Re: [Groff] So ... where's the postscript file?

[james]

Thankyou very much, I am very grateful. I tried troff test.troff > test.ps
but it didn't output a vaid PS file, but it seems that's OK with groff, the
GNU version. But anway, I am totally ignorant of these commands at the
moment and still have some learning to do before I can get my book in the
layout I want.

Is there a manual page for newbies for the other troff things, like pic,
eqn, tbl, and the indexing tool? I'll reboot in Linux and take a look and
hang out on this list and see if I can pick some things up.

Is there a tutorial somewhere on the net which I can use to practise writing
macros? I'm thinking of using W Richard Stevens' macros, which he used to
write his books, UNIX Network Programming, TCP/IP Illustrated, Advanced
Programming in the UNIX Environment. His books are beautiful so I think I'll
use his macros. They are on his site, http://www.kohala.com/~rstevens.

Thanks for your help. :-) Oh by the way, is there a program for viewing
postscript files on Windows? I have cygwin so I have groff and the others,
and are there freely available macro packages hiding somewhere on GNU?

Respectfully,
James


----- Original Message -----
From: "Ralph Corderoy" <address@hidden>
To: "root" <address@hidden>
Cc: <address@hidden>
Sent: Sunday, May 20, 2001 10:24 AM
Subject: Re: [Groff] So ... where's the postscript file?


>
> Hi James,
>
> > What would be the file extension I would normally save under?
>
> That's up to you, perhaps .tr.
>
> > (Does it matter also?)
>
> No.
>
> > And how do I make that postscript file from this?
>
> GNU troff, like Kernighan's, outputs a device independent data format
> which a separate command then turns into PostScript, HTML, etc.  With
> GNU troff that's grops.
>
> However, rather than use troff and grops directly it is easier to use
> the groff command which kicks off these commands, and others that you
> might need, in the correct order.
>
>     groff test.tr >test.ps
>
> See `man groff'.
>
> > I can't see anything which answers these bare basics for beginners.
> > This should be corrected in the manual page I think, say a section
> > which goes: "Beginners: Start Here."
>
> Those writing and maintaining the documentation will have seen your
> post to the list.
>
> If you have other questions feel free to come back to the list.
>
>
> Ralph.
>
>
>