Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!m.cs.uiuc.edu!gillies
From: gillies@m.cs.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: ditroff to ps wanted; what is mm?
Message-ID: <8800039@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 28 Feb 90 17:40:24 GMT
References: <}X%#+4-@rpi.edu>
Lines: 37
Nf-ID: #R:<}X%#+4-@rpi.edu>:-17:m.cs.uiuc.edu:8800039:000:1741
Nf-From: m.cs.uiuc.edu!gillies    Feb 27 22:59:00 1990


> tpscript (which is a ditroff to Postscript converter) was posted to 
> comp.sources.unix quite some time ago is quite good and includes the width
> tables.

If you can afford it, try to get adobe's "Transcript"
troff->postscript converter.  For instance, this is free with the NeXT
machine.  Last fall I compiled the public-domain tpscript, which
seemed to work, except that the intermediate ditroff representation
expands your troff file by at least a factor of 5 (4 chars + NewLine
for every single character displayed on the printer).

The result is, a simple 40k troff file can easily become a 400k
tpscript file.  This file crashed our NeXT previewer.  Adobe converts
troff output on a word-by-word basis (not character-by-character), and
is thus much faster to generate and easier to preview & print (40-80K).

If you have a NeXT machine on your network, the simplest solution
might be to write some kind of networked shell script to pipe your
troff through the NeXT's "transcript" program, and then through
"sendps" (see comp.sys.mac) to print it out.


Here is a caveat: The greek in the Adobe symbol font is *not* in
italic, yet troff *expects* italic greek.  It seems that this is a
artifact of the original CAT phototypesetter -- it had a mixed
italic/nonitalic math font.  No free workaround is known.

In fact, the only known workaround is to buy a special adobe font
(anyone remember the name?), which is a pet gripe of mine, since
transcript is only half-baked unless you have this font.  Adobe should
supply this font with transcript (grumble...).


Don Gillies, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Illinois
1304 W. Springfield, Urbana, Ill 61801      
ARPA: gillies@cs.uiuc.edu   UUCP: {uunet,harvard}!uiucdcs!gillies