First, thanks for the replies, they are instructive. To close the loop on this thread, thanks especially to Kurt and Branden for providing resources on MM and MS. I read through both and I was working with MM and then started leaning toward MS until a few days ago when I discovered this document:
http://bitsavers.org/pdf/apple/mac/a_ux/aux_2.0/030-0761-A_AUX_Text_Processing_Tools_1990.pdf as I was looking for a letterhead recipe. The example shown in Chapter 2 of the book worked flawlessly with groff 1.22.4 on Debian 11, so I have tilted back in favor of MM now having created my own letterhead in MM. What I have been able to ascertain is that MM was an evolution and extension of MS by Bell Labs as both originated there. Also, I think that either MS or MM is relatively easy to learn for anyone versed in MAN, though there are differences, of course. The document that Kurt referenced from DWB was essential to my picking it up quickly. If there is a nit to pick, it is that groff_mm.7 may still be incomplete. The book above provides the following string macro for printing the current date: Today is \*(DT. I find 'DT' referenced in the description of the ISODATE macro and nowhere else in the page (groff 1.22.4; the string is completely removed in the Git HEAD of contrib/mm/groff_mm.7.man), yet it works just fine. IMO it should be included in the "strings used in mm" subsection. Is there a reason why it is not and why its mention has been removed completely rather than expanded? One drawback to MM is the lack of native super/subscript macros. However, I lifted the superscript formulas from s.tmac and include their definitions at the top of my letterhead file, appropriately named SUP/SUPX as borrowed from MOM. ;-) Thanks again. -- "The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears this is true." Web: https://www.n0nb.us Projects: https://github.com/N0NB GPG fingerprint: 82D6 4F6B 0E67 CD41 F689 BBA6 FB2C 5130 D55A 8819
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