[–]▶ No.992989>>992991 >>992994 >>993225 >>993479 >>994427 >>995177 >>995599 >>995701 >>1007119 [Watch Thread][Show All Posts]
Groff/Troff General
Since it rather hard to find good documentation about groff, i created this thread were you can share documentation, tips and you can discuss, about both groff and troff.
▶ No.992991>>992995
▶ No.992994
>>992989 (OP)
A tip I was a little slow learning is that if you have special characters in your document you can just add a -k and it will format the characters correctly
Example:
> groff -k -ms document.ms -T pdf > document.pdf
▶ No.992995>>993035
>>992991
> jewtube
Could you please provide a link to a non google service?
▶ No.992998>>993004 >>995011
Literal "it's better cuz it's more minimal lolz" autism. It's vastly inferior to LaTeX.
▶ No.993004>>993240
>>992998
is LaTeX also better for manpages?
▶ No.993023
[O'Reilly] [1988] Unix Text Processing has a nroff/troff section followed by all the other tools (tbl, eqn, etc...).
▶ No.993035
▶ No.993176>>993260 >>993437
How is groff minimal? I've been browsing these man pages and they are very dense. Getting started isn't very easy.
▶ No.993202
How is it that I can post this in every single groff/troff thread and still no one ever links to it but me?
http://chuzzlewit.co.uk/utp_book-1.1.pdf
▶ No.993216>>993240
Why would i use groff over LaTeX?
▶ No.993225>>993245
>>992989 (OP)
Fuck off, Luke.
▶ No.993240
▶ No.993244>>993250 >>993251
Would groff be a good fit for someone who writes...
Occasional man pages and/or program documentation.
Le Generic Epic High-Fantasy Novel #1125899906842624
Shitty little web articles for their 2 hits a year blog?
Anything else that may need to be converted to HTML.
Or should I just jump into LaTeX instead?
▶ No.993250>>993273
>>993244
>Occasional man pages and/or program documentation.
Man pages, yes; program documentation, depends on the documentation
>Le Generic Epic High-Fantasy Novel #1125899906842624
Some lighweight markup like markdown, rst, org, etc.
>Shitty little web articles for their 2 hits a year blog?
See above, or just straight HTML.
>Anything else that may need to be converted to HTML.
See above above.
>Or should I just jump into LaTeX instead?
You should use pandoc markdown, restructuredtext, asciidoc, etc.
▶ No.993251>>993273
>>993244
>man pages
something like groff yeah
>program documentation
write it in org-mode and use the ReadTheOrg theme: https://github.com/fniessen/org-html-themes
▶ No.993260
>>993176
because it's a huge pain in the ass and has no gui
▶ No.993273
>>993250
>>993251
>non gay answers
Thanks. I'll look into rst and org. Mainly asking because regular old md isn't to my liking.
org-mode is looking really nice for most of my purposes. I really like the idea of using it as a personal organization tool. I already use emacs anyway.
▶ No.993276>>994713 >>994826
Should i write school papers in groff?
I use vim BTW.
▶ No.993437>>993442
>>993176
Its amazing how many newbies dont know that you can just run a straight txt file through groff and get "typeset" results. Yes, you have to double-line break in some areas, but 'getting started' is actually very simple.
▶ No.993442>>993446
>>993437
I get that with nroff. groff outputs a mass of postscript.
the 'man' command likes nroff output OK.
▶ No.993446>>993452
>>993285
knowing luke, you probably wrote this as you tend to larp as someone who hates himself, what an ego
>>993442
>what the fug are streams
epic
▶ No.993452
>>993446
>what the fug is godzilla
epic.
look at this poster obv. doesn't know about godzilla.
what a fucking moron.
▶ No.993454
▶ No.993475
do you mean roff, nroff, groff and troff?
groff is just gnu roff
▶ No.993479>>993540
>>992989 (OP)
I've been working on a program to convert a markdown-style document into a troff document. You can just stick it to the top of your roff pipe and have a completly sane way of writing troff documents. I'll post a git link once it's done.
▶ No.993540
▶ No.994427>>994434
>>992989 (OP)
Stop sucking Luke Smith's cock.
Markdown + Pandoc is the ultimate redpilled way to write documents, except when you need precise formatting and control over your presentation: in that case, use LaTeX.
The great thing about this method is the incredible flexibility it provides: the original source text files are easily readable directly on a terminal, and also look well formatted thanks to Markdown syntax. You can then convert them to pdfs, html pages, anything really. Pandoc now even supports groff output.
▶ No.994434>>994462
>>994427
>troff is something new cause some youcancer made a video on it
Pandoc is a gigantic pile of Haskell code which is supposed to do everything, and have fun compiling it and installing Haskell just for it, and also Markdown does not really do any fun typesetting if you are into that.
And the LaTeX syntax is god-awful and even people who like LaTex know that.
Also, just learn one typesetter well, and just use it, and that I think is the main point, this is fres software, you are free to choose.
▶ No.994462>>994498
>>994434
>LaTeX syntax is god-awful
No. I've used it extensively for lab reports that include math formulas, minipages, images and lots of tables. It is very readable.
▶ No.994498>>994676
>>994462
The only way to make LaTeX readable is to either use someone else's library that has everything sorted out, or write your own huge preamble. In either case you have just tucked away the ugly bits. LaTeX syntax is crap, but what's even worse is programming (La)TeX to do what you want it to do.
▶ No.994676
>>994498
What do you want for describing the markup of a document? Do you want Lisp and s-expressions? Do you want Perl syntax? Do you want Python syntax?
▶ No.994713
>>993276
If it was me
vim.txt -> vim.fmt -> vim.groff
vim.txt, normal text you write
vim.fmt, same doc with groff markup to format doc
vim.groff, formatted output from groff
▶ No.994727
>reading/writing text in monospace terminal crapware
just lol at you tards
▶ No.994826
>>993276
Only if you can't stand latex at all. I don't see any reason not to use latex if you're doing something scientific. If you're extra lazy use md, maybe.
▶ No.995011
▶ No.995177>>995196 >>995275 >>995417
>>992989 (OP)
Any chance you guys know how to encode to Cyrillic?
▶ No.995196>>995275
>>995177
Stop using dead writing.
▶ No.995275>>995409
>>995177
Just encode your document as UTF-8 and set the encoding for groff.
>>995196
фаггот
▶ No.995409
>>995275
>Just encode your document as UTF-8
It is set as my default encoding in vim, exporting seems fine.
>set the encoding for groff.
Which command will exactly do this?
▶ No.995417>>995481
>>995177
troff only supports ascii text by default.
The preconv preprocessor can be used to convert any unicode characters into a format which troff can understand. Alternatively you can pass the -k option to troff which will automatically pass any input through preconv.
▶ No.995481>>995695
>>995417
>groff -K utf8 test.ms -T pdf > test.pdf
>groff -k test.ms -T pdf > test.pdf
>groff -ms test.ms -k -T pdf > test.pdf
>groff -ms test.ms -K utf8 -T pdf > test.pdf
All variants are printing this:
[code]warning: can't find special character `u044B'
warning: can't find special character `u0432'
warning: can't find special character `u0444'[code]
▶ No.995587
Haha, yeah I watched Luke's video on groff too.
▶ No.995599
>>992989 (OP)
I have been using groff for the last few weeks for all my school papers and i'm really starting to like it.
▶ No.995617
luke smith pls go and stay go
▶ No.995695
▶ No.995701>>1007119
>>992989 (OP)
Fuck off luke lol
Now that that's out of the way i do like groff because it isn't as bloated as LaTeX. I am too lazy to learn any new markup language so i just use md2roff to convert my md files to man files which i then convert to pdfs.
▶ No.995894
You could use it to make websites, like make an HTML version of the documents you have already created.
▶ No.995895
Well I use it because the I think the refer command is way superior to that of LaTeX and something like word
▶ No.997233>>1007119
Can i convert Groff_MS to .odt or .docx format??
▶ No.1002667
▶ No.1002723
Hey i want to know how to add the table of contents in groff_ms documents in the beginning of the documents instead of the end?
and how to change the “Table of Contents” text to match my native language (Danish)?
▶ No.1007119>>1007151
>>992989 (OP)
Let's have a troff,groff, and Latex thread.
Discuss languages, macros, templates, sperg out about documents, r8 muh resume etc. Text editors shitslinging also welcome.
Links:
>https://www.gnu.org/software/groff/manual/groff.pdf
>https://www.schaffter.ca/mom/mom-01.html
>http://texdoc.net/texmf-dist/doc/latex/latex2e-help-texinfo/latex2e.pdf
Pandoc's docx/odt >> LaTeX conversion isn't the best around but it worked fairly well and I was able to repair the compile errors with only a handful of tweaks which is impressive none-the-less.
MD > LaTeX is flawless though. Tecently I've started to take notes on Markdown instead and convert that into my LaTeX documents as needed. Admittedly haven't used the troff-like stuff yet because LaTeX is super comfy for now.
>>997233
Pandoc should be able to do it. Groff source documents are simple, pandoc usually only has trouble converting from complex source documents so it should be no problem.
>>995701
Luke is a dummy who doesn't realize that MS Word has a built-in bibliography database feature.
Still, making anons talk about typesetting is probably his number 1 contribution to the tech space.
If only he switched imeme for bspwm.
▶ No.1007151>>1007155
>>1007119
> Luke is a dummy who doesn't realize that MS Word has a built-in bibliography database feature.
I am pretty sure he and everyone in this thread wants to avoid MS Word like the plague.
▶ No.1007155
>>1007151
Correct, Libreoffice doesn't have a Table of Contents feature and I went through hell importing odts into word using a VM.
That finally made me learn to set up LaTeX.
▶ No.1011077
▶ No.1015075
I just switched to Groff from LaTeX around a week ago, anybody got some good recourses?
▶ No.1015086
I had to write some report recently and for some reason I thought latex was good and that I had used it a bunch about 5 years ago.
After fucking hours of trying to get images, bibliography to work properly I went back and checked and it turned out I didn't use latex but openoffice.
It's just another productivity trap. And looking at the syntax of groff that seems about the same.