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From: nwinton@zaphod.axion.bt.co.uk (Neil Winton)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: TeX to ASCII (it's a little more complicated than that).
Message-ID: <761@zaphod.axion.bt.co.uk>
Date: 16 Dec 88 09:42:49 GMT
References: <389@blake.acs.washington.edu>
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From article <389@blake.acs.washington.edu>, by mcglk@blake.acs.washington.edu (Ken McGlothlen):
> In article <372@blake...>, I wrote about getting a TeX to ASCII convertor.
> I received a number of responses regarding dvidoc-like devices, which is
> useful to know.  However. . . .
> 
> I'd *like* to have a single source file written in straight, Plain TeX, that
> produces a standard, run-of-the-mill .DVI file.  *However*, I would like to
> be able to specify an \input line that set TeX up for typesetting in ragged-
> right, fixed-pitch font, with a user-specified "characters per inch," and the
> possibility of turning, say, \bullet, into something like "*" (and so on).
> This would be ideal for producing, say, documentation for a program in both
> a nice-looking typeset format on paper, and an on-line document that looks
> somewhat similar.  Optional right-justification would be nice, as long as it
> followed the rules that TeX tries to follow regarding stretchability (white
> space after periods stretches at three times the rate of interword space, and
> so forth).
> 

Alright!  I've got something that comes close to this.  I re-wrote DVIDOC
in C (Why?  ENOPASCAL) and I made a stab at hacking lplain (LaTeX plain
format) into something vaguely useful which produces justified ASCII text
when the DVI file is processed via DVIDOC by making all font references
use the fixed-width `DOC' font.  It does some simple-minded
beautification, redefining \TeX as `TeX', replacing list bullet
characters etc.  The main deficiency is the occasional spurious lineskip
in mid-paragraph.  This could be solved, I suspect, by defining something
like \mainbaselineskip properly --- but I never pursued it.  There are
several associated \documentstyle options (doc.sty, doc_a4.sty and
others) which enable the fixed-width stuff in such a way that if the
document is LaTeX'd it is properly typeset but if it is `docTeX'd the
fixed-width characters are used.

If this sounds more promising then let me know and I'll get it to you
in the New Year.  If I get enough interest it'll probably go to
comp.sources.unix and the UK TeX archive (at spock.aston.ac.uk).

> Thanks.
> 
> 				--Ken McGlothlen
> 				  mcglk@blake.acs.washington.edu

	Season's Greetings,

		Neil

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