Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2007 17:54:06 -0700 From: Frank Jahnke <jahnke@sonatabio.com> To: icantthinkofone@charter.net Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: wyswyg editors for tex (was re: replacement for openoffice) Message-ID: <1191977646.982.96.camel@pinot.fmjassoc.com>
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> Can you explain the difference between troff and groff. I thought > groff is the more useable troff, or do I have that backwards, or is > that only a fbsd replacement? troff is the old Unix utility that drove a C/A/T typesetter. That was a real liability -- not everyone has a typesetter -- so it later was extended as ditroff (or titroff -- really!): device (or typesetter) independent troff. There were also a few commercial packages that extended basic troff to cover more devices. groff was an independent recoding of the entire troff family by James Clark; the first release was in 1990. It has useful extensions to troff (like picture inclusion and ease of mounting more fonts), but it is code-compatible with troff. These days troff is dead, and everyone uses groff. I refer to it as troff primarily for historical reasons -- the comparison with TeX originated with troff in the old days -- though it is not quite accurate given how it is used currently. If you have never seen phototype from a C/A/T device, you are missing something, While not as good as the commercial typesetters that drove Mergenthalers, the quality is stunning. What we have now on laser printers is a very poor cousin of the original.
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