Nroff and SCO Unix

[Chris Lewis]

In article <9106192118.AA27899 at robobar.Co.Uk> ronald at robobar.co.uk (Ronald S H Khoo) writes:

Hi Ronald!

>Michael John Staley <staley at lad.med.utas.edu.au> wrote:
>> [About SCO Text processing package on SCO UNIX]

>> I found that the its use was VERY limited in that I could
>> not do things like eqn, tbl etc.

[There seems to be a thread of confusion here w.r.t. troff vs. nroff]

>I have used the eqn and tbl from the XENIX text processing system under
>SCO UNIX with reasonably good results, using psroff 2.0.
>Can you explain just why you can't use tbl and eqn?  I can.

To clarify:
    1) nroff *does* work with tbl (but you have to pipe the output
       of nroff thru col to avoid scrambulation due to reverse
       line feeds).  I imagine you also have neqn which attempts to
       take nroff's limitations into account and give you a "reasonable"
       representation of eqn.
    2) Psroff (1.0, 2.0, 3.0) works with C/A/T *troff*, not nroff.  C/A/T
       Troff is also part of the Xenix Text Processing Package.  And Xenix's
       troff and psroff work together quite well.  Quite a number of
       people are using Xenix's C/A/T troff with psroff without any
       trouble on postscript and HP Laserjet printers.  (Psroff 3.0 also works
       with ditroff aka DWB, and even groff if you need good HP Laserjet
       output)

>> My problems have increased recently as I have imported psroff 3.0 which
>> requires a GOOD version of nsroff.

>Actually PSROFF wants troff.  The SCO troff is "good enough".
>It's a bit buggy, but not seriously so -- I used it for several years,
>first with the "thack" postscript driver, then psroff 1.0, then psroff 2.0.
>I'm still waiting for Rich Salz to post 3.0... :-)

As far as I'm aware, SCO's troff is no worse than any other C/A/T troff.
There was a rumor (back in psroff 1.0 days) that there was something
odd about Xenix Troff's offset and pagelength, but I was unable to
confirm precisely what the problem was.

>> Where can I obtain a good version
>> of nroff which has all the bits and which will run with SCO Unix and
>> my new psroff 3.0.

I think you already have all the bits.  *Except* pic and grap.  If you
need to run pic (line drawing) or grap, I suggest you get groff as
Ronald has suggested.  Psroff does a very good job with C/A/T troff,
and as long as you don't have to do much in the way of line drawing, need
kerning, or go totally bonkers with fonts (C/A/T troff has some
limitations on number of fonts available per line), psroff will
do what you want, faster than groff.

>Well, you can drop the SCO troff and psroff completely, and get GNU troff
>instead (you will want to retain the ms and mm macro packages from
>the text processing system -- /usr/lib/tmac and /usr/lib/macros)

Does groff support mm now?

-- 
Chris Lewis, Phone: (613) 832-0541, Domain: clewis at ferret.ocunix.on.ca
UUCP: ...!cunews!latour!ecicrl!clewis; Ferret Mailing List:
ferret-request at eci386; Psroff (not Adobe Transcript) enquiries:
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