Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!tektronix!ogcvax!omsvax!icalqa!hplabs!sri-unix!cak@purdue.ARPA From: cak@purdue.ARPA Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards Subject: Re: Broff and a proposed net project Message-ID: <3753@sri-arpa.UUCP> Date: Tue, 2-Aug-83 13:53:10 EDT Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.3753 Posted: Tue Aug 2 13:53:10 1983 Date-Received: Fri, 5-Aug-83 12:09:24 EDT Lines: 24 From: Christopher A KentLeft unsaid in all this discussion (so far) is the fact that macros are wonderful (all those who disagree may stop reading here). The standard example is "I have this paper and I want to submit it to CACM and IEEE Spectrum but they have different formats and I don't want to type it twice". (Or maybe that should be CACM and Byte.) With troff, you write the thing using macros, and run it through troff twice, once with one set of definitions, once with the other. This is extremely powerful! I first learned about text processing with nroff/troff, and when I discovered Bravo (a what-you-see editor/formatter for Altos) I couldn't understand how they had missed this. Turns out that a follow-on, BravoX, attacked just this dilemma. They have what-you-see, but there are magic marks in the text that mark the beginning of a paragraph or what have you, and you can modify a description file and reformat. Commercial word processors don't deal with this because most business applications don't need it. It's just another case of analyzing your target market's needs. Cheers, chris