Re: <OK> [Groff] poll: which macro packages are in common use / and why.

[M Bianchi]

Robert,

I use (an ever so slightly customized version of) mm, mostly because I learned
it thoroughly during the 1970s and 80s, kept current during the 90s, and was
never really seduced by the WYSIWYG document formaters.  Besides, I compute
many of my documents:
        data -> program -> ( [nt]roff + macros ) -> PostScript -> PDF

So my motivation is I know mm (and man) in my spine and I've internalized a lot
of the weirdness that survives.  (I really thank whoever put N-character names
into the roffs.  That was the biggest annoyance.)

If I had to start over, I would look real hard at mom.  The definition of
"compatability" is "all bugs perserved."  I would want to see if mom had a
better model and fewer left-over odditites.
                                                        Mike Bianchi

On Thu, Sep 23, 2004 at 10:45:06AM +0200, Klaus Robert Suetterlin wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> the short story is:  I want to poll who is using which macro
> package, why, and for what.  For example all You ms-hackers out
> there how do You do cross references?  Anyone doing articles or
> reports regularly -- which macro package?
> 
> Regards, Robert S.
> 
> long:
> 
> I want to format report, article, book style material (for which I
> use TeX currently) with groff.  Don't talk me out of this, I really
> hate Tex, Latex and all the bloat around it.  I just cannot stand
> it any longer.
> 
> To format letters (and letters only) I have been using the groff_mm
> (modified mmse for german localisation) macro package for the last
> two years.  I have not used any other macro package, but looked at
> ms and mom currently.
> 
> I tried to identify the macro package that would fill my needs.
> These are mainly cross references, customisable headers and footers,
> bibliographic references (which can be done by use of external
> tools) and two column formatting.  Of mm, ms and mom, there seems to
> be only mm that has cross references.  ms seems to be quite far
> on the do it Yourself side of groff macros -- I'm not a typesetter
> or printer or macro-hacker and don't want to invent the wheel of
> page layout again, so I fear ms is not my way to go.
> 
> Yesterday I started using mm for this, which is a bit hard because there
> seems to be no user guides publicly available... the UTP beeing the
> best I could get, but it does not contain the big picture of mm
> (unlike for example mom's documentation).
> 
> Before I commit myself to really learning the mm way I wanted to
> poll who is using which macro package, why, and for what.

-- 
 Mike Bianchi
 Foveal Systems
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 Madison NJ  07940-1910

 +1 973 822-2085        Voice; call to arrange Fax

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