I like to think of Roff as the assembly language of desktop publishing: anything is possible, but don't expect it to be easy. =)
On 24 October 2016 at 20:28, Gerard Lally <ger...@different.ie> wrote: > On Mon, 24 Oct 2016, at 04:58, Clarke Echols wrote: > > Twenty years ago, I used troff to create camera-ready artwork for a > > double-sided > > printed circuit card for a product I was designing the control > > electronics and > > bar-graph display for. The product was awarded "Top 20 new automotive > > service tools of the year" in Motor Magazine for 1997. (Alas, the owner > > of the > > company stiffed me $30,000 for my work, and another company $70,000.) > > It was also featured on the PBS TV show "Motorweek". > > > > I wrote the macros for the layout, using primarily troff drawing > > requests. > > > > I've used troff and groff to produce finished books (historical fiction > > and > > non-fiction), and HP's 3000-page, 3-volume HP-UX Reference (Unix > > manpages) > > and everything from business cards to trophy plaques. > > > > Sometimes it's more work than one can justify financially, but like most > > Unix stuff, there's a lot of power there if you have the tenacity and > > ingenuity > > to figure out how to do what you need done. > > > > But that sample page with all of the artwork is beyond my expertise for > > now. > > Your positive feedback in this and other posts in the archive is very > welcome, Clarke. Indeed just last week I bought a copy of your vi book; > I know it's old but it comes highly recommended, and I think a solid > grounding in the old Unix tools is a great way to prepare for a lifetime > of document production. > > The consensus so far is that a complex page layout is possible but not > feasible. It's not worth the trouble, but I don't mind that. I really > just wanted to know whether or not it was possible (should have made > that clear in the subject header). It means that, if push comes to shove > somewhere down the line, *roff can handle a reasonably complex layout. I > don't expect to need it to this extent, but I'm happy to know with some > "tenacity and ingenuity" I could pull it off if required. > >
