Re: [groff] Problems with -Thtml

[Blake McBride]

Thanks Ingo.  The place where I work uses AsciiDocs.  It is just an
enhanced markdown.  It's not programmable at all.  I started to push them
towards groff but it is important to get HTML output since, these days,
people more often view documents than print them.  Sounds like it is a good
thing I didn't push too hard.  Being someone with a fair degree of troff
usage, it is a shame I can't use it in many of the docs I write.

Thanks!

Blake McBride


On Sun, Apr 14, 2019 at 3:39 PM Ingo Schwarze <address@hidden> wrote:

> 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
>