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From: andrea@hp-sdd.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.hp
Subject: troff (was Re: MAC with HP Laserjet ???)
Message-ID: <611@hp-sdd.HP.COM>
Date: Sat, 22-Nov-86 23:30:13 EST
Article-I.D.: hp-sdd.611
Posted: Sat Nov 22 23:30:13 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 24-Nov-86 00:43:52 EST
References: <3166b415.2a75@apollo.uucp> <242@elan.UUCP> <398@cartan.Berkeley.EDU>
Reply-To: andrea@hp-sdd.UUCP (Andrea K. Frankel)
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, San Diego Division
Lines: 28
Xref: watmath comp.sys.mac:174 comp.sys.hp:16

>Why be so low tech and use troff?  Troff is so non-state-of-the-art.
>TeX is a much better choice for technical document preparation; it has
>a lot more going for it.  As far as I'm concerned, the only reason to
>use troff is because you can't get TeX for your machine (less and less
>likely these days).

Well, a bunch of very large documents (Computer Graphics Standards in
various stages of preparation) are all done on troff because it is one
of the most widely-available tools that does a good enough job for just
about everything we need.  I agree, it's not state-of-the-art, but when
you're looking for something that is already available on a wide
variety of computers, and is even reasonably standardized in its
different incarnations, troff isn't bad.  TeX produces wonderful
looking output, but when you go looking for people who already have it,
it just isn't as widespread.  The agony of porting a 500-page document
from troff to TeX just isn't worth it, especially when there's such
a wealth of troff macros lying around to leverage off of!  So when
you're not just dashing off an occasional letter or resume, factors
other than "highest tech" prevail.

Andrea Frankel, Hewlett-Packard (San Diego Division) (619) 592-4664
 "...like a song that's born to soar the sky..."
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