troff Typesetting for UNIX™ Systems

This aptly named book is your key to making the most of a new office productivity tool — typesetting software. It focuses on the troff typesetting program.

Some of the benefits of self-service typesetting includes the professional look of typeset documents such as resumes, proposals, reports, handbooks, pamphlets, and other literature; faster turnaround time; decreased production costs; high-quality copy; and control of the design concepts. Flexible UNIX^™ typesetting programs allow for special-purpose formats to be developed in minutes.

This book is a practical introduction for anyone using a UNIX system for document preparation. Some background in the UNIX system plus a knowledge of one of the standard UNIX editors is needed to use this book effectively.

Among its features, this book:

• presents terminology related to the troff program
• illustrates the basic troff requests with one or more examples
• explores troff with step-by-step descriptions of how to write your own macros
• describes device-independent troff

Of special interest are Appendices including a list of UNIX typesetting services, reference charts of the troff number registers, escape sequences, and requests, and a discussion of how to write nroff driving tables.

1. The Development of Self-Service Typesetting
• Computers and Self-Service Typesetting
• How to Do It Yourself
• How troff Creates a Self-Service Typesetting System
• History and Overview of troff
• Making troff Easier with Macros
• Reasons for Using a Standard Macro Package
• Predictability
• Protection
• High-level Language
• Should you write your own macro package?
• Learning to think like a typesetter
• Device-Independent troff: Better than Ever
• Problems with troff
• Why the user interface is slow to change
• Will troff Be Replaced by a Commercial Package?
2. Learning to Do Your Own Typesetting
• Typesetting and Programming
• Introduction to Formatting Concepts
• Formatting and Typesetting Terminology
• Filling and adjusting
• Letterspacing
• Distance and troff
• Horizontal measurement
• Defaults, initial values, and previous values
• Number arguments
• Summary Chart of troff Units of Measure
• Other horizontal page dimension
• How nroff treats spacing
• Character size
• Vertical spacing
• Fonts and styles
• troff Formatting: A Two-Step Process
• Editing files for typesetting
• The formatting process
• What you see is what you guessed
3. troff Revealed: The Most Popular primitives
• How troff Works
• Styles of Commands
• Looking at troff input
• In-line requests
• Escape sequences
• Syntax for Requests, Strings, and Number Registers
• troff Speaks: Number Registers
• Arithmetic Expressions
• String Registers
• Getting Hands On
• A Simple Document Using Some Common troff Commands
• Formatted Output of the Resume
• Effect of adding one more request
• Formatting Command Lines
• Formatting to the screen
• Formatting to a printer
• How troff reads files
• How to Read the Rest of This Book
• Line Control Requests
• Text Filling, Adjusting, and Centering Requests
• .fi — fill
• .nf — no fill
• .br — break
• .ad — adjust
• .na — no adjust
• .ce — center
• Escape sequences affecting filling and adjusting
• Indentation and Line Length Requests
• .in — indent
• .ti — temporary indent
• .ll — line length
• Hyphenation Requests
• .hy — hyphenation mode
• .nh — no hyphenation
• .hc — hyphenation character
• .hw — exception words
• Page Control Requests
• .pl — page length
• .pn — page number
• .po page offset
• .bp — begin page
• .ne — need vertical space
• .ne in diversions
• .sv — save vertical space
• .os — output saved vertical space
• Vertical Spacing Requests
• .vs — vertical space
• .ls — line spacing
• .sp — space
• Blank line
• .mk — mark vertical place
• .rt — return to marked vertical place
• Some previewing tips
• Three-part Title Requests
• .tl — three-part title
• .lt — length of title
• .pc — set page number character
• Font and Character Size Control
• .fp — font position
• .ft — font
• Minute spacing adjustments
• .ps — point size
• Tabs and Leaders
• .ta — set tab stop
• .tc — tab repetition character
• .lc — leader repetition character
• Using \t and \a for tabs and leaders
• Input/Output Requests and File Switching
• Other File Requests
• .so — source
• .nx — next
• .ex — exit
• .rd — read insertion
• Form Letters
• .tm — terminal message
• .pi — pipe
4. Introduction to Writing Macros
• Introduction to Writing Macros
• Programming troff
• Number Registers and Strings
• Naming strings and number registers
• Traps, Conditionals, Diversions, and Environments
• Traps
• Conditionals
• Diversions
• Environments
• Macros
• The New Page Macro Revisited
• Macros and copy mode
• Using Number Registers
• Defining Number Registers
• .nr — number register
• Storing non-integer values in number registers
• Doing Arithmetic with Number Registers
• Read-only number registers
• Anomalies
• Counters and Extra Tricks
• Registers as counters
• Dynamic creation of number registers
• .af — assign format
• .rr — remove register
• Strings
• .ds — define string
• .as — append string
• .rm — remove string, macro, or request
• .rn — rename
• Conditional Acceptance of Input Requests
• .if — if
• Doing arithmetic in conditionals
• Multi-line conditional
• Logical (Boolean) operators
• Using strings in conditionals
• .ie — if else
• .el — else
• Using Different Environments
• .ev — environment switching
• Titles, headers, and environments
• Pushing and popping
• Diversions
• .di — divert text
• Testing for diversion in conditionals
• .da — divert append
• Diversion traps
• Setting and Springing Traps
• .wh — when
• .ch — change trap location
• .dt — diversion trap
• .it — input line count trap
• Defining Macros
• .de — define macro
• .am — append macro
• .em — end macro
• .rm — remove
• .rn — rename
• Making Your Own Macros
• Writing A Simple Macro
• How to Use Macros
• A "Keep" Macro
• Diversions
• How to Write More Complex Macros
• Advance planning
• The bibliography-entry unit
• The page unit
• The section unit
• Keeping entries together
• Additional Requests and Escape Sequences
5. Additional Requests and Escape Sequences
• Local Vertical and Horizontal Motions
• Local Vertical Motion
• \v'N' — vertical motion
• \x'N' — pry apart output lines
• Local Horizontal Motion
• Adjusting Horizontal Spacing
• Overstriking
• Special characters and accents
• The width and horizontal mark functions
• Line Drawing and Bracket Building
• Horizontal lines
• Drawing vertical lines
• Bracket-building functions
• Additional Styling Requests
• Character Spacing
• .cs — constant character space
• .ss — set space character
• Artificial Emboldening
• .bd — embolden
• Special Underlining Features
• .ul — underline
• .uf — set underline font
• .cu — continuous underline
• Ligatures
• .lg — ligature mode
• Escape and Control Characters Requests
• .cc — reset break control character
• .c2 — reset no-break control character
• .ec — set escape character
• .eo — escape off
• Output Line Numbering
• .nm — line number mode
• .nn — suspend numbering
• Inserting Characters in the Right Margin
• .mc — margin character
• No-space Mode
• .ns — Set no-space mode
• .rs — Restore spacing
• Miscellaneous Requests
• .fc — field character
• .tr — translate characters
• .fl — flush output buffer
• .ab — abort processing
• .co — compact macros
• .ig — ignore macros
• .pm — print macros
6. Typesetting with a Macro Package
• Typesetting with a Macro Package
• Where to Find a Macro Package
• How to Modify a Macro Package
• The ms Macros
• How to Use the ms Macros
• Default Formatting with ms
• For more information
• Initailisation
• ms number registers and parameters
• ms's 'reset to normal'
• Changing number registers and parameters
• ms String Registers
• How to Change Values in ms String Registers
• Changing the date
• Differences between nroff and troff with ms
• Major Macros of ms
• Title and Author
• Abstracts and released paper format
• Paragraphs
• Section headings
• Numbered headings
• Keeps, Display, and Footnotes
• Keeps
• Displays
• Footnotes
• Style and Special Features
• Boldface and italics
• Size changes
• Underlining
• Accent marks
• Boxes
• Multi-column output
• Typesetting galleys
• Special Document Formats
• Reference Chart of ms Macros
• The mm Macros
• Availability of the mm Package
• Distinguishing Characteristics of the mm Package
• Documentation
• Accommodating the larger size of the mm package
• Separating nroff from troff versions
• Compacting macros
• Removing Bell Labs features
• Highlights of mm
• Command line options
• Don't Tread on Me
• Multiple choice
• What kind of foo am I?
• mm default settings
• How mm Interferes with Formatting a Simple Document
• Tables of Contents, Footnotes, and References
• Footnotes and Footers
• References
• Summary
• The man Macros
• Pad that skeleton
• Using the man macros
7. Preprocessor and Post-processor Programs
• Fancy Formatting with troff's Co-processor Programs
• Using the Preprocessors
• Making Tables with tbl
• How tbl works
• The Parts of a Table
• Global options
• tab(x) and delim (xy)
• The format description lines
• Writing format description lines
• Numerical data
• Changing column formats in mid-table
• Additional format specifications
• Last but Not Least — the Data!
• Long input lines
• Text blocks
• Specifying widths for text blocks
• troff commands within tables
• A Few Words of Encouragement
• Sample Tables
• How to Format Equations
• Using eqn
• Example of Equation Input
• Formatting Multi-Line Equations
• Equation Processing Command Lines
• Command Line Options
• Setting Fonts and Sizes for Equations
• troff Requests and Literals
• Local Motions, Piles, and Matrices
• Supplemental Equation Characters
• Post-processor Filters
8. Putting It All Together
• Preview and Production Techniques
• Formatting Command Lines
• Options
• Options specific to troff
• Pipelines
• Multiple files
• Grooming the Input
• Checking input
• Previewing Output
• Making Repairs
• Document Maintenance
• Final Printing and Production
• Using makefiles for document control
• Some Useful Macros for Indexes and Footnotes
• (Semi) Automated Indexing
• The Macro
• Redirecting the output
• Using the sort Utility
• The awk script
• A Macro to Format an Index into Two Columns
• How the traps work
• The titling macro
• Transparent throughput
• A transparent enhancement: indexing in a diversion
9. Implementing Device-Independent troff
• What This Chapter Covers
• Developing Device-Independent troff
• Characteristics of Device-Independent troff
• Summary of Device-Independent troff
• Device description files
• Font width tables
• Device drivers
• Change in Internal Character Representation
• What Happens when You Say ditroff?
• What the DESC File Looks Like
• Font Files
• Orders in which font files are searched
• Improving troff Performance
• WIZARD
• SoftQuad
• xroff for Laser Printgers
• Writing a driving table for a laser printer
• Where to Get Device-Independent troff

1. A Directory of UNIX Typesetting Services
2. Requests, Escapes, and Number Registers
3. Writing Driving Tables for nroff

This is a good introduction on how you write your own macro packages for troff. Not that anybody care today…