From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net>
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2010 08:25:48 -0400
To: 9fans@9fans.net
Message-ID: <0474a0c17b4e77d88670c1573d77d7b6@plug.quanstro.net>
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Subject: Re: [9fans] plan9port troff no Greek letters
Topicbox-Message-UUID: 58f11d28-ead6-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025

<rudolf.sykora@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> my plan9 machine has broken down and I need to continue working.
> I use troff with math. When I tried to typeset my text under plan9port
> (instead of the native plan9) with
>
> cat $stem.ms |9 pic|9 eqn|9 troff -ms|9 tr2post | 9 psfonts >$stem.ps
>
> I can't see any Greek letters.
> Is there sth. simple to do?

good question.  there seems to be something wrong with the troff
setup on p9p, at least on my machine

	echo αβδγ '\(*a' | 9 troff -ms | page
looks something like
	±²³ αβ
on my machine, so it doesn't appear to be a font problem, it appears
to be a mapping problem.

perhaps you could work around with

	... | sed 's/α/\(*a/g
		...
		s/Ω/\(*W/g' | ...

i thought this used to work, but my c.a. 1995 executable has the same
problem.  and since troff does the right thing natively on my 32-bit
rune system, it's not a 32-bit rune problem.

> PS.: Does anyone of you know if it is possible to teach linux to read
> unicode letters as plan9 does? I mean e.g. alt+*+a means alpha, etc.

i've been using utf-8 on unix since ~1992.  sam, 9term and the no-longer
new acme do a fine job.  in the old days, there were few problems at all
with this (execept for the occasional grep snafu).  now that unix tools are
so much "smarter", it's harder to outwit them but it still works pretty well.

the good news is we have replacements in the form of p9p programs.
the bad news is you have to remember to use them.  and there's always
the question of which grep are you running where.

- erik