Re: [Groff] Introduction

[Keith MARSHALL]

Werner Lemberg wrote, quoting Larry McVoy:
>> And as the primary whiner on this topic, I'll volunteer to do the
>> work to convert the existing texinfo docs to roff.
>
> This is a great offer, but I wonder whether it makes sense to use
> the time you are willing to invest in a better way.
>
>  . I won't give up on groff.texinfo.  This consequently means that we
>    need a groff2texinfo converter (or groff2info to get the more
>    important info files) in case the source files are in groff
>    format.  Personally, I *really* like the indexing features of
>    `info' which are quite powerful.  I'm not aware of a different
>    indexing system which is freely available (but I must admit that I
>    haven't done an extensive search).
>
>    Writing such a script/program might be easy, but it probably
>    doubles the amount of time needed for a proper conversion.

It isn't difficult to conceive a groff macro package, which, when used
with `groff -Tascii -mroff2txi` for example, would spit out texinfo
source.

Indeed, before I embarked on the development of pdfmark.tmac, I did
create a rudimentary implementation, mimicking a subset of the ms
macros, which would do just that.  As proof of concept, it worked, but
the eventual output from texinfo, formatted as either PDF or HTML, was
of such disappointing quality, that I abandoned the idea.

The poor quality may, to some extent, have been due to my unfamiliarity
with texinfo, although more likely is that it just isn't really intended
for any purpose other than creating info files -- glaring errors in the
HTML output, such as `<h3>Heading Text</h5>` speaks volumes, IMHO.

Best regards,
Keith.