[9fans] troff fonts with special characters

[9fans] troff fonts with special characters

[Rudolf Sykora]

Hello,

I've been trying to regularly use troff for my writings. Being a
physicist I generally write a lot of math. What I miss quite often are
special math characters like Dirac brackets, in TeX \langle, \rangle
(so far I've replaced them just with < and >; but then I sometimes
need them bigger...), but also others.
I want to ask if somebody tried to add such characters using some
fonts or at least can give some instructions as to what needs to be
done.

If I understand right, troff only needs to know widths of characters,
i.e. /sys/lib/troff/font/devutf/'font_description'. Is that all troff
needs?

Then I need to both somehow see the characters on screen and get them
to the postscript result, i.e. have a real font file for both.
Is there any documentation about how this should be done?
Is there anywhere any documentation about how 'dpost' (tr2post) works?

Thanks
Ruda

Re: [9fans] troff fonts with special characters

[Rudolf Sykora]

Hello,

this starts to be daunting...

When I use troff with the R font, troff uses metrics from /sys/lib/troff/font/R.
Then something, when dpost -f is running, must take the real glyphs
and put them into the final ps.
I guess that something must read /sys/lib/postscript/troff/R to find
out that characters 0-0xFF are now from Times-Roman while above (at
least to 0x25FF) are from LucidaSansUnicodeXX (XX=01--25). Finally ps
is somehow generated (btw. there is no man page for neither
aux/tr2post, nor addpsfonts).

Now, if I want to add some characters which I miss in troff
(mathematics, like U27E8) while using Times-Roman for basic text, it
seems I have to
- find some font that covers my characters
- get the metrics (widths) of my characters (afm2troff.c for T1, some
other tool for TrueType, OpenType)
- add the metrics for troff (e.g. add characters to /sys/lib/troff/font/R)
- add an entry to the table in /sys/lib/postscript/troff/R saying the
name of the new font
- put the font somewhere where gs will find it
- find some bitmap font so that I can also see the characters on
screen, or produce such with ttf2subf
- prey :)

This, if it's really so, sounds really above my powers...
Am I wrong?

Thanks
Ruda

Re: [9fans] troff fonts with special characters

[Russ Cox]

That sounds about right, unfortunately.
You might be better off just using TeX.
It's better at math, it runs on Plan 9,
and your colleagues who don't use
Plan 9 will still be able to collaborate
on documents with you.

Russ

Re: [9fans] troff fonts with special characters

[Rudolf Sykora]

On 12 September 2010 00:18, Russ Cox <rsc@swtch.com> wrote:
> That sounds about right, unfortunately.
> You might be better off just using TeX.
> It's better at math, it runs on Plan 9,
> and your colleagues who don't use
> Plan 9 will still be able to collaborate
> on documents with you.
>
> Russ

Thanks for the answer.
I've actually used TeX and LaTeX for more than 15 years. LaTeX is de
facto standard for physics journals.
But for private work LaTeX is a no-way for me --- plain TeX is much
simpler without illegible complex macros.
When acquianted with troff, tbl, eqn, grap, pic, I started to like
their simplicity, smallness. And basically I can do almost all my work
with them.

Ok. I will have to think. Maybe TeX really is the right choice for me now.

But, generally. If troff in plan9 is to be a serious tool in the
future, the procedure must be simplified, I believe. I think that
plan9 troff should be able to use (read metrics) from otf/t1/ttf fonts
(like the Heirloom troff can).

Thank you
Ruda

Re: [9fans] troff fonts with special characters

[Akshat]

If you like the cleanliness and simplicity of troff files for writing
papers, and would like to avoid the hideousness of TeX, then you might
want to try Lout. I ported it to Plan 9 earlier this year and just
copied it to my contrib: contrib/akumar/lout.tgz


Best of luck,
ak

On Sep 12, 2010, at 2:25, Rudolf Sykora <rudolf.sykora@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 12 September 2010 00:18, Russ Cox <rsc@swtch.com> wrote:
>> That sounds about right, unfortunately.
>> You might be better off just using TeX.
>> It's better at math, it runs on Plan 9,
>> and your colleagues who don't use
>> Plan 9 will still be able to collaborate
>> on documents with you.
>>
>> Russ
>
> Thanks for the answer.
> I've actually used TeX and LaTeX for more than 15 years. LaTeX is de
> facto standard for physics journals.
> But for private work LaTeX is a no-way for me --- plain TeX is much
> simpler without illegible complex macros.
> When acquianted with troff, tbl, eqn, grap, pic, I started to like
> their simplicity, smallness. And basically I can do almost all my work
> with them.
>
> Ok. I will have to think. Maybe TeX really is the right choice for
> me now.
>
> But, generally. If troff in plan9 is to be a serious tool in the
> future, the procedure must be simplified, I believe. I think that
> plan9 troff should be able to use (read metrics) from otf/t1/ttf fonts
> (like the Heirloom troff can).
>
> Thank you
> Ruda
>

Re: [9fans] troff fonts with special characters

[Rudolf Sykora]

On 12 September 2010 20:25, Akshat <akumar@mail.nanosouffle.net> wrote:
> If you like the cleanliness and simplicity of troff files for writing
> papers, and would like to avoid the hideousness of TeX, then you might want
> to try Lout. I ported it to Plan 9 earlier this year and just copied it to
> my contrib: contrib/akumar/lout.tgz
>
>
> Best of luck,
> ak

Thanks for the idea.
Actually I was considering this a while ago. I even printed out the
manual.(I have lout in linux.)
However, from what I read there I gained the feeling that
-- it doesn't know utf (thus you can't really just write a single
letter 'alpha' as you can in troff)
-- it somehow seems to be an 'all together software' (as opposed to
tbl/pic/eqn/...), which I don't like.
-- the syntax for writing math is more complicated than in eqn. The
syntax is rather closer to TeX, which I wanted to avoid, though the
results, I feel, are no better than eqn's.
True, I haven't actually tried the software much. May be that I am
also wrong in some points.

Well, don't take me wrong. I have not much against (plain)TeX. When I
was about 15 and got a printed version of TeXBook, METAFONT, I was
amazed. Its documentation can't be better (nothing to compare to
anything). The algorithms are superior. It's not so big either
(although today's distributions are horrible, >1GB [this I really
hate]; but the core, as someone here is trying to put up, is fine; I
mean KerTeX or what). It's only that troff is even much simpler and
yet good enough. And also that the notation is much more human. Making
a table with tbl or a simple graph with grap is a pleasure. Equations
written for eqn can be read back from the source, without seeing
millions of \\\\\\\.This is, I would say, what totally grabbed me. And
the documentation as written by Kernighan is also awesome --- short,
answers many potential questions right away, explains things clearly.
This is why I also like plan 9, generally (though almost whatever I
try doesn't work). TeX is very 'strict', precise; but you must have a
good knowledge of it to talk it into something. Troff is more
straightforward, simpler, and is more fun, some things are playful,
e.g. traps.

Thanks
Ruda

Re: [9fans] troff fonts with special characters

[Akshat]

You are right in that Lout cannot handle non-ASCII input, which is
something that kept me from using it much, as well. However, the
overall approach to the syntax and what not is much nicer than TeX.
Also, I would argue that Lout has much nicer output than both, troff
and TeX.

On Sep 12, 2010, at 12:38, Rudolf Sykora <rudolf.sykora@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On 12 September 2010 20:25, Akshat <akumar@mail.nanosouffle.net>
> wrote:
>> If you like the cleanliness and simplicity of troff files for writing
>> papers, and would like to avoid the hideousness of TeX, then you
>> might want
>> to try Lout. I ported it to Plan 9 earlier this year and just
>> copied it to
>> my contrib: contrib/akumar/lout.tgz
>>
>>
>> Best of luck,
>> ak
>
> Thanks for the idea.
> Actually I was considering this a while ago. I even printed out the
> manual.(I have lout in linux.)
> However, from what I read there I gained the feeling that
> -- it doesn't know utf (thus you can't really just write a single
> letter 'alpha' as you can in troff)
> -- it somehow seems to be an 'all together software' (as opposed to
> tbl/pic/eqn/...), which I don't like.
> -- the syntax for writing math is more complicated than in eqn. The
> syntax is rather closer to TeX, which I wanted to avoid, though the
> results, I feel, are no better than eqn's.
> True, I haven't actually tried the software much. May be that I am
> also wrong in some points.
>
> Well, don't take me wrong. I have not much against (plain)TeX. When I
> was about 15 and got a printed version of TeXBook, METAFONT, I was
> amazed. Its documentation can't be better (nothing to compare to
> anything). The algorithms are superior. It's not so big either
> (although today's distributions are horrible, >1GB [this I really
> hate]; but the core, as someone here is trying to put up, is fine; I
> mean KerTeX or what). It's only that troff is even much simpler and
> yet good enough. And also that the notation is much more human. Making
> a table with tbl or a simple graph with grap is a pleasure. Equations
> written for eqn can be read back from the source, without seeing
> millions of \\\\\\\.This is, I would say, what totally grabbed me. And
> the documentation as written by Kernighan is also awesome --- short,
> answers many potential questions right away, explains things clearly.
> This is why I also like plan 9, generally (though almost whatever I
> try doesn't work). TeX is very 'strict', precise; but you must have a
> good knowledge of it to talk it into something. Troff is more
> straightforward, simpler, and is more fun, some things are playful,
> e.g. traps.
>
> Thanks
> Ruda
>

Re: [9fans] troff fonts with special characters

[Jeff Sickel]

On Sep 11, 2010, at 5:18 PM, Russ Cox wrote:

> That sounds about right, unfortunately.
> You might be better off just using TeX.
> It's better at math, it runs on Plan 9,
> and your colleagues who don't use
> Plan 9 will still be able to collaborate
> on documents with you.

Has anyone experimented with using TeX to generate equations, store them as .eps, and then insert them into troff in some way that makes:

.BP eqn1.eps
.EP

look like

.EQ (1)
sqrt{ {x sup 2 + x + 1} over {x - 1}}
.EN

Only without the broken font/line drawing when converted from postscript to pdf?

Convoluted I know, but it sure would make $\sqrt{ {{x^2 + x + 1}\over {x-1}} }$ look more acceptable in a PDF generated on Plan 9 from troff source.

-jas

Re: [9fans] troff fonts with special characters

[ron minnich]

On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 7:05 AM, Jeff Sickel <jas@corpus-callosum.com> wrote:

> Has anyone experimented with using TeX to generate equations, store them as .eps, and then insert them into troff in some way that makes:
>
> .BP eqn1.eps
> .EP
>
> look like
>
> .EQ (1)
> sqrt{ {x sup 2 + x + 1} over {x - 1}}
> .EN
>
> Only without the broken font/line drawing when converted from postscript to pdf?
>
> Convoluted I know, but it sure would make $\sqrt{ {{x^2 + x + 1}\over {x-1}} }$ look more acceptable in a PDF generated on Plan 9 from troff source.

now you're getting silly :-)

ron

Re: [9fans] troff fonts with special characters

[erik quanstrom]

> .EQ (1) sqrt{ {x sup 2 + x + 1} over {x - 1}} .EN
>
> Only without the broken font/line drawing when converted from
> postscript to pdf?
>
> Convoluted I know, but it sure would make $\sqrt{ {{x^2 + x + 1}\over
> {x-1}} }$ look more acceptable in a PDF generated on Plan 9 from troff
> source.

i know i did something with this.  i think i was convinced
that part of the problem was eqn was using the wrong font.

- erik