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From: pdc@otter.hple.hp.com (Damian Cugley)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: Manual page --> LaTeX?
Message-ID: <610006@otter.hple.hp.com>
Date: 8 Sep 88 17:16:38 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Bristol, UK.
Lines: 46


                    Avoiding re-inventing the wheel

I'd like to be able to incorporate the manual pages for some programs in
a LaTeX document.  It occurs to me that one way to do it would be to
have `some program' that translates the `-man' macros into a reasonable
LaTeX analogy (or perhaps texinfo?), and then \include or \input these
files.

Example: `.TH FOO 1Z ...' might become `\section{Manual entry for {\em
foo}(1Z)}', which is easy enough, `.RI' etc. are a doddle, but the `.TP'
etc.  macros will need a little bit of cleverness to convert them into
descriptions with matching braces and the like:

        .TP                             \begin{description}
        .BI "\-q " wfile                \item[{\tt -q }{\em wfile}]
        Use                             Use
        .I wfile                        {\em wfile}
        as a wombat file                as a wombat file
        ...                             ...
        .TP                             \item[{\tt -z}]
        .B \-z                          Enable zebra option
        Enable zebra option             ...
        ...                             \end{description}
        .SH FILES                       \subsection*{FILES}
        ...                             ...

I looked at the various tools available and I think Emacs-LISP (with
outout to another buffer) is probably the easiest language to use for
this sort of thing.  It shouldn't be too problematical, I'm just too
lazy to bother if it's already been done.  ?:-)

Has anyone already done such a thing (in *any* language)?  I haven't found
any obvious commands using command-apropos.  Hints?  Suggestions?
(Would texinfo be more useful than LaTeX or vice versa?)

PEMIS (Please-e-mail-I'll-summarise) :-)

pdc
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