff. But the pic is good. > psroff will do what you want, faster than groff. Very much faster, especially if, like me, you don't have a floating point unit. > Does groff support mm now? Yes. James Clark distributes a patch and an edit script with groff. SCO's -mm is old and slightly buggy, though. I guess it's not advisable to start new projects in -mm. It's dead slow anyhow. Between James Clark and Chris Lewis, I think troff's life has been extended beyond expectation. I have been afraid of TeX taking over, but I think troff will continue, thanks to the efforts of these two kind gentlemen, not forgetting the cast of thousands behind the scenes, of whom I think Ron Florence deserves a special mention for his contribution to psroff's Laserjet support. -- Ronald Khoo +44 81 991 1142 (O) +44 71 229 7741 (H)