Re: [Groff] README.A4 in Red Hat.

[Werner LEMBERG]

From: Ralph Corderoy <address@hidden>
Subject: [Groff] README.A4 in Red Hat.
Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 23:05:23 +0100

> comp.text had an `A4 paper with groff' question that referred to a
> README.A4 file which said DESC's paperlength needed changing, fine, and
> unitwidth should also be altered.  I'd not heard the unitwidth bit
> before.
> 
>     http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=ued12o21tng56b%40corp.supernews.com
> 
> It seems Red Hat added README.A4 in response to this bug report.
> 
>     http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=8276
> 
> What's the panels' view on the validity of this README?

This is in the INSTALL file:

  If you want A4 or letter paper format and the configure script
  produces an incorrect guess, say

    PAGE=xxx ./configure

  where `xxx' should be either `A4' or `letter'.  Note that this will
  only affect the paper selection for grops.  For compatibility with
  ditroff, the default page length in gtroff is always 11 inches.  The
  page length can be changed with the `pl' request.

Selecting A4 paper at run-time isn't possible currently; you have to
manually change to value in the DESC file.

[I will add an option -p to grops to select the paper format.]

If you add `-ma4' in front of your macro package while calling groff,
the page and line lengths are set to correct values.

Changing the `unitwidth' parameter doesn't make sense at all.  It has
never been designed to horizontally compress input data.

Please fix this in the RedHat distribution (in case it has become part
of it) -- it will lead to a bunch of bug reports of desparate users
who can't find out the reason.


   Werner