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>Using mom</title> 6 </head> 7 <body bgcolor="#dfdfdf"> 8 9 <!====================================================================> 10 11 <a href="typesetting.html#TOP">Next</a> 12 <a href="definitions.html#TOP">Prev</a> 13 <a href="toc.html">Back to Table of Contents</a> 14 <p> 15 <a name="TOP"></a> 16 <a name="USING"> 17 <h1 align="center"><u>USING MOM</u></h1> 18 </a> 19 20 <a href="#USING_INTRO">Introduction</a> 21 <br> 22 <a href="#USING_MACROS">Inputting macros</a> 23 <br> 24 <a href="#USING_INVOKING">Invoking groff</a> 25 <br> 26 <a href="#USING_PREVIEWING">Previewing documents</a> 27 <p> 28 <hr> 29 <h2><a name="USING_INTRO"><u>Introduction</u></a></h2> 30 31 As explained in the section 32 <a href="intro.html#INTRO">What is mom?</a>, 33 <strong>mom</strong> can be used in two ways: for straight typesetting 34 or for document processing. The difference between the two is 35 that in straight typesetting, every macro is a literal 36 typesetting instruction that determines precisely how text 37 following it will look. Document processing, on the other hand, 38 uses markup "tags" (e.g. <kbd>.PP</kbd> for 39 paragraphs, <kbd>.HEAD</kbd> for heads, <kbd>.FOOTNOTE</kbd> 40 for footnotes, etc.) that make a lot of typesetting decisions 41 automatically. 42 <p> 43 You tell <strong>mom</strong> that you want to use the document 44 processing macros with the 45 <a href="docprocessing.html#START">START</a> 46 macro, explained below. After <strong>START</strong>, 47 <strong>mom</strong> determines the appearance of text following 48 the markup tags automatically, although you, the user, can easily 49 change how <strong>mom</strong> interprets the tags. This gives you 50 nearly complete control over document design. In addition, the 51 typesetting macros, in combination with document processing, let you 52 meet all sorts of typesetting needs that just can't be covered by 53 "one macro fits all" markup tags. 54 <p> 55 <a name="USING_MACROS"> 56 <h2><u>How to input mom's macros</u></h2> 57 </a> 58 59 Regardless of which way you use <strong>mom</strong>, the 60 following apply. 61 <br> 62 <ol> 63 <li>You need a good text editor for inputting 64 <strong>mom</strong> files. 65 <p> 66 I cannot recommend highly enough that you use an 67 editor that lets you write syntax highlighting 68 rules for <strong>mom</strong>'s macros and 69 <a href="definitions.html#TERMS_INLINES">inline escapes</a>. 70 I use the vi clone called elvis, and find it a pure 71 joy in this regard. Simply colourizing macros and 72 inlines to half-intensity can be enough to make text stand 73 out clearly from formatting commands. 74 <li>All <strong>mom</strong>'s macros begin with a period 75 (dot) and must be entered in upper case (capital) 76 letters. 77 <li>Macro 78 <a href="definitions.html#TERMS_ARGUMENTS">arguments</a> 79 are separated from the macro itself by spaces. Multiple 80 arguments to the same macro are separated from each 81 other by spaces. Any number of spaces may be used. All 82 arguments to a macro must appear on the same line as the 83 macro. 84 <li>Any argument (except a 85 <a href="definitions.html#TERMS_STRINGARGUMENT">string argument</a>) 86 that is not a digit must be entered in upper case 87 (capital) letters. 88 <li>Any argument that requires a plus or minus sign must 89 have the plus or minus sign prepended to the argument 90 with no intervening space (e.g. +2, -4). 91 <li>Any argument that requires a 92 <a href="definitions.html#TERMS_UNITOFMEASURE">unit of measure</a> 93 must have the unit appended directly to the argument, 94 with no intervening space (e.g. 4P, .5i, 2v). 95 <li><a href="definitions.html#TERMS_STRINGARGUMENT">String arguments</a>, 96 in the sense that the term is used in this manual, must 97 be surrounded by double-quotes ("text of 98 string"). Multiple string arguments are separated 99 from each other by spaces (each argument surrounded by 100 double-quotes, of course). 101 <li>If a string argument, as entered in your text editor, 102 becomes uncomfortably long (i.e. runs longer than the 103 visible portion of your screen or window), you may break 104 it into two or more lines by placing the backslash 105 character (<kbd>\</kbd>) at the ends of lines to break 106 them up, like this: 107 <p> 108 <pre> 109 .SUBTITLE "An In-Depth Consideration of the \ 110 Implications of Forty-Two as the Meaning of Life, \ 111 The Universe, and Everything" 112 </pre> 113 </ol> 114 115 It's important that formatted documents be easy to read/interpret 116 when you're looking at them in a text editor. One way to achieve 117 this is to group macros that serve a similar purpose together, and 118 separate them from other groups of macros with a blank comment line. 119 In groff, that's done with <kbd>\#</kbd> on a line by itself. 120 Consider the following, which is a template for starting the 121 chapter of a book. 122 <p> 123 <pre> 124 .TITLE "My Pulitzer Novel" 125 .AUTHOR "Joe Blow" 126 .CHAPTER 1 127 \# 128 .DOCTYPE CHAPTER 129 .PRINTSTYLE TYPESET 130 \# 131 .FAM P 132 .PT_SIZE 10 133 .LS 12 134 \# 135 .START 136 </pre> 137 138 <a name="USING_INVOKING"> 139 <h2><u>Printing -- invoking groff with mom</u></h2> 140 </a> 141 142 After you've finished your document, naturally you will want to 143 print it. This involves invoking groff from the command line. 144 In all likelihood, you already know how to do this, but in case 145 you don't, here are two common ways to do it. 146 <p> 147 <pre> 148 groff -mom -l <filename> 149 groff -mom <filename> | lpr 150 </pre> 151 152 In the first, the <strong>-l</strong> option to groff tells 153 groff to send the output to your printer. In the second, you're 154 doing the same thing, except you're telling groff to pipe the 155 output to your printer. Basically, they're the same thing. The 156 only advantage to the second is that your system may be set up 157 to use something other than <strong>lpr</strong> as your print 158 command, in which case, you can replace <strong>lpr</strong> 159 with whatever is appropriate to your box. 160 <p> 161 Sadly, it is well beyond the scope of this manual to tell you 162 how to set up a printing system. See the README file for 163 minimum requirements to run groff with <strong>mom</strong>. 164 <p> 165 <strong>NOTE FOR ADVANCED USERS:</strong> I've sporadically had groff 166 choke on perfectly innocent sourced files within <strong>mom</strong> 167 documents. You'll know you have this problem when groff complains that 168 it can't find the sourced file even when you can plainly see that the 169 file exists, and that you've given <code>.so</code> the right path and 170 name. Should this happen, pass groff the <code>-U</code> (unsafe mode) 171 option along with the other options you require. Theoretically, you 172 only need <code>-U</code> with <code>.open, .opena, .pso, .sy,</code> 173 and <code>.pi</code>, however reality seems, at times, to dictate 174 otherwise. 175 <p> 176 <a name="USING_PREVIEWING"> 177 <h2><u>How to preview documents</u></h2> 178 </a> 179 180 Other than printing out hard copy, there are two well-established 181 methods for previewing your work. Both assume you have a working 182 X server. 183 <p> 184 Groff itself comes with a quick and dirty previewer called 185 gxditview. Invoke it with 186 <p> 187 <pre> 188 groff -X -mom filename 189 </pre> 190 191 It's not particularly pretty, doesn't have many navigation 192 options, requires a lot of work if you want to use other than 193 the "standard" groff PostScript fonts, and occasionally 194 has difficulty accurately reproducing some of 195 <strong>mom</strong>'s macro effects 196 (<a href="goodies.html#SMARTQUOTES">smartquotes</a> 197 and 198 <a href="goodies.html#LEADER">leaders</a> 199 come to mind). What it does have going for it is that it's fast and 200 doesn't gobble up system resources. 201 <p> 202 A surer way to preview documents is with <strong>gv</strong> 203 (ghostview). This involves processing documents with groff, 204 and directing the output to a PostScript file, like this, 205 <p> 206 <pre> 207 groff -mom filename > filename.ps 208 </pre> 209 then opening .ps file in <strong>gv</strong>. 210 <p> 211 While that may sound like a lot of work, I've set up my editor 212 (elvis) to do it for me. Whenever I'm working on a document that 213 needs previewing/checking, I fire up <strong>gv</strong> with the 214 "Watch File" option turned on. To look at the file, I 215 tell elvis to process it (with groff) and send it to a temporary 216 file (<kbd>groff -mom filename > filename.ps</kbd>), then open 217 the file inside <strong>gv</strong>. Ever after, when I want to 218 look at any changes I make, I simply tell elvis to work his magic 219 again. The Watch File option in <strong>gv</strong> registers that 220 the file has changed, and automatically loads the new version. 221 Voil! --instant previewing. 222 223 <p> 224 <hr> 225 <a href="typesetting.html#TOP">Next</a> 226 <a href="definitions.html#TOP">Prev</a> 227 <a href="#TOP">Top</a> 228 <a href="toc.html">Back to Table of Contents</a> 229 </body> 230 </html> 231
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