RE: [Groff] Groff editor.

[Karee, Srinivas]

This is existing code (groff) which I picked-up for the enhancement, I
cannot replace groff, there is quite a code which uses groff. I could
ask users to do that tag thing as you suggested but they do
ADDING/MODIFYING and DELETING lines/words and you know users they don't
want to write these tags.

I need to save the file as groff file after the editing because current
framework uses groff file to send the fax to customers and printing
work.

So even if I can convert groff to PDF or XML or PS file and let users
edit the file, I need a way to convert it back to groff file. Unless I
rewrite the code which uses groff file post editing.


Thanks,
Srini.


-----Original Message-----
From: Meg McRoberts [mailto:address@hidden 
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2007 2:39 PM
To: Karee, Srinivas; Clarke Echols
Cc: address@hidden
Subject: RE: [Groff] Groff editor.

Why do you need to maintain this as a groff file?  Perhaps if we
understood
that we could help you find a better solution.

I happen to love groff and I can code it very quickly.  What I have done
in
this situation is give the user the formatted ASCII file and tell them
to
edit it, sticking some string like "SRINI START" and "SRINI END" before
and
after any changes they make.  Then I manually make their changes to the
groff
source, inserting the appropriate codings.  It's basically the same
procedure
as if they hand-wrote comments on a formatted draft...

I think that converting the file to Docbook/XML would preserve the
bold/italic
fonts and probably most of the tables unless the tables were coded by
someone
who went crazy with the coding.  And it gives you a text source file
which is
very nice for source code control.  So you get a lot of the benefits of
groff
with a format for which there are tools like you want.

I haven't worked with the any PDF editing software but, theoretically,
it should retain all the formatting for you. I just googled "edit PDF
file"
and got some interesting hits -- software that converts PDF to XML (it's
shaded at the top of the list and that site seems to allow you to submit
a
test file for conversion for free to see the results).

Those of us on this list love groff and so I certainly don't mean to
discourage
you from learning it and joining us ;-)  However, the learning curve is
fairly
significant...   XML has many of the advantages of groff but editors
such as
XMetal (and others, and I haven't actually worked with any of them so
this is
not an endorsement -- google "XML editors" if you want to investigate)
give you
the ability to maintain the text-based source with visible formatting
and yet
have a WYSIWYG editor as an alternative to manual coding...

meg

--- "Karee, Srinivas" <address@hidden> wrote:

> This file does not contain any pics, it has some tables, I can covert
it
> to ascii (-Tascii) and show to the users. But my requirement is for
user
> to edit the file and I should able to save it back in groff format and
> use user edited (groff file) file for printing on the PS printer and
> sending fax.
> 
> Basically I cannot lose bold/italic/font and other stuff. I am new to
> groff, so I thought there could be some tools which I could buy and
> workout this requirement, but looks like there are no tools out there
> which I can use.
> 
> Srini.
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Meg McRoberts [mailto:address@hidden 
> Sent: Monday, August 20, 2007 2:03 PM
> To: Karee, Srinivas; Clarke Echols
> Cc: address@hidden
> Subject: RE: [Groff] Groff editor.
> 
> What sort of document is this?  Is it mostly text or are there
> a lot of tables, graphics, and such?
> 
> I can think of a few ways that one might get the content into
> some sort of WYSIWYG editor, but the fancier the formatting,
> the less satisfactory these will be:
> 
> - Run the text into formatted ASCII then import the formatted text
>   into Word or some other editor.  A command similar to the following
>   might work:
> 
>   groff -mandoc -stC -Tascii <filename>| col -b > <filename>.txt
> 
>   This is for man page source -- replace -mandoc with the appropriate
>   string if the document is using a different set of macros.
> 
>   You will loose all bold/italic and lots of other stuff but it will
>   get you text that does not show the formatting characters.
> 
> - Run the text into PDF and then try a PDF editor.  I know that
> Broderbund
>   is selling such an editor but I haven't used it.  The following
> commands
>   will create PDF from a groff file (these are the commands I use --
> perhaps
>   someone will have a more elegant method) -- note that you have to
> create
>   a PostScript file and then convert the ps file to PDF:
> 
>   groff -mandoc -st <filename> > <filename>.ps
>   ps2pdf <filename>.ps <filename>.pdf
> 
> - Convert the groff code to Docbook/XML; editors like you want are
> available
>   for XML.  Here is some information about a tool that does this:
> 
>   http://www.xmlhack.com/read.php?item=1749
> 
> These are not perfect solutions but would allow you to capture the
text
> into a format that can be maintained without learning groff.  
> 
> meg
>