Re: [Groff] groff as a backend

[Larry Kollar]

Otavio Exel wrote:

> groff sources are intimidating and I can easily understand if many
> non-geeks decide to use MsWord instead.

Anyone who can handle HTML can certainly handle groff.

> but what I can not understand is why groff is not more widely used as a
> backend for other document systems. the abscence of a groff backend in
> Texinfo and Jade are particularly intriguing to me..
>
> is there a reason that I'm not aware of?

There was a time where commercial troff was not easily available due
to expense, and GNU troff was not yet extant. During that time, TeX was
free and freely available, so that's where the community moved. Inertia
has kept them there. But the Unix Text Processing book is now available
online (see my .signature); there's no free equivalent for TeX, LaTeX,
Texinfo, or DocBook that compares in quality or depth of information, so
perhaps we'll start seeing more people adopting groff in the future.

--
Larry Kollar     k  o  l  l  a  r  @  a  l  l  t  e  l  .  n  e  t
Unix Text Processing: "UTP Revival"
http://home.alltel.net/kollar/utp/