Comparing TeX and Roff

[Michael DeCorte]

[this really doesn't belong in wizard.  I have directed followups to
comp.text]

In article <1269 at etive.ed.ac.uk> sam at lfcs.ed.ac.uk (S. Manoharan) writes:
>The disadvantage I found with TeX was there is
>no way to get a readable output of the TeX file on an 
>ordinary line-printer.

You can get TeX to do line-printers with care.  dvidoc (PLUG: get it
from the TeX depository here at Clarkson) does it.  It really only
works in LaTeX but can be made to work with TeX.  Bascially it
replaces all of the variable width fonts with mono spaced fonts and
redefies some macros.

Realise this is a hack: you can't do math; use pictex; use latex
picture fonts.  This isn't unreasonable as lineprinters don't do these
sort of things.

If you want my honest opinion, if you really want to use line-printers
use your favorite *roff but if you primarilly use laser printers and
every now and then need to generate line-printer output (say for
distribution of docs on the net) then use LaTeX.  It really does do
the best job when it comes to typesetting text and math on a bit-image
printer.


--

Michael DeCorte // (315)265-2439 // P.O. Box 652, Potsdam, NY 13676
Internet: mrd at sun.soe.clarkson.edu  // Bitnet:   mrd at clutx.bitnet        
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