On Tue, Apr 27, 2021 at 2:45 AM Thomas Desi <t...@mttw.at> wrote: > > Hi Jim, > > yes, the roff-troff-groff (sounds like barking?) story reminds me in >some way to FreeDos. > > Compared to LaTex (or Tex), groff is so much leaner and easier. It >is still well maintained and usable. > > It allows output to html, text, ps, pdf… and regarding typsetting >hardly anything coming near, if one has the eye for it. The source >file can easily be created by any DOS editor. The rendering can be >done on *ux, Windwos or Mac. > > Groff -MOM was a »nice try« for prose writing, but to have all those >long instructions to type, feels counterproductive. if you would want >to have a very beautiful typesetted novel or book, (better avoid >images!) - and have some time to understand the inner workings of >»-mom«, this might be the best rendering. > > You are right, Jim, the -me and -ms instructions are so handy and > short that I don’t think -mom ever cought on. It is though really > well documentated. [..]
I've used LaTeX too. It's a good system and was a perfect fit when I needed to write documents that included equations (during my time at university as a physics undergraduate student). But once I didn't need to do that anymore, I stopped using LaTeX to write documents. When I first switched to Linux, I dual-booted with DOS so I could run my DOS applications like my word processor (WordPerfect, then Galaxy) and spreadsheet (As-Easy-As). But for some things, I learned how to use groff to write documents. I already knew LaTeX, so groff wasn't too hard to pick up. I think I learned -mm first, but found -me was easier to write papers for class, so I used that instead. And I kind of stuck with it. These days, I don't often write in groff, but I do so just often enough that I still remember how to write with it. It's an elegant system in its own way. And it has an interesting history, if you like computer history. (See Kernighan's 'UNIX: A History and a Memoir.') I don't have the energy to learn a new macro system, so that's probably why I haven't been able to stick with -mom. I already know how to use -me and I don't *need* to learn another one. So the -mom macros never stick with me. Jim _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
