Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!uunet!pcrat!rick
From: rick@pcrat.uucp (Rick Richardson)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.i386
Subject: Re: (N)TROFF for ESIX - I need it!
Message-ID: <1990Feb17.044749.11483@pcrat.uucp>
Date: 17 Feb 90 04:47:49 GMT
References: <550@tmiuv0.uucp> <1990Feb9.211607.2337@nebulus.UUCP>
Reply-To: rick@pcrat.UUCP (Rick Richardson)
Organization: PC Research, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ
Lines: 34

In article <1990Feb9.211607.2337@nebulus.UUCP> root@nebulus.UUCP (Dennis S. Breckenridge) writes:
>386 Unix without a problem. There is a much more professional package
>called Softquad thats available for I believe Xenix/Unix

Last I checked, SoftQuad had modified (not just added to) the
intermediate langauge between troff and the postprocessors.
Unless you want to be locked into using only their postprocessors,
stay away.  Someday you may want to drive a different device, or
use a filter on the intermediate language (such as an indexer or
a page reorderer) and you'll be stuck with only what you can get for SQ.

If you think the dit language shouldn't be standard, consider this:
we combine "troff -mm" and "troff -man" dit output, do page reordering
on it (including moving the cover and TOC to the front), and ram that
through the device postprocessor such that the output can be printed
on legal paper, sliced in half, and the two stacks piled on each other
to create a single manual.  There's no easy way you could do that without
playing with the device independant language stream.

We could run that filter with AT&T, ISC, Elan, Image Network, Urban
Applied Science, Bell Tech, uPort, and Textware troff's.  But as far
as I know, SoftQuad is out in left field.  Needless to say, our
FAX device postprocessor won't grok SoftQuad, either.

On the other hand, SQ *does* have a nicely augmented troff input
language.  If they only knew when to stop...

-Rick

-- 
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