Subject: Linux-Activists - DOC Channel digest. 93-4-11-2:57
From: "Linux Activists" <[email-masked]>
To: "Linux-Activists" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 May 1993 10:54:16 +0300

Topics:
	 outline for printing FAQ
	 Possible solution to ASCII problems

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From: [email-masked] (Grant Taylor)
Subject: outline for printing FAQ
Date: Tue, 11 May 1993 05:03:02 +0300

well, there was one person who said a printing faq was in order, and
0 people who said me nay, so here is a quick and dirty outline of such a
beast.  

it is not currently in the traditional faq format, i think there is a
certain minimal amount of knowledge people should have about unix
printing/formatting/previewing/text processing/etc so they really
should just read it rather than grep for things.

feel free to offer suggestions, opinions, ixnays, etc...
and of course, to fill in the blanks.

also, i think this should stay in ascii, since the info here should be
absorbed before the newbie tries to deal with anything beyond text, or
we'll never hear the end of it.  (we've already heard the beginning :)

-grant

PRINTING:

easiest thing to print: 

ascii, cat blargh >/dev/lp1

some printers (HP deskjet, etc) want dos-style neline+cr's, mention
the little sed script that would be handy here _________

most any form of formatted output in unix can be printed via ps, so
getting a convenient way to print ps on your system set up is a big
plus.  this would be gs.  lpr is also very handy.

list gs 2.6 printer support.  mention gs options.  basic form is:

cat silly.ps | (gs -q -sDevice=djet500 -OutputFile=- -) >/dev/lp1

putting the thing in parenthesis in a little script file and using as
if= in printcap gives a 'postscript printer' 
hf=false doesn't work for
me and programs don't say -h, make lpr a script file as well:

#!/bin/sh
real.lpr -h $*

with a 'ps' printer as above, just send any old ps into lpr and forget
about it.  worth the trouble!

man pages/groff most man packages can be buggerrd into typesetting man
pages somehow with the -t option.  i prefer groff -Tdvi, the usual
default on linux seems to be -Tps.  the perl man, in particular makes
this very easy to change (that was a recommendation, kids :).  the
other man does as well with a recompilation (or very clever edit of
binary:() THUS!  man -t foobar|lpr will print a man page in ps
assuming you have if=<a gs script>.

mpage
i recommend the package mpage
(wuarchive:/pub/mirrors/unix-c/printing/mpage.tar-z, approx.)
for general use.  man -t foobar|mpage will send a 2-up version of the man
page to lpr and it's ps interpreter.  this saves paper etc.

a2ps 's function is done, but not as well also by mpage. when given
ascii input, they output postscript with the input two up.  useful for
printing ascii into a ps -expecting lpr (and does nicer output anyway.

tex/dvi
here's the can of worms!
dvi files are the output form of TeX, a typesetting package used
primarily in academic circles.  it does beutiful output and so on.
to print dvi, use dvips.  a properly configured dvips will spawn lpr
so that `dvips file.dvi' does it all.  configure your lpr in
(somewhere)/config.ps (i think it is called)  popular options for you
deskjet types dvips -r1 file.dvi prints it backwards, or you can
probably put this in config.ps, too.
note that some .dvi's may include graphics in the dvips stage rather
than the tex stage of the game; if they are not found, you will get a
hole instead of a picture.  usually, pre-done documentaton in this
form has a makefile or script.  lilo docs are an example of this.

tex/latex
if all you are given is a file with a .tex ending, try either tex
file.tex or latex file.tex.  one of these is bound to work.  the you
have dvi.  (you may have to run it twice for indexing)

texinfo.
this is really just tex source which expects the format or macro file
texinfo.{tex,fmt} to be supported on your system.  PLEASE tell me the
sls throws texinfo.tex in somewhere.
just `tex thefile.texi[nfo]' and you should end up with either a dvi
or a dvi and a message telling you to do it again.  so do so if you
want an index.  from this point out it is just another dvi, to print
or preview as you see fit.

as you may have noticed, the single most useful program award goes to
ghostscript.  etc.

PREVIEWING
ghostview front end for gs.  does ps.  with gs 2.6, uses X fonts to
provide (i would think) legible output, which has been a failing in
the past relative to such things as sun's display-postscript-driven
psview.  

xdvi.  perfectly legible previewing with very nice zoom+pan feature.
for dvi.  will not interpret ps specials, etc.  xdvi file.dvi.  mine
has the selfile feature, xdvi puts up a browser... cute but useless.

gxditview.  produces a preview version of troff source using X fonts
(this means it's legible and typeset-looking.)  called by groff if you
do:
`groff -TX100 -mandoc man_page.1'
-TX75 is the same thing, but tiny.  does the sls have a working one
now?  i built my own since sls circa 98 was mostly broken :)
(not that i don't like the sls, it's the premeire way to get started
linuxing.)

things not for X?  gs comes with pc vid hardware drivers, but under
unix not a good thing.  did anyone bother with vgalib? 

get things to ascii:  lametex (not quite done) catdvi (i think it's
called) never worked satifactorily for me.  tex is mostly legible.
texinfo makes emacs info files under emacs, these are fine once you
get used to them just so you never have to find out a specific fact
(the indexes are designed to not have whatever i happed to be looking
for:)  *roff source will become formatted ascii easily enough.

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From: [email-masked] (Tom Schenk)
Subject: Possible solution to ASCII problems
Date: Tue, 11 May 1993 07:45:39 +0300

A lot of time seems to be wasted in the Linux community with the most annoying
flame wars.

As a possible solution to the people complaining about the format of the docs,
I offer the following:

I will mail to anyone interested a uuencoded tar file containing ASCII versions
(produced with dvitty) of any docs that they wish to peruse.  These docs will
not contain any fancy formatting commands or any formatting at all for that 
matter, but since it has been stated that they are to be used simply for
editing purposes, they should suffice.

The people requesting the docs may then proceed to make any comments, deletions,
or additions that they feel are necessary and mail them back to me.  

I will then attempt to incorporate the changes back into the LaTeX source so
that I can produce a diff to send back to the author.  (I don't know LaTeX yet,
but look on this as an opportunity to learn it while making a contribution to
the project.)  Hopefully, I won't screw up the sources too much and the author
can make some use of the diffs I send.

I repeat, I will mail the dvitty produced docs to ANYONE who requests them, for
whatever purpose, but the main purpose is to encourage those who (for whatever
reason) who don't have TeX capabilities to participate.

Comments on this idea are welcome.  (Flames too -- I'm flame resistant).

Tom
---                         /|
Thomas Schenk            \~o.O'        Internet:  [email-masked]
Programmer               =(___)=            or    [email-masked]
Corpus Christi State        U          BITNET:    [email-masked]    
University           Ack! Thpptpht!    Fidonet:   Thomas Schenk at 1:160/1.99

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