Re: [groff] Problems with -Thtml

[Ingo Schwarze]

Hi Blake,

Blake McBride wrote on Sun, Apr 14, 2019 at 02:55:52PM -0500:

> I composed a user manual with MM.  Looks great.
> I now need an HTML version.
[...]
> Any help would sure be appreciated!

When you need HTML output, use mdoc(7) - not groff_mm(7) -
and mandoc(1) - not groff(1).

If you feel you cannot use mdoc(7) for some reason, use man(7) and
mandoc(1).  The resulting quality will be much lower than with
mdoc(7) in every respect, but it is still acceptable: most of
manpages.debian.org is formatted that way.

I admit that some extremely historic documentation was written in
macro languages like mm, ms, and me.  But doing so has now been a
very bad idea for at least the last twenty years, or more likely
for the last thirty years.

Improving grohtml is extremely difficult as a consequence of its
basic architecture, to the point that i would call any such attempt
a waste of time even in case of success, and besides, it would be
more likely to turn into a wild goose chase.  Anyway, i'm not aware
that anyone has been interested in doing any significant work on
grohtml during at the last ten years, and i'm not surprised about
that.  Groff is a great system, but HTML output is among the few
aspects where its fundamental architecture prevents satisfactory
results in practice.

Yours,
  Ingo