Date: Fri, 02 Feb 2001 13:38:59 +0100 From: Roelof Osinga <roelof@nisser.com> To: David Kelly <dkelly@hiwaay.net> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: troff to postscript at A4? Message-ID: <3A7AAA63.22BEBC5D@nisser.com> References: <200102020350.f123oxN92050@grumpy.dyndns.org>
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David Kelly wrote: > > One is the data is already in postscript format (page size is already > set) before it ever reaches lpr. And in this situation it never even > reaches lpr. 'man -t' means pass it groff. Groff is a typesetter extended way beyond the originall troff. One of the devices is 'ps' for PostScript. It's even the default device. Once the source has been compiled to ps it's to late. Somewhere before that in the pipeline it has to be typeset for an A4 format. Last time I looked at that, however, was in '93 using the EMX(?) port of things GNU to OS/2. One of them things was TeX. That had the same 'problem'. From TeX to dvi, from dvi to postscript. Somewhere in that pipeline it had to be made clear to TeX what the actual papersize was. Alas, too long ago for my shabby memory, I'm afraid. Then again, man pages are in troff not TeX so... > man groff pointed me to this file which is where I think your solution > lies. But as one not used to printing on A4, it is something I'd think > would have already been prepared. Haven't found an A4 switch. > > /usr/share/groff_font/devps/DESC > ... See my reply to Ted. > ... > There is /usr/ports/print/a2ps43-a4 which is simpler and smaller than > the non-43 version which you might look into for sane A4 PS page > dimmensions. Compare the output of a2ps43-a4 to "groff -TpsA4" before > killing any more trees than you have to. :-) Those are specialised ASCII to PS formatters. There's also an utility that will do a ps to ps conversion (psutil). Hm, that also has a "fixtpps (perl) filter to fix Troff Tpscript documents". Doesn't say what problem gets fixed or why, though. Still... Whatever happenned with that common print something or other standard? Was supposed to surpass Windows in userfriendlyness. Roelof -- Home is where the (@) http://eboa.com/ is. Nisser home -- http://www.Nisser.com/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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