This is an option (but I have to learn advanced groff, I know only the basics of groff). When I started this thread, I thought there could be plenty of tools which does this job.
I appreciate all the responses. Thank you very much. Srini. -----Original Message----- From: Meg McRoberts [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, August 20, 2007 3:29 PM To: Karee, Srinivas; Clarke Echols Cc: Groff@gnu.org Subject: RE: [Groff] Groff editor. Thanks for the explanation... You do have a bit of a conundrum here. How frequently does this file need to be modified? I am rapidly getting in over my head here, but one thought is that, since Eric Raymond's groff-to-xml converter is open source, it wouldn't be too tough to make a version that then converts XML back to groff. You might be able to modify the source to eliminate any coding that is not converting well so that it's a clean conversion in both directions. If this file needs frequent maintenance and the application has a long future, it might actually be easier to rewrite the code that uses this file to use XML, then convert the file to XML and go forward with that. I guess it depends on what sort of information has to be changed, too. For example, if this is a price list and the users just need to modify the price amount and perhaps add/remove items, it might be possible to write a little application for them that pulls the info from the groff file, displays it in some friendly format, then modifies the groff file in the background for them... I remember being involved in something like this years ago -- the trick was to use comment lines that contained some unique string before and after the lines that were modified... meg --- "Karee, Srinivas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > This is existing code (groff) which I picked-up for the enhancement, I > cannot replace groff, there is quite a code which uses groff. I could > ask users to do that tag thing as you suggested but they do > ADDING/MODIFYING and DELETING lines/words and you know users they don't > want to write these tags. > > I need to save the file as groff file after the editing because current > framework uses groff file to send the fax to customers and printing > work. > > So even if I can convert groff to PDF or XML or PS file and let users > edit the file, I need a way to convert it back to groff file. Unless I > rewrite the code which uses groff file post editing. > > > Thanks, > Srini. > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Meg McRoberts [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Monday, August 20, 2007 2:39 PM > To: Karee, Srinivas; Clarke Echols > Cc: Groff@gnu.org > Subject: RE: [Groff] Groff editor. > > Why do you need to maintain this as a groff file? Perhaps if we > understood > that we could help you find a better solution. > > I happen to love groff and I can code it very quickly. What I have done > in > this situation is give the user the formatted ASCII file and tell them > to > edit it, sticking some string like "SRINI START" and "SRINI END" before > and > after any changes they make. Then I manually make their changes to the > groff > source, inserting the appropriate codings. It's basically the same > procedure > as if they hand-wrote comments on a formatted draft... > > I think that converting the file to Docbook/XML would preserve the > bold/italic > fonts and probably most of the tables unless the tables were coded by > someone > who went crazy with the coding. And it gives you a text source file > which is > very nice for source code control. So you get a lot of the benefits of > groff > with a format for which there are tools like you want. > > I haven't worked with the any PDF editing software but, theoretically, > it should retain all the formatting for you. I just googled "edit PDF > file" > and got some interesting hits -- software that converts PDF to XML (it's > shaded at the top of the list and that site seems to allow you to submit > a > test file for conversion for free to see the results). > > Those of us on this list love groff and so I certainly don't mean to > discourage > you from learning it and joining us ;-) However, the learning curve is > fairly > significant... XML has many of the advantages of groff but editors > such as > XMetal (and others, and I haven't actually worked with any of them so > this is > not an endorsement -- google "XML editors" if you want to investigate) > give you > the ability to maintain the text-based source with visible formatting > and yet > have a WYSIWYG editor as an alternative to manual coding... > > meg > > --- "Karee, Srinivas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > This file does not contain any pics, it has some tables, I can covert > it > > to ascii (-Tascii) and show to the users. But my requirement is for > user > > to edit the file and I should able to save it back in groff format and > > use user edited (groff file) file for printing on the PS printer and > > sending fax. > > > > Basically I cannot lose bold/italic/font and other stuff. I am new to > > groff, so I thought there could be some tools which I could buy and > > workout this requirement, but looks like there are no tools out there > > which I can use. > > > > Srini. > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Meg McRoberts [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Sent: Monday, August 20, 2007 2:03 PM > > To: Karee, Srinivas; Clarke Echols > > Cc: Groff@gnu.org > > Subject: RE: [Groff] Groff editor. > > > > What sort of document is this? Is it mostly text or are there > > a lot of tables, graphics, and such? > > > > I can think of a few ways that one might get the content into > > some sort of WYSIWYG editor, but the fancier the formatting, > > the less satisfactory these will be: > > > > - Run the text into formatted ASCII then import the formatted text > > into Word or some other editor. A command similar to the following > > might work: > > > > groff -mandoc -stC -Tascii <filename>| col -b > <filename>.txt > > > > This is for man page source -- replace -mandoc with the appropriate > > string if the document is using a different set of macros. > > > > You will loose all bold/italic and lots of other stuff but it will > > get you text that does not show the formatting characters. > > > > - Run the text into PDF and then try a PDF editor. I know that > > Broderbund > > is selling such an editor but I haven't used it. The following > > commands > > will create PDF from a groff file (these are the commands I use -- > > perhaps > > someone will have a more elegant method) -- note that you have to > > create > > a PostScript file and then convert the ps file to PDF: > > > > groff -mandoc -st <filename> > <filename>.ps > > ps2pdf <filename>.ps <filename>.pdf > > > > - Convert the groff code to Docbook/XML; editors like you want are > > available > > for XML. Here is some information about a tool that does this: > > > > http://www.xmlhack.com/read.php?item=1749 > > > > These are not perfect solutions but would allow you to capture the > text > > into a format that can be maintained without learning groff. > > > > meg > > >
