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From: Pietro Gagliardi <pietro10@mac.com>
Subject: Re: [9fans] A newbie question...
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 21:16:08 -0500
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@cse.psu.edu>
Topicbox-Message-UUID: 3e86a62c-ead3-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025

Do you know how to use the Acme editor? You use abaco in a similar  
fashion.

If you mean a full office suite like Microsoft Word/Excel/PowerPoint  
with a GUI interface, then no. But troff is easy to learn. Here's a  
rough tutorial for troff: troff documents are text files sent through  
the troff program and its preprocessors to get a document. For  
example, if you have a file named mydoc, the command
	troff mydoc | page
lets you preview your document, and
	troff mydoc | lp -dmyprinter
sends it to your printer, replacing myprinter with the device name,

troff is commonly used with a macro set, which defines formatting.  
The most common macro set is ms, created by Mike Lesk. To format a  
document with ms support:
	troff -ms mydoc | [output command]
Here is the structure of an ms document:
	.TL
	Title
	.AU
	Author
	.AB
	Abstract
	.AE
	.NH
	Numbered heading
	.PP
	Paragraph
	.IP \(bu
	Bulleted paragraph
	.IP 1.
	Numbered paragraph
	.IP 2.
	List item number 2
	.LP
	Left-aligned paragraph
	.SH
	Section heading
	.NH 2
	Level 2 numbered heading (1.1)
	.PP
	Text in
	.B bold
	and
	.I italic .

Lines beginning with a . are troff/ms commands. If your document has  
no abstract, use

	.AB no
	.AE

A preprocessor is filtered through before troff. For example, a  
document with tables, equations, and pictures uses the command line
	pic mydoc | tbl | eqn | troff -ms | [output program]
tbl, also by Mike Lesk, creates tables.
	.TS
	center, box;
	c s
	r l.
	Title of table
	_
	A	B
	C	D
	E	F
	.TE
The line
	center, box;
is obvious - it affects the whole table.
	c s
tells the first row to be centered and all columns spanned, and
	r l.
tells the rest of the rows to have a right-adjusted column and a left- 
adjusted column. Column data is separated by tabs. If a line is
	_
then a horizontal line is placed.

eqn formats equations.
	.EQ
	sum from n=1 to infinity { x sup 2 } ~ -> ~ { infinity sub n sup 2 }  
over 4n
	.EN
The ~ gives an explicit space, and { } perform grouping. Embedded  
equations are also supported:
	.EQ
	delim @@
	.EN
	.PP
	... the conversion factor from radians to degrees is @180 / pi@

pic is a simple picture language.
	.PS
	box "hello"
	arrow
	box "how" "are you?"
	box wid 2 "widths are" "in inches"
	arrow <->
	ellipse
	.PE

pic and eqn are by Brian Kernighan, and eqn was co-written by Lorinda  
Cherry. The official documentation for many of these tools can be  
found at:
- http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/cstr.html
- http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/papers.html
And again, see troff.org for more information:
	abaco http://www.troff.org/

To download a paper from the above,
1) Snarf the link. Snarf is to Plan 9 as copy is to Windows/Mac OS X/ 
Linux.
2) In a command line, type "hget " without hitting Enter.
3) Middle-click and choose "paste".
4) If the file is .ps.gz, type "| gunzip > x.ps" replacing x with the  
document's intended name. Otherwise, just say "> x.ps" or "> x.pdf".
5) Run page on the ps/pdf file.

On Jan 31, 2008, at 7:22 PM, Michael Andronov wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I'm a new to Plan9, and I am trying to understand the current  
> status of the system.
> In particular, I am wondering about the list of application available=
> - is there  email reader?
> - Web browser?
> - office like suite = document editor, spreadsheet?
> - is it possible to run Linux software under plan9?
>
> In other words, I am wondering if it is possible to switch to Plan  
> 9 system, and to use it as 'everyday machine'?
>
> Thank you for your kind attention to this matter.
>
> have a great day,
> Michael.
>