[TUHS] Troff to ps

[arnold at skeeve.com]

There was a different psroff posted to comp.sources.unix volume 20;
that's what I was referring to.

Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:

> psroff was part of the Transcript FWIW.  It was the moral equi to the UCB
> command vtroff which did the call to troff -t ... | vcat
>
> BTW: I just peeked,  on Disk 4  of Kirk's archives are the source to both
> ditroff and Adobe's transcript in the 'local' directory.
>
> I would suggest starting with transcript, copying to your system and typing
> 'make'
> That will allow the BSD troff stuff to 'just work' us pscat/psroff/enscript
> et al.
>
> This is how most sites that did not spring for a ditroff license worked
> with their Apple Laserwriters or later PS printers.
>
> Then if you want to do the same thing with ditroff, that should 'just
> compile' and build and you replace troff with ditroff.
>
> On Sun, Jul 26, 2020 at 11:38 AM <arnold at skeeve.com> wrote:
>
> > Some web searching turns up something called 'psroff' from the late 80s
> > or so that will convert C/A/T to postscript. Google 'psroff source' and
> > you should find something you can use.
> >
> > Arnold
> >
> > arnold at skeeve.com wrote:
> >
> > > Will Senn <will.senn at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > My questions:
> > > > 1. Is there a troff to postcript conversion utility present in a stock
> > > > 2.11 system (or even patch level 4xx system)?
> > >
> > > Troff from that era was designed to drive the C/A/T phototypesetter.
> > > There were tools that converted from C/A/T to postscript but they
> > > were mostly commercial IIRC.
> > >
> > > > 2. Is there a way to build postscript directly on the system?
> > >
> > > Likely not.
> > >
> > > > 3. Is there an alternative modern way to get to ps or pdf output from
> > > > the nroff/troff that 2.11 has?
> > >
> > > I would recommend tar-ing up the doc and macros, moving them to Linux
> > > or other modern system, and using groff -C to create postscript/pdf.
> > > That really will be the fastest way.
> > >
> > > Arnold
> >