Dear listmembers, In my quest for a high-end typesetting system for my publication projects, I have now come to groff. Seeing that my publications may include alot of footnotes, margin notes, crossreferences, running headers & footers etc, I have more or less ruled out software like QuarkXPress, InDesign, and Framemaker. Either they don't deliver typesetting of that great a quality, or they don't support complex footnotes, running headers, cross references etc. Never the Twain Shall Meet...!
So far, I have been looking at LaTeX, ConTeXt and Lout. Anyway, I have browsed the groff archives, but have a few additional questions. Forgive if the answers to some of them are in the manuals, which I indeed have browsed too but not read every word of. ================================================================ 1: Regarding color, is it possible to specify color for, say, drop caps, paragraphs, lines etc, in the CMYK color system? I suppose the answer is yes, since searching for "CMYK" gives many hits, but wanted to be sure. 2: Being a non-programmer, font installation in TeX & Children deterred me ALOT. To install a complete font with small caps, old style figures, alternate characters etc one needs to write a fontinst file, comprising a couple of hundred lines of code. Not good for us mere mortals! I get the impression that this is considerably more easy in groff? Correct? 3: Is hanging punctuation (= commas, periods, colons, semicolons, quotation marks and hyphens protruding slightly into the margin) possible to achieve in groff? From reading posts in the archive I get the impression it would be - or is - possible. 4: Is it possible to have multiple series of footnotes and margin notes? 5: If it turns out the last line of a paragraph has only one or two words, is it possible to slightly, slightly tighten the paragraph a few thousandparts of an em so that the short line moves back to the preceding line? I.e. "short line elimination". If so, can this be automated (for long documents)? 6: Is it possible to typeset on a "grid" in groff? E.g. if there is a figure at the top of the page, to make sure that the following main text starts at a multiple of the line spacing used, so that lines on both sides of the paper line up when you hold up the sheet against the light? 7: I see few if any references in the archive to include external graphics, like TIF, BMP, EPS files etc. Does including alot of graphics pose a problem? 8: I found a discussion about making the linebreaking algorithm paragraph-based (as in TeX)? Can this be done or has it been done already? 9: Regarding drop caps, is it possible control the drop cap by creating a more advanced macro than the examples shown in the archive? Something like lettrine.sty in LaTeX - i.e. tweaking vertical size and/or position of the drop cap, defining protruding of the serifs into the margin, defining space between the drop cap and the indented lines, sloping the intended lines when the drop cap is a V or an A, etc.? 10: Parallel typesetting on a spread with vertically synchronized paragraphs, line numbering and separate series of footnotes and margin notes - possible, not possible? Ted Harding mentioned something about that a few years ago. 11: Can one define spot colors, i.e. 100 % solid Pantone PMS colors? When a PS file is color separated at the service bureau, a spot color goes on its own printing plate, having its own PMS ink (rather than being separated to four different plates (C-M-Y-K). 12: If the last line on a page has a footnote reference, what happens in groff? Does the footnote get printed on the next page, or does the last line move over to the next page, so that the footnote reference and the footnote get printed at the same page? This is something many programs have severe problems with. ================================================================ I think that's all for now. Many thanks in advance for your answers and comments. Best regards, Mats Broberg _______________________________________________ Groff mailing list Groff@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/groff
