Re: [Groff] Introduction

[Deri James]

On Thursday 20 Oct 2005 19:46, Larry Kollar wrote:
> Is anyone collecting the "reasons for using groff" that have been
> going by in this thread? Such a collection would be a fine beginning
> to an advocacy/"Why Use groff" chapter in UTP (or a standalone web
> page). I'd be particularly interested in seeing James Deri send in a
> write-up about his monster print jobs. (We could put that under a
> heading like, "Scale THIS!" :-D)

My "monster" print jobs are client valuations for a Stockbroker. Groff is used 
in the final stage to actually typeset the report, including a barcode on 
each page to control the "finishing" at the printers, (i.e. Envelope closure, 
mailbag switching - output is mail sorted to reduce postage costs).

The system uses data from 3 sources: the raw data to go in the report, one or 
more Templates (similar to CSS) which describe the "look" of the report, and 
a simple procedural language similar to FileTab/FTL6 which controls the logic 
and structure of the report. These 3 elements are then combined/sorted into 
a .trf file and converted to postscript by groff.

Cheers

Deri