1 <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN"> 2 <html> 3 <head> 4 <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1"> 5 <title>Mom -- Appendices</title> 6 </head> 7 <body bgcolor="#dfdfdf"> 8 9 <!====================================================================> 10 11 <a href="reserved.html#TOP">Next</a> 12 <a href="macrolist.html#TOP">Prev</a> 13 <a href="toc.html">Back to Table of Contents</a> 14 <p> 15 16 <a name="TOP"></a> 17 <a name="APPENDICES"> 18 <h2 align="center"><u>APPENDICES</u></h2> 19 </a> 20 21 <ul> 22 <li><a href="#MOREDOC">Further notes on this documentation</a> 23 <li><a href="#FONTS">Adding PostScript fonts to groff</a> 24 <ul> 25 <li><a href="#HOWTO">How to create a PostScript font for use with groff</a> 26 </ul> 27 <li><a href="#CODENOTES">Some reflections on mom, with an apology</a> 28 <li><a href="#CONTACT">Contact the author</a> 29 <li><a href="reserved.html">List of reserved words</a> 30 </ul> 31 32 <a name="MOREDOC"> 33 <h2><u>Further notes on this documentation</u></h2> 34 </a> 35 36 Some <strong>mom</strong> users are sure to ask: "Why is this 37 documentation in html? If <strong>mom</strong>'s so great, why not 38 typeset the whole thing to show her off? And if groff's so great, 39 why not write a man page?" 40 <p> 41 Valid questions, to be sure, and <strong>mom</strong> has 42 answers. (Okay -- I have answers, but I speak for 43 <strong>mom</strong>.) 44 <p> 45 The documentation is in html because I still find it the best tool 46 for navigating lengthy manuals. Html, with its anchors and links, 47 came into being precisely so people could do something they'd never 48 been able to with the printed word: instantly track down internal 49 and external references in a document. 50 <p> 51 To me, it's essential that people reading <strong>mom</strong>'s 52 documentation never have difficulty finding precisely the macro 53 they need for a particular task. Equally, when reading up on 54 a macro, they should never be presented with terms or other 55 macro names for which they cannot instantly find accurate explanations. 56 Short of having written the documentation in TeX for the info browser 57 (and TeX bloat is one of the reasons I prefer to typeset with groff), 58 I can think of no better way to achieve the kind of truly useful 59 documentation I wanted than html. 60 <p> 61 Another reason for html is that working with <strong>mom</strong> 62 necessarily involves creating files inside a text editor. I use 63 elvis, a truly fabulous vi clone that does a terrific job of rendering 64 basic (text only) html. I may have written <strong>mom</strong>, 65 but I still regularly call on her documentation. Elvis, with its 66 html capabilities, lets me write and format <strong>mom</strong> 67 documents AND peruse her documentation, clicking on links as 68 necessary, without ever leaving the comfy confines of my 69 text editor. 70 <p> 71 Not everyone, of course, uses an editor with html capabilities. 72 For them, firing up a browser is obviously necessary for reading 73 <strong>mom</strong>'s documentation. Browsers being what they are, 74 and not everyone on the globe having the cash for muscle machines 75 to run Galeon, or Konqueror or Mozilla, their browser 76 needs to be fast and light--and probably "text-only". 77 <p> 78 Some <strong>mom</strong> users may notice the absence of graphics, 79 frames, and (for the most part) tables in this documentation. The 80 reason is simple: text-only browsers. People who, for whatever 81 reason (choice or necessity), use lynx, or links or w3m to read 82 the documentation must be able to make sense of it. All of it. 83 Graphical examples of <strong>mom</strong> in action might have made 84 some parts of the documentation easier to write, but would have 85 excluded text-only browser users. And it goes without saying that 86 the documentation looks fine if you're reading it in a graphical 87 browser. 88 <br> 89 <hr> 90 91 <!=====================================================================> 92 93 <a name="FONTS"> 94 <h2><u>Adding PostScript fonts to groff</u></h2> 95 </a> 96 97 <a name="SMALL_NOTE"></a> 98 <em><strong>Small note:</strong> the term <prefix> in this 99 section refers to the directory in which groff is installed, 100 typically something like /usr/share/groff/<version#> 101 (for distro-specific, pre-compiled groff packages) or 102 /usr/local/share/groff/<version#> (if you've built groff 103 from source).</em> 104 <p> 105 Groff comes with a small library of PostScript 106 <a href="definitions.html#TERMS_FAMILY">families</a> 107 (see the 108 <a href="typesetting.html#FAMILY">FAMILY</a> 109 macro for a list). The families have four 110 <a href="definitions.html#TERMS_FONT">fonts</a> 111 associated with them. These fonts are a combination of 112 <a href="definitions.html#TERMS_WEIGHT">weight</a> 113 and 114 <a href="definitions.html#TERMS_SHAPE">shape</a>: 115 <br> 116 <ul> 117 <li><strong>R</strong> (Roman, usually Medium weight), 118 <li><strong>I</strong> (Italic, usually Medium weight), 119 <li><strong>B</strong> (Bold, usually Roman shape) and 120 <li><strong>BI</strong> (Bold Italic). 121 </ul> 122 <p> 123 If you do a lot of document processing or typesetting with 124 <strong>mom</strong>, you'll find, sooner or later, that these 125 families and their associated fonts aren't sufficient. You'll want 126 to supplement them, either with more fonts for the families already 127 provided--"Damn! I need Helvetica Bold Condensed Italic!"--or with 128 entire new families. 129 <p> 130 Without going into the gory details (yet), while it's true that 131 adding fonts to groff is a relatively straightforward 132 process, extending existing families or adding new ones requires 133 some planning. 134 <p> 135 The traditional approach to extending groff families has been 136 to create new families for non-default weights and 137 shapes (e.g. Light, which is a weight; Condensed, which is a 138 shape), then to associate them with groff's predefined <strong>R, 139 I, B</strong> and <strong>BI</strong> font styles. An example 140 of this can be seen in the groff PostScript font library itself 141 (<prefix>/font/devps/): there's one "family" for 142 Helvetica (HR, HI, HB, HBI) and another for Helvetica Narrow (HNR, 143 HNI, HNB, HNBI). 144 <p> 145 The difficulty with this approach is that typographers 146 tend to think of "families" as referring to the 147 entire set of font weights and shapes associated with a 148 particular family name. For example, when a typesetter says 149 "the Helvetica family", s/he is including the <a 150 href="definitions.html#TERMS_WEIGHT">weights</a> Helvetica Thin, 151 Helvetic Light, Helvetica Regular, Helvetica Bold, Helvetica Heavy, 152 etc, and all their associated 153 <a href="definitions.html#TERMS_SHAPE">shapes</a> 154 (Roman, 155 Italic, Condensed, Narrow, Extended, Outline, etc). 156 <p> 157 Thus, intuitively, when a typesetter gives <strong>mom</strong> a 158 <kbd>.FAM(ILY)</kbd> directive, s/he reasonably expects that any 159 subsequent <kbd>.FT</kbd> directive will access the desired font 160 from the Helvetica family--without the need to state explicitly both 161 family and font to <kbd>.FT</kbd>, as it is explained one can do in 162 the 163 <a href="typesetting.html#FAMILY">FAMILY</a> 164 and 165 <a href="typesetting.html#FONT">FT</a> 166 sections of these documents. 167 <p> 168 If one had, say, the fonts, Helvetica Light Roman 169 and Helvetica Light Italic as well as Helvetica Light Condensed 170 Roman and Helvetica Light Condensed Italic, the traditional 171 approach would require two "partial" families: HLR/HLI and 172 HLCDR/HLCDI. Accessing these family/font combos 173 routinely throughout a document would then require 174 changing family (with <kbd>.FAM(ILY)</kbd>) and selecting the 175 desired font (with <kbd>.FT R</kbd> or <kbd>.FT I</kbd>), or 176 passing <kbd>.FT</kbd> the lengthy family+fontname (.e.g. <kbd>.FT 177 HLCDI</kbd>). 178 <p> 179 Fortunately, groff provides a mechanism whereby it's possible to 180 extend the basic <strong>R, I, B</strong> and <strong>BI</strong> 181 fonts ("styles" in groff-speak) so that one can, in 182 fact, create extensive type families, and access all the fonts 183 in them with <kbd>.ft</kbd> (groff) or <kbd>.FT</kbd> (mom). 184 <p> 185 <strong>mom</strong> uses this mechanism to offer, in addition to 186 groff's default PostScript font styles, the following: 187 <p> 188 <a name="STYLE_EXTENSIONS"></a> 189 <pre> 190 Mom's extensions to groff's basic font styles 191 ============================================= 192 193 L = Light Roman 194 LI = Light Italic 195 LCD = Light Condensed Roman 196 LCDI = Light Condensed Italic 197 LEX = Light Extended Roman 198 LEXI = Light Extended Italic 199 CD = Medium/Book Condensed Roman 200 CDI = Medium/Book Condensed Italic 201 EX = Medium/Book Extended Roman 202 EXI = Medium/Book Extended Italic 203 DB = DemiBold Roman 204 DBI = DemiBold Italic 205 BCD = Bold Condensed Roman 206 BCDI = Bold Condensed Italic 207 BEX = Bold Extended Roman 208 BEXI = Bold Extended Italic 209 HV = Heavy Roman 210 HVI = Heavy Italic 211 HVCD = Heavy Condensed Roman 212 HVCDI = Heavy Condensed Italic 213 HVEX = Heavy Extended Roman 214 HVEXI = Heavy Extended Italic 215 BL = Black Roman 216 BLI = Black Italic 217 BLCD = Black Condensed Roman 218 BLCDI = Black Condensed Italic 219 BLEX = Black Extended Roman 220 BLEXI = Black Extended Italic 221 UBL = Ultra-Black Roman 222 UBLI = Ultra-Black Italic 223 </pre> 224 225 Thus, with <strong>mom</strong>, if you've installed, say, some 226 extra Helvetica fonts and named them according to the convention FS 227 (where "F" means family and "S" means font 228 style), once having entered 229 <p> 230 <pre> 231 .FAMILY H 232 or 233 .FAM H 234 </pre> 235 236 you can access any of those Helvetica fonts simply by 237 passing the correct argument from the list above to 238 <a href="typesetting.html#FONT">FT</a>. 239 <p> 240 For example, if you were working in Medium Roman (<kbd>.FT R</kbd>) 241 and you needed Medium Condensed Italic for a while (assuming it's 242 installed), you'd just type 243 <p> 244 <pre> 245 .FT CDI 246 </pre> 247 248 to access the Medium Condensed Italic font from the Helvetica 249 family. 250 <p> 251 <strong>Mom</strong>'s list of font styles doesn't pretend to 252 be exhaustive, but rather tries to cover the basic weight/shape 253 combinations likely to be found in any reasonably complete type 254 family. 255 <p> 256 The actual extension names are arbitrary and can be used in a 257 flexible manner. For example, if you create a family that has a 258 DemiBold font (DB) but no Bold font (B), you might find it more 259 convenient to give the DemiBold font the extension "B". 260 Equally, if the family has an ExtraBold font, you might find it more 261 convenient to use the extension "HV" (Heavy). 262 <a name="REGISTER_STYLE"></a> 263 <p> 264 However, you may, at needs, want to add to <strong>mom</strong>'s 265 list of font styles. You can do this by editing the file, om.tmac. 266 Near the top, you'll see lines of the form 267 <p> 268 <pre> 269 .sty \n[.fp] L \" Light Roman 270 .sty \n[.fp] LI \" Light Italic 271 .sty \n[.fp] LCD \" Light Condensed Roman 272 </pre> 273 274 Simply add your new font style by imitating what you see and 275 plugging in your new font style (having, of course, first created the 276 font, correctly named, in groff's PostScript font directory; see 277 <a href="#HOWTO">How to create a PostScript font for use with groff</a>). 278 <p> 279 For example, if you already have some fonts from the Univers 280 family installed and have called the family UN, you might decide at 281 some point to add the Bold Outline font (UNBO). In which case, 282 you'd add 283 <p> 284 <pre> 285 .sty \n[.fp] BO \" Bold Outline 286 </pre> 287 288 to the <kbd>.sty \n[.fp] <font style></kbd> list in om.tmac. 289 <p> 290 Be careful, though, that any styles you add do not conflict 291 with <strong><u>family</u></strong> names that already exist. 292 "C", for example, conflicts with the Courier family 293 (CR, CI, CB, CI). Were you to create a font style "C", 294 thinking that <kbd>.FT C</kbd> would give you access to font style 295 once you'd given a <kbd>.FAM(ILY)</kbd> directive, you'd get a nasty 296 surprise: your type would come out in Courier Roman! 297 <p> 298 <strong>VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: mom</strong>'s font extensions are 299 not "user-space" controllable via a macro. If you've 300 been using groff for a long time, and have already rolled your own 301 solution to adding PostScript families, fonts, weights, shapes, etc. to 302 groff, you may find that <strong>mom</strong>'s font extensions 303 conflict with your own scheme. Should that be the case, comment out 304 the <kbd>.sty \n[.fp] <font style></kbd> lines found near the 305 top of the om.tmac file. 306 307 <a name="HOWTO"><h3><u>How to create a PostScript font for use with groff</u></h3></a> 308 These instructions aren't meant to cover all possibilities, merely 309 to present one way of making PostScript families/fonts available to 310 groff and <strong>mom</strong>. 311 <p> 312 GNU/Linux distributions being what they are, directory locations may 313 differ and the presence of some executables can't be guaranteed. 314 I run a Debian system. The instructions reflect that. Users of 315 other distros will have to interpret them according to the way their 316 distro operates. 317 <p> 318 What you need before you start: 319 <br> 320 <ul> 321 <li>groff, version 1.18 or higher 322 <br> 323 (Debian package: groff) 324 <li>a full installation of gs and associated tools 325 <br> 326 (Debian package: gs or gs-gpl) 327 <li>a library of gs fonts 328 <br> 329 (Debian package: gsfonts) 330 <li>a utility for converting TrueType fonts to Type1 fonts 331 <br> 332 (Debian package: ttf2pt1) 333 <li>a font manager 334 <br> 335 (Debian packages: defoma, psfontmgr, dfontmgr) 336 <li>perl 337 <br> 338 (Debian package: perl) 339 </ul> 340 <br> 341 A reasonably complete installation of any major GNU/Linux distro 342 should already have these on your system, except perhaps for the 343 utility to convert TrueType fonts to Type1 fonts. 344 <p> 345 Initial preparation (you only have to do this once): 346 <br> 347 <ol> 348 <li>If you don't already have one, create a directory in your 349 home directory to hold new fonts. Any directory name will do. 350 I use ~/Fonts, with subdirectories for Type1, TrueType and Groff 351 fonts. 352 <a name="SITE-FONT"></a> 353 <li>Locate the groff directory, site-font. The exact location is 354 difficult to predict, owing to differences between distros 355 and whether you're using a pre-packaged groff or have built 356 it from source. Some typical locations are 357 <br> 358 <ul> 359 <li>/usr/share/groff, 360 <li>/usr/local/share/groff 361 <li>/etc/groff 362 </ul> 363 <p> 364 If you can't find the site-font directory, locate 365 groff's site-tmac directory, and, as root, create site-font 366 in the same directory as the one that holds site-tmac. 367 E.g., if you find site-tmac in /usr/share/groff, create 368 site-font in /usr/share/groff. 369 <li>Locate the file <kbd><prefix>/font/devps/generate/textmap</kbd> 370 and symlink it to <kbd>textmap</kbd> in the directory that 371 contains your personal collection of PostScript fonts. (See the 372 <a href="#SMALL_NOTE">Small Note</a>, 373 above, for the meaning of <prefix>). On my system, 374 at the time of writing, <prefix> is 375 /usr/local/share/groff/1.19.2/, therefore, I symlink it in 376 ~/Fonts/Type1 with 377 <br> 378 <pre> 379 ln -s /usr/local/share/groff/1.19.2/font/devps/generate/textmap textmap 380 </pre> 381 <li>Locate the file <prefix>/font/devps/text.enc and 382 symlink it to <kbd>text.enc</kbd> in your personal font 383 directory. On my system, in ~/Fonts/Type1 384 <pre> 385 ln -s /usr/local/share/groff/1.19.2/font/devps/text.enc text.enc 386 </pre> 387 <li>Make sure you know which directory/ies holds your gs fonts. 388 You'll need the information later. On a Debian box, some 389 typical locations are 390 <br> 391 <ul> 392 <li>/usr/lib/ghostscript/fonts 393 <li>/usr/share/ghostscript/fonts 394 <li>/usr/share/fonts/type1/gsfonts 395 </ul> 396 </ol> 397 <br> 398 Font creation/installation: 399 <br> 400 <ol> 401 <li>Acquire the font in either Type1 (.pfb) or TrueType 402 (.ttf) format. 403 <li>Place the font in your personal font directory; for me, 404 that's ~/Fonts/Type1 or ~/Fonts/TrueType. 405 <li>In your personal font directory, run one of the following: 406 <br> 407 <ul> 408 <li>For Type1 fonts 409 <br> 410 <ul> 411 <li><kbd>getafm fontfilename.pfb | gsnd - > fontfilename.afm</kbd> 412 <br> 413 For Type1 fonts, this will generate something called 414 an .afm (Adobe Font Metrics) file, which is 415 required to create PostScript fonts for groff. 416 </ul> 417 <li>For TrueType fonts 418 <br> 419 <ul> 420 <li><kbd>ttf2pt1 \-b fontfilename.ttf</kbd> 421 <br> 422 For TrueType fonts, this will generate a PostScript 423 .pfb file as well as an .afm file. 424 </ul> 425 </ul> 426 <li>Still in your personal font directory, run 427 <br> 428 <ul> 429 <li><kbd>afmtodit -e text.enc fontfilename.afm textmap GROFF_FONTNAME</kbd> 430 </ul> 431 <p> 432 Q: <em>How do I choose a GROFF_FONTNAME?</em> 433 <p> 434 A: Start by considering the 435 <a href="definitions.html#TERMS_FAMILY">family</a> 436 to which the font belongs. If you're adding to a family that 437 already exists in groff's <prefix>/font/devps 438 directory, that will be the first part of the font name. 439 (See 440 <a href="typesetting.html#FAMILY">here</a> 441 for a list of families already installed, along with their groff 442 names.) Add to that name the appropriate weight/style extension, 443 listed 444 <a href="#STYLE_EXTENSIONS">here</a>. 445 <p> 446 For example, if you're adding Helvetica Light Roman, your 447 GROFF_FONTNAME would be <strong>HL</strong>. If you're 448 adding Helvetica Light Italic, your GROFF_FONTNAME would be 449 <strong>HLI</strong>. 450 <p> 451 If you're adding a font not already in groff's PostScript 452 families, first choose a meaningful name for the 453 <a name="definitions.html#TERMS_FAMILY">family</a> 454 to which the font belongs. The name can be anything you like. If, 455 for example, the family is Garamond, you could choose GARAMOND, 456 GARA, GD, or even just plain G as the family name. Then tack on the 457 appropriate style/weight extension. Thus, if you were installing 458 Garamond Bold Condensed Italic and had chosen <strong>GD</strong> 459 as the family name for Garamond, your GROFF_FONTNAME would be 460 <strong>GDBCDI</strong>. 461 <p> 462 In <strong>mom</strong>, you can then access the Garamond 463 family with <kbd>.FAM GD</kbd>, and the Bold Condensed 464 Italic font wth <kbd>.FT BCDI</kbd>. 465 <p> 466 <strong>Note:</strong> The family name need not be in upper 467 case, and there's no limit to the length of the name. 468 "Garamond", for example, could be the name you 469 give the Garamond family. In fact, you might find it 470 preferable, since a) you wouldn't have to remember how 471 you'd named the family, and b) should you be scanning 472 your 473 <a href="#SITE-FONT">site-font directory</a>, 474 something like GaramondBCDI will be more meaningful than, 475 say, GDBCDI. 476 <li>Copy or move GROFF_FONTNAME to your 477 <a href="#SITE-FONT">site-font directory</a>, 478 or change to the site-font directory and make a symlink to 479 GROFF_FONTNAME in your personal directory. 480 <li>Copy or move the .pfb file to the directory that 481 holds your gs fonts, or change to that directory and make a 482 symlink to the .pfb file in your personal directory. 483 <li>Do whatever your system or distro requires in order to 484 register the new PostScript font (the .pfb file). On a 485 Debian system, as root, you can run dfontmgr for a 486 graphical interface that will take care of registering the 487 font. 488 </ol> 489 <p> 490 Written out in full, adding fonts looks like a lot of work. It 491 isn't. Basically, it's just: 492 <br> 493 <ul> 494 <li>acquire the font 495 <li>generate an .afm file for the font 496 <li>create the groff font 497 <li>put the groff font in <prefix>/font/devps 498 <li>make sure gs knows about the font 499 </ul> 500 <br> 501 After you've done it a couple of times, it all makes sense, and is 502 really quite easy. Not to mention that once you understand the 503 process, you can write a bash script to automate the process. 504 Here's an example, which you can adapt to your own needs. The 505 script requires an argument (the .pfb filename), then prompts for 506 the GROFF_FONTNAME. 507 <p> 508 <pre> 509 #! /bin/bash 510 511 # A script for installing Type1 fonts. 512 # 513 # Builds .afm files from .pfb files, generates a groff font from the 514 # .afm file, makes a symlink in /usr/lib/ghostscript/font/ to the 515 # .pfb file, and a symlink in site-font to the groff font 516 517 # .pfb filename, stripped of .pfb extension 518 FONT=`basename $1 .pfb` 519 520 # Directory holding my personal collection of type1 fonts 521 FONTDIR="$HOME/Fonts/Type1" 522 523 # Directory holding system ghostscript fonts 524 GS_FONTDIR="/usr/lib/ghostscript/fonts" 525 526 # Location of site-font/devps 527 GROFF_SITE_FONTDIR="/usr/local/share/groff/site-font/devps" 528 529 # Personal groff fonts directory 530 GROFF_FONTS="$HOME/Fonts/Groff" 531 532 # Symlinks to textmap and text.enc 533 TEXTMAP="$FONTDIR/textmap" 534 TEXTENC="$FONTDIR/text.enc" 535 536 if [ ! `pwd` = "$FONTDIR" ] ; then 537 echo "Changing into $FONTDIR directory.." 538 cd $FONTDIR 539 sleep 1 540 else 541 sleep 1 542 fi 543 544 echo -n "Groff name for this font: " 545 read FONTNAME 546 sleep 1 547 548 echo "Getting .afm.." 549 getafm $FONT.pfb | gsnd - > $FONT.afm 550 sleep 1 551 552 echo "Creating $FONTNAME.." 553 afmtodit -e $TEXTENC $FONTDIR/$FONT.afm $TEXTMAP $FONTNAME 554 mv -i $FONTNAME $GROFF_FONTS 555 sudo ln -s $GROFF_FONTS/$FONTNAME $GROFF_SITE_FONTDIR/$FONTNAME 556 sleep 1 557 558 echo "Linking $FONT in $GS_FONTDIR.." 559 cd $GS_FONTDIR 560 sudo ln -s $FONTDIR/$FONT.afm $FONT.afm 561 sudo ln -s $FONTDIR/$FONT.pfb $FONT.pfb 562 sleep 1 563 564 # This next bit is Debian specific. If you're not running a 565 # Debian system, replace it with whatever your distro requires 566 # in order to register Type1 fonts. 567 568 if [ !`pidof -x /usr/bin/dfontmgr` ] ; then 569 echo "I will now run dfontmgr so you can register the font." 570 exec sudo dfontmgr & 571 else 572 echo "You may now register the font with dfontmgr." 573 fi 574 </pre> 575 <hr> 576 577 <!=====================================================================> 578 579 <a name="CODENOTES"> 580 <h2><u>Some reflections on mom</u></h2> 581 </a> 582 583 <p> 584 <strong>Mom</strong>, as a complete macro set, had her origins 585 in a "library" of groff routines I wrote over the 586 years to handle various aspects of typesetting and document 587 processing that weren't adequately covered by ms, me, mm, and so 588 on. Typically, I'd use the library to cobble together macro 589 sets for new challenges as they came my way. 590 <p> 591 If, as Eric Raymond asserts, open source begins with a programmer 592 scratching a personal itch, then <strong>mom</strong> can truly be 593 called open source, even if, a mere humble set of macros standing on 594 the shoulders of a giant named troff, she isn't programming at all. 595 <p> 596 As a writer living in a perpetual state of penury, all the computers 597 I've ever owned have been hand-me-downs -- several generations 598 out-of-date and "resource challenged". Disk space has 599 always been an issue, as has processor speed and available RAM. 600 One of the reasons I run GNU/Linux is that it has helped enormously 601 to get the most out of my poor little boxes. (It has been pointed 602 out to me that NetBSD might be an even better choice of operating 603 systems for computers with limited resources.) 604 <p> 605 In Linux-land, the choice of typesetting systems basically comes down 606 to groff or TeX. Both are wonderful -- monumental achievements if you 607 ask me -- and both have their own particular strengths. However, for 608 people in my financial position (and there are millions of us around 609 the globe, in both developed and developing countries), TeX and groff 610 have one big difference: size. TeX is huge. Even its most ardent 611 supporters agree it suffers from bloat, on top of being complex and 612 unwieldy to manage. Groff is tiny by comparison, occupying minimal 613 disk space and having only a small memory footprint while at the same 614 time being flexible and powerful, typographically speaking. I've run 615 it successfully on a 386 with 8 megs of RAM and a 250 meg hard disk. 616 <p> 617 However, groff has always had a liability: it's incredibly geeky. 618 Owing to its very long history, it -- and its "power users" 619 -- have remained stuck in a time warp. Most common macro packages 620 still look as they did in those decades when memory was exorbitantly 621 expensive and every byte mattered. Documentation -- not always 622 easy to find -- is written as if all readers are computer whizzes, 623 or at least have a university degree in one of the higher sciences. 624 <p> 625 By no means a stupid man, nor unfamiliar with the precepts of 626 programming, I've more than once torn my hair out over the terseness and 627 ambiguity of groff's documentation. Making sense of certain primitives 628 has often involved days of testing, interpreting the documentation 629 instead of just using the primitive. 630 <p> 631 (ADDENDUM to the previous two paragraphs: A tremendous amount of 632 effort has gone into creating a groff manual that can be read with 633 "info," as well as creating truly useful man pages. The info 634 manual is clear and well-written, so my comments are actually out 635 of date. I leave them in for the benefit of groff newbies, who may 636 still find the documents a bit intimidating.) 637 <p> 638 For some time now, groff users and macro writers have had the 639 option to use "long" names, yet have mostly chosen not to. 640 With long names, it's possible to create macro sets that are humanly 641 readable and easy to interpret, encouraging development and evolution. 642 What's more, the macros themselves need not be terse, intimidating, 643 and easily forgotten 1- or 2-letter commands inserted in the body 644 of a document. They can be sensible and helpful to everyone, groff 645 newbies and old hands alike. 646 <p> 647 <strong>Mom</strong>'s macro file, om.tmac, uses long names, aliases, 648 and a host of other groff goodies that have become part of the 649 whole groff picture under the unflagging guidance of groff's current 650 maintainer, Werner Lemberg. Nearly every macro, number register and 651 string is "recognizable" simply by its name. The file is 652 heavily commented. A consistent, if idiosyncratic, indenting style 653 is used as well, significantly improving readability. Anyone 654 wanting to futz around with <strong>mom</strong>'s macros should be 655 able to do so with a minimum of head scratching. 656 <br> 657 <hr> 658 659 <!=====================================================================> 660 661 <a name="CONTACT"> 662 <h2><u>Contact the author</u></h2> 663 </a> 664 665 <p> 666 If you have any questions or comments about <strong>mom</strong>, 667 suggestions to make, criticisms to offer, or bugs to report, use the 668 groff mailing list at 669 <a href="mailto:groff (a] ffii.org">groff (a] ffii.org</a> 670 (subscription information available 671 <a href="http://ffii.org/mailman/listinfo/groff/">here</a>) 672 or contact me, Peter Schaffter, directly at 673 <i>peter@faustus.dyn.ca</i> 674 or 675 <i>ptpi@golden.net</i>. 676 677 <p> 678 Please include the word "mom" or "groff" in the 679 Subject: line of any message sent to my personal address, or you 680 risk the wrath of my implacable spam filters. :) 681 <p> 682 If you want to visit <strong>mom</strong>'s homepage, you'll find 683 it 684 <a href="http://faustus.dyn.ca/mom/mom.html">here</a>. 685 <p> 686 <hr> 687 <a href="reserved.html#TOP">Next</a> 688 <a href="macrolist.html#TOP">Prev</a> 689 <a href="#TOP">Top</a> 690 <a href="toc.html">Back to Table of Contents</a> 691 </body> 692 </html> 693