groff in tahrpup 6.0.5

Please post any bugs you have found
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superchook
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groff in tahrpup 6.0.5

#1 Post by superchook »

The package descriptions in the PPM are for groff "GNU troff text-formatting system" and for groff-base "GNU troff text-formatting system base system components"
These descriptions are ambiguous. One could think that groff-base is a cut down version of groff but this appears not to be the case.
Installing groff-base adds some extra files to /usr/bin including /usr/bin/groff itself.

Ken

musher0
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#2 Post by musher0 »

Hi superchook

Euh... Sorry for being such an ignorant, but what does groff do exactly?

BFN
musher0
~~~~~~~~~~
"You want it darker? We kill the flame." (L. Cohen)

superchook
Posts: 117
Joined: Mon 13 Mar 2006, 07:39
Location: Sydney, Australia

groff in tahrpup 6.0.5

#3 Post by superchook »

groff is the GNU version of nroff a traditional UNIX text processor. It is much smaller than TeX and LaTeX.
For a discussion of text processing vs word processing see

http://www.science.unitn.it/~fiorella/g ... ode14.html

I thought that if it were not too hard to learn it could replace Abiword in a small puppy with Libre Office available as an sfs where a wysiwyg word processor is required.
cheers
Ken

musher0
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Joined: Mon 05 Jan 2009, 00:54
Location: Gatineau (Qc), Canada

#4 Post by musher0 »

Thanks for the information, superchook.

I just noticed that, like in your TahrPup, the groff executable is missing
in the Puduan-6.0 Puppy I am using. Although the groff library is there
under /usr/lib/groff/groffer. And I do have the devx loaded. Strange...

Please see attached the PPM listing for groff in the Puduan Pup.
(BTW, I just installed the base groff executable.)

You'd like the groff executable included in Puppy by default, is that it?

Additionally, I looked at the groff man page and can't make heads or tails
of the various settings, preprocessors, styles. Could you kindly indicate
where I can find:

-- an example of a groff prepared text "ready-to-print"? (Or alternatively
supply one?!) :)

-- I would imagine that this groff code would be like the text-embedded
Epson printing codes of 25 years ago? Is there a listing of the usable
groff codes somewhere?

Thanks in advance.
Attachments
groff_listing_Puduan-PPM_2016-11-02.jpg
groff listing in the Puduan 6.0 Puppy
(24.26 KiB) Downloaded 179 times
musher0
~~~~~~~~~~
"You want it darker? We kill the flame." (L. Cohen)

superchook
Posts: 117
Joined: Mon 13 Mar 2006, 07:39
Location: Sydney, Australia

groff in tahrpup 6.0.5

#5 Post by superchook »

I must admit I have never actually used groff myself (although it is of course used in the production of the "man" pages.

The following URL leads to dome documentation from the author of the "mom" macros.

http://www.schaffter.ca/mom/

Included at that site are examples of what can be created.

musher0
Posts: 14629
Joined: Mon 05 Jan 2009, 00:54
Location: Gatineau (Qc), Canada

#6 Post by musher0 »

Great! Many thanks!
musher0
~~~~~~~~~~
"You want it darker? We kill the flame." (L. Cohen)

TyroBGinner
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#7 Post by TyroBGinner »

Why would anyone want groff when the awesomeness of TeX is available? Troff and its variants are dated at any rate; they were supplanted with the introduction of TeX long ago. The TeXLive distro is now so well developed that it is easy to use TeX outside of another OS or to install it into a major *nix, Windows, or Apple platform. I would think that anyone interested in electronic typesetting on a PC is going to be familiar with TeX and nothing else.

The issues of size and compatibility come to mind.

I must admit that there could be some appeal in the small size of troff as superchook pointed out, however. In contrast, could the core components of TeX be incorporated into a reasonably sized sfs? I don't know.

And how similar are the languages? Can TeX syntax and commands be readily adapted to troff?

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