Re: [Groff] moving TOC to start

[Tadziu Hoffmann]

> does anyone have any simple methods for placing the table of contents
> at the start of the output file ?
> 
> I have done it manually with Postscript output and should be able to
> script that, but if anyone has other suggestions I would appreciate
> hearing from them.

I think manipulating the intermediate output given to the device
postprocessor is easier than manipulating the final device code
(ps, in your case).  Something like this:

  groff -ww -b -Tps -Z [other options] [*roff-file] |
    sed -f shuffle.sed | grops >[ps-file]
  rm troff.sort

with shuffle.sed being:

  #!/bin/sed -f

  /^p1$/s/p1/# -- cut here --/
  /^# -- cut here --$/,/^# -- cut here --$/w troff.sort
  /^# -- cut here --$/,/^# -- cut here --$/c\
  p1
  /^x trailer$/d
  /^x stop$/{
  s/.*/p1/
  r troff.sort
  a\
  x trailer\
  x stop
  }

Note that this particular program works only if page number 1
appears twice in the document.  Everything from the second
page 1 to the end of the file is moved to the beginning.
I usually set the page number back to 1 on the title page
and set the number format to roman (so that the title page
is page i), and format the table of contents at the very end,
like this:

  [page 1] [page 2] ... [last page] [page i] [page ii] ... [contents]

which gets shuffled to

  [page i] [page ii] ... [contents] [page 1] [page 2] ... [last page]

Thus all the front matter has roman page numbers and the "real"
content has arabic page numbers.