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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!--
This file is part of groff, the GNU roff type-setting system.
Copyright (C) 2004, 2005, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2011 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Written by Peter Schaffter.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or
any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the
Invariant Sections being this comment section, with no Front-Cover
Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts.
A copy of the Free Documentation License is included as a file called
FDL in the main directory of the groff source package.
-->
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8"/>
<title>Mom -- Appendices</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="stylesheet.css" />
</head>
<body style="background-color: #f5faff;">
<!-- ==================================================================== -->
<div id="top" class="page">
<!-- Navigation links -->
<table style="width: 100%;">
<tr>
<td><a href="toc.html">Back to Table of Contents</a></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><a href="reserved.html#top">Next: Reserved words</a></td>
</tr>
</table>
<h1 id="appendices" class="docs">Appendices</h1>
<div style="width: 54%; margin: auto;">
<ul class="no-enumerator">
<li><a href="#moredoc">Notes on the documentation</a></li>
<li><a href="#fonts">Adding PostScript fonts to groff</a>
<ul style="margin-left: -.5em;">
<li><a href="#howto">How to create a PostScript font for use with groff</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="#codenotes">Some reflections on mom</a></li>
<li><a href="#contact">Contact the author</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="rule-medium"><hr/></div>
<h2 id="moredoc" class="docs">Notes on the documentation</h2>
<p>
Some mom users are sure to ask: “Why is the documentation in
html? If mom’s so great, why not pdfs to show her off? And
if groff’s so great, why not write a man page?”
</p>
<p>
Valid questions, to be sure, and mom has answers. (Okay—I
have answers, but I speak for mom.)
</p>
<p>
The documentation is in html because I still find it the best tool
for navigating lengthy manuals. Html, with its anchors and links,
came into being precisely so people could do something they’d
never been able to with the printed word: instantly track down
internal and external references in a document.
</p>
<p>
It’s essential that people reading mom’s documentation
never have difficulty finding precisely the macro they need for a
particular task. Equally, when reading up on a macro, they should
never be presented with terms or other macro names for which they
cannot instantly find accurate explanations. Short of having
written the documentation in TeX for the info browser (and TeX bloat
is one of the reasons I prefer to typeset with groff), I can think
of no better way to achieve the kind of truly useful documentation I
wanted than html.
</p>
<div class="rule-medium"><hr/></div>
<!-- ===================================================================== -->
<h2 id="fonts" class="docs">Adding PostScript fonts to groff</h2>
<div id="small-note" class="box-tip">
<p class="tip">
<span class="note">Note:</span>
The term <kbd><prefix></kbd> in this section refers
to the directory in which groff is installed, typically
something like <kbd>/usr/share/groff/<version></kbd>
(for distro-specific, pre-compiled groff packages) or
<kbd>/usr/local/share/groff/<version></kbd> (if you’ve
built groff from source).
</p>
</div>
<p>
Groff comes with a small library of PostScript
<a href="definitions.html#family">families</a>
(see the
<a href="typesetting.html#family">FAMILY</a>
macro for a list). The families have four
<a href="definitions.html#font">fonts</a>
associated with them. These fonts are a combination of
<a href="definitions.html#weight">weight</a>
and
<a href="definitions.html#shape">shape</a>:
<br/>
<span class="pre-in-pp">
R (Roman, usually Medium weight),
I (Italic, usually Medium weight),
B (Bold, usually Roman shape) and
BI (Bold Italic)
</span>
If you work with mom a lot, you’ll find, sooner or later, that these
families and their associated fonts aren’t sufficient. You’ll
want to supplement them, either with more fonts for the families
already provided—<i>Damn! I need Helvetica Bold Condensed
Italic!</i>—or with entire new families.
</p>
<p>
Without going into the gory details (yet), while it’s true
that adding fonts to groff is a relatively straightforward process,
extending existing families or adding new ones requires some
planning.
</p>
<p>
The traditional approach to extending groff families has been to
create new families for non-default weights and shapes (e.g. Light,
which is a weight; Condensed, which is a shape), then to associate
them with groff’s predefined <b>R, I, B</b> and <b>BI</b> font
styles. An example of this can be seen in the groff PostScript
font library itself (<prefix>/font/devps/): there’s one
“family” for Helvetica (<b>HR</b>, <b>HI</b>, <b>HB</b>,
<b>HBI</b>) and another for Helvetica Narrow (<b>HNR</b>,
<b>HNI</b>, <b>HNB</b>, <b>HNBI</b>).
</p>
<p>
The difficulty with this approach is that typographers tend to
think of families as referring to the entire set of font weights
and shapes associated with a particular family name. For example,
when a typesetter says “the Helvetica family”, s/he is
including the
<a href="definitions.html#weight">weights</a>
Helvetica Thin, Helvetic Light, Helvetica Regular, Helvetica Bold,
Helvetica Heavy, etc, and all their associated
<a href="definitions.html#shape">shapes</a>
(Roman, Italic, Condensed, Narrow, Extended, Outline, etc).
</p>
<p>
Thus, intuitively, when a typesetter gives mom a
<kbd>.FAM(ILY) H</kbd> directive, s/he reasonably expects that
any subsequent <kbd>.FT</kbd> directive will access the desired font
from the Helvetica family—without the need to state explicitly
both family and font to <kbd>.FT</kbd>, as it is explained one can
do in the
<a href="typesetting.html#family">FAMILY</a>
and
<a href="typesetting.html#font">FT</a>
sections of these documents.
</p>
<p>
If one had, say, the fonts, Helvetica Light Roman and Helvetica
Light Italic as well as Helvetica Light Condensed Roman and
Helvetica Light Condensed Italic, the established groff approach
would require two “partial” families: HLR/HLI and
HLCDR/HLCDI. Accessing these family/font combos routinely
throughout a document would then require changing family
(with <kbd>.FAM(ILY)</kbd>) and selecting the desired font
(with <kbd>.FT R</kbd> or <kbd>.FT I</kbd>), or
passing <kbd>.FT</kbd> the lengthy family+fontname (.e.g.
<kbd>.FT HLCDI</kbd>).
</p>
<p>
Fortunately, groff provides a mechanism whereby it’s possible
to extend the basic <b>R</b>, <b>I</b>, <b>B</b> and <b>BI</b> fonts
(“styles” in groff-speak) so that one can, in fact,
create extensive type families, and access all the fonts in them
with <kbd>.ft</kbd> (groff) or <kbd>.FT</kbd> (mom).
</p>
<p>
Mom uses this mechanism to offer, in addition to groff’s
default PostScript font styles, the following:
</p>
<div class="examples-container" style="padding-bottom: 1em;">
<div id="style-extensions" style="width: 53%; float: left;">
<span class="pre">
L = Light Roman
LI = Light Italic
LCD = Light Condensed Roman
LCDI = Light Condensed Italic
LEX = Light Extended Roman
LEXI = Light Extended Italic
CD = Medium/Book Condensed Roman
CDI = Medium/Book Condensed Italic
EX = Medium/Book Extended Roman
EXI = Medium/Book Extended Italic
DB = DemiBold Roman
DBI = DemiBold Italic
BCD = Bold Condensed Roman
BCDI = Bold Condensed Italic
BEX = Bold Extended Roman
</span>
</div>
<span class="pre">
BEXI = Bold Extended Italic
HV = Heavy Roman
HVI = Heavy Italic
HVCD = Heavy Condensed Roman
HVCDI = Heavy Condensed Italic
HVEX = Heavy Extended Roman
HVEXI = Heavy Extended Italic
BL = Black Roman
BLI = Black Italic
BLCD = Black Condensed Roman
BLCDI = Black Condensed Italic
BLEX = Black Extended Roman
BLEXI = Black Extended Italic
UBL = Ultra-Black Roman
UBLI = Ultra-Black Italic
</span>
</div>
<p style="clear: both;">
Thus, with mom, if you’ve installed, say, some extra
Helvetica fonts and named them according to the convention
<kbd><F><S></kbd> (where <kbd><F></kbd> means
family and <kbd><S></kbd> means font style), once having
entered
<br/>
<span class="pre-in-pp" style="margin-bottom: -1em;">
.FAMILY H
</span>
or
<span class="pre-in-pp" style="margin-top: -.5em;">
.FAM H
</span>
you can access any of those Helvetica fonts simply by passing the
correct argument to
<a href="typesetting.html#font">FT</a>.
from the list, above.
</p>
<p>
For example, if you were working in Medium Roman
(<kbd>.FT R</kbd>) and you needed Medium Condensed Italic for a
while (assuming it’s installed), you’d just type
<br/>
<span class="pre-in-pp">
.FT CDI
</span>
to access the Medium Condensed Italic font from the Helvetica
family.
</p>
<p>
Mom’s list of font styles doesn’t pretend to be
exhaustive, but rather tries to cover the basic weight/shape
combinations likely to be found in any reasonably complete type
family.
</p>
<p>
The actual extension names are arbitrary and can be used in a
flexible manner. For example, if you create a family that has a
DemiBold font (<b>DB</b>) but no Bold font (<b>B</b>), you might
find it more convenient to give the DemiBold font the extension
“<b>B</b>”. Equally, if the family has an ExtraBold
font, you might find it more convenient to use the extension
“<b>HV</b>” (Heavy).
</p>
<p id="register-style">
However, you may, at needs, want to add to mom’s list of font
styles. You can do this by editing the file, om.tmac (typical
location: <kbd><prefix>tmac/om.tmac</kbd>). Near the top,
you’ll see lines of the form
<br/>
<span class="pre-in-pp">
.sty \n[.fp] L \" Light Roman
.sty \n[.fp] LI \" Light Italic
.sty \n[.fp] LCD \" Light Condensed Roman
</span>
Simply add your new font style by imitating what you see, above,
and plugging in your new font style (having, of course, first
created the font, correctly named, in groff’s PostScript font
directory; see
<a href="#howto">How to create a PostScript font for use with groff</a>).
</p>
<p>
For example, if you already have some fonts from the Univers family
installed and have called the family <b>UN</b>, you might decide at
some point to add the Bold Outline font (<b>UNBO</b>). In which
case, you’d add
<br/>
<span class="pre-in-pp">
.sty \n[.fp] BO \" Bold Outline
</span>
to the <kbd>.sty \n[.fp] <font style></kbd> list
in om.tmac.
</p>
<div class="box-important">
<p class="tip">
<span class="important">Important:</span>
Be careful that any styles you add do not conflict with
<i>family</i> names that already exist. “<b>C</b>”,
for example, conflicts with the Courier family (<b>CR</b>,
<b>CI</b>, <b>CB</b>, <b>CI</b>). Were you to create a font
style “<b>C</b>”, thinking that <kbd>.FT C</kbd>
would give you access to font style once you’d given a
<kbd>.FAM(ILY)</kbd> directive, you’d get a nasty surprise:
your type would come out in Courier Roman!
</p>
</div>
<div class="box-tip">
<p class="tip">
<span class="note">Note:</span>
Mom’s font extensions are not “user-space”
controllable via a macro. If you’ve been using groff for
a long time, and have already rolled your own solution to adding
PostScript families, fonts, weights, shapes, etc. to groff, you may
find that mom’s font extensions conflict with your own scheme.
Should that be the case, comment out the <kbd>.sty \n[.fp] <font
style></kbd> lines found near the top of the <kbd>om.tmac</kbd>
file.
</p>
</div>
<div class="rule-medium"><hr/></div>
<h2 id="howto" class="docs">How to create a PostScript font for use with groff</h2>
<p>
These instructions aren’t meant to cover all possibilities, merely
to present one way of making PostScript families/fonts available to
groff and mom.
</p>
<p>
GNU/Linux distributions being what they are, directory locations may
differ and the presence of some executables can’t be guaranteed.
I run a Debian system. The instructions reflect that. Users of
other distros will have to interpret them according to the way their
distro operates.
</p>
<h3 class="docs appendices">1. What you need before you start</h3>
<ul style="margin-top: 1em; margin-left: -.5em;">
<li>groff, version 1.18 or higher<br/>
(Debian package: groff)
</li>
<li>a full installation of ghostscript and associated tools<br/>
(suggested Debian package: ghostscript-x)
</li>
<li>a library of PostScript fonts<br/>
(suggest Debian packages: gsfonts, gsfonts-x11, gsfonts-other)
</li>
<li>a utility for converting TrueType fonts to Type1 fonts<br/>
(Debian package: ttf2pt1)
</li>
<li>a font manager<br/>
(Debian packages: defoma, psfontmgr)
</li>
<li>perl<br/>
(Debian package: perl)
</li>
</ul>
<p style="margin-top: -.5em;">
A reasonably complete installation of any major GNU/Linux distro
should already have these on your system, except perhaps for the
utility to convert TrueType fonts to Type1 fonts (<b>ttf2pt2</b>).
</p>
<h3 class="docs appendices">2. Initial preparation (you only need do this once)</h3>
<ol style="margin-left: -.5em;">
<li>If you don’t already have one, create a directory in
your home directory to hold new fonts. Any directory name
will do. I use <kbd>~/Fonts</kbd>, with subdirectories for
<kbd>Type1</kbd>, <kbd>TrueType</kbd> and <kbd>Groff</kbd>
fonts. Thus,
<br/>
<span class="pre-in-pp">
~/Fonts/Type1
~/Fonts/TrueType
~/Fonts/Groff
</span>
</li>
<li id="site-font" style="margin-top: -2em;">Locate the groff
directory, <kbd>site-font</kbd>. The exact location is
difficult to predict, owing to differences between distros and
whether you’re using a pre-packaged groff or have built
it from source. Some typical locations are:
<br/>
<span class="pre-in-pp" style="margin-bottom: -2em;">
/usr/share/groff
/usr/local/share/groff
/etc/groff
</span>
If you can’t find the site-font directory, locate
groff’s <kbd>site-tmac</kbd> directory, and, as
root, create site-font in the same directory as the
one that holds site-tmac. E.g., if you find site-tmac
in <kbd>/usr/share/groff</kbd>, create site-font in
<kbd>/usr/share/groff</kbd>.
</li>
<li style="margin-top: .5em;">Locate the file
<kbd><prefix>/font/devps/generate/textmap</kbd> and
symlink it to the name <kbd>textmap</kbd> in the directory
that contains your personal collection of PostScript fonts.
(See the
<a href="#small-note">note</a>,
above, for the meaning of <kbd><prefix></kbd>). On my
system, at the time of writing, <kbd><prefix></kbd>
is
<br/>
<span class="pre-in-pp" style="margin-bottom: -2em;">
/usr/local/share/groff/1.20.1/
</span>
therefore, I symlink it in <kbd>~/Fonts/Type1/</kbd> with
<br/>
<span class="pre-in-pp">
ln -s /usr/local/share/groff/1.20.1/font/devps/generate/textmap textmap
</span>
</li>
<li style="margin-top: -2em;">Locate the file
<kbd><prefix>/font/devps/text.enc</kbd> and
symlink it to the name <kbd>text.enc</kbd> in your personal
font directory. On my system, in <kbd>~/Fonts/Type1/</kbd>
<br/>
<span class="pre-in-pp">
ln -s /usr/local/share/groff/1.19.2/font/devps/text.enc text.enc
</span>
</li>
<li style="margin-top: -2em;">Make sure you know which
directory holds your PostScript fonts. You’ll need the
information later. On a Debian box, a typical location is
<kbd>/usr/share/fonts/type1/gsfonts</kbd>
</li>
</ol>
<h3 class="docs appendices">3. Font creation/installation</h3>
<ol style="margin-left: -.5em/">
<li>Acquire the font as either Type1 (.pfb) or TrueType (.ttf).</li>
<li style="margin-top: .5em;">Place the font in your personal font directory; for me,
that’s
<br/>
<span class="pre-in-pp" style="margin-bottom: -2.5em;">
~/Fonts/Type1
</span>
or
<br/>
<span class="pre-in-pp" style="margin-top: -.5em; margin-bottom: -2em;">
~/Fonts/TrueType
</span>
</li>
<li>In your personal font directory, run one of the following.
<ul style="margin-left: -1.5em;">
<li style="margin-top: .5em;">for <b>Type1 fonts</b>:
<br/>
<span class="pre-in-pp" style="margin-bottom: -2em;">
getafm fontfilename.pfb | gsnd - > fontfilename.afm
</span>
<i>(This generates something called
an .afm (Adobe Font Metrics) file from the .pfb file, which is required to
create PostScript fonts for groff.)</i>
</li>
<li style="margin-top: .5em;">for <b>TrueType fonts</b>:
<br/>
<span class="pre-in-pp" style="margin-bottom: -2em;">
ttf2pt1 \-b fontfilename.ttf
</span>
<i>(For TrueType fonts, this generates a PostScript .pfb file
as well as an .afm file.)</i>
</li>
</ul></li>
<li style="margin-top: .5em;">Still in your personal font directory, run
<br/>
<span class="pre-in-pp" style="margin-bottom: -2em;">
afmtodit -e text.enc fontfilename.afm textmap <GROFF_FONTNAME>
</span>
<p id="groff-font-name" style="margin-top: .25em;">
Q: <i>How do I choose a</i> <kbd>GROFF_FONTNAME</kbd><i>?</i>
</p>
<p>
A: Start by considering the
<a href="definitions.html#family">family</a>
to which the font belongs. If you’re adding to a family
that already exists in groff’s
<kbd><prefix>/font/devps</kbd> directory, that will be
the first part of the font name. (See
<a href="typesetting.html#family">here</a>
for a list of families already installed, along with their
groff names.) Add to that name the appropriate weight/style
extension, listed
<a href="#style-extensions">here</a>.
</p>
<p>
For example, if you’re adding Helvetica Light Roman,
your <kbd>GROFF_FONTNAME</kbd> would be <kbd>HL</kbd>.
If you’re adding Helvetica Light Italic, your
<kbd>GROFF_FONTNAME</kbd> would be <kbd>HLI</kbd>.
</p>
<p>
If you’re adding a font not already in groff’s
PostScript families, first choose a meaningful name for the
<a href="definitions.html#family">family</a>
to which the font belongs. The name can be anything you like.
If, for example, the family is Garamond, you could choose
<kbd>GARAMOND</kbd>, <kbd>GARA</kbd>, <kbd>GD</kbd>, or even
just plain G as the family name. Then tack on the appropriate
style/weight extension. Thus, if you were installing Garamond
Bold Condensed Italic and had chosen <kbd>GD</kbd> as the
family name for Garamond, your <kbd>GROFF_FONTNAME</kbd> would
be <kbd>GDBCDI</kbd>.
</p>
<p>
In mom, you can then access the Garamond family with
<kbd>.FAM GD</kbd>, and the Bold Condensed Italic font wth
<kbd>.FT BCDI</kbd>.
</p>
<div class="box-tip">
<p class="tip">
<span class="note">Note:</span>
The family name need not be in upper case, and there’s
no limit to the length of the name. “Garamond”,
for example, could be the name you give the Garamond
family. In fact, you might find it preferable, since a) you
wouldn’t have to remember how you’d named the
family, and b) should you be scanning your
<a href="#site-font">site-font directory</a>,
something like GaramondBCDI will be more meaningful than,
say, GDBCDI.
</p>
</div>
</li>
<li>Copy or move <kbd>GROFF_FONTNAME</kbd> to your
<a href="#site-font">site-font directory</a>,
or change to the site-font directory and make a symlink to
<kbd>GROFF_FONTNAME</kbd> in your personal directory.
</li>
<li style="margin-top: .5em;">Copy or move the .pfb file to the directory that
holds your PostScript fonts, or change to that directory and
make a symlink to the .pfb file in your personal directory.
</li>
</ol>
<p>
Written out in full, adding fonts looks like a lot of work. It
isn’t. Basically, it’s just:
</p>
<ul style="margin-top: -.5em;">
<li>generate an .afm (and .pfb if the font is TrueType)</li>
<li>create the groff font</li>
<li>put the groff font in<kbd> <prefix>/font/devps</kbd></li>
<li>put the .pfb file (the actual font) with your other PostScript fonts</li>
</ul>
<p>
After you’ve done it a couple of times, it all makes sense
and is really quite easy. Not to mention that once you understand
the process, you can write a bash script to automate the process.
Here’s an example, which you can adapt to your own needs.
The script, for installing TrueType fonts, requires an argument (the
.ttf filename), then prompts for a family directory name (e.g.
AmericanTypewriter or Futura) and a name to give the groff font
(see
<a href="#groff-font-name">here</a>
for suggestions concerning groff font naming.) The script assumes a
<kbd>~/Font</kbd> directory with subdirectories <kbd>Type1</kbd>,
<kbd>TrueType</kbd> and <kbd>Groff</kbd>.
</p>
<div class="examples" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">Code:</div>
<div class="box-code" style="width: 726px; max-width: 726px; height: 400px; overflow: auto;">
<span class="pre" style="color: #302419;">
#!/bin/sh
#
# Converts .ttf file to .pfb and generates .afm
# Moves the .afm and .pfb to $HOME/Fonts/Type1
# Generates a groff font from the .afm file and installs it
# in $HOME/Fonts/Groff
# Symlinks the groff font to groff's site-font/devps directory
# Symlinks the .afm and .pfb to /usr/share/fonts/type1/gsfonts
#
FONT=`basename $1 .ttf`
FONTDIR="$HOME/Fonts/TrueType"
T1_FONTDIR="$HOME/Fonts/Type1"
GS_FONTDIR="/usr/share/fonts/type1/gsfonts"
GROFF_SITE_FONTDIR="/usr/local/share/groff/site-font/devps"
GROFF_FONTS="$HOME/Fonts/Groff"
TEXTMAP="$T1_FONTDIR/textmap"
TEXTENC="$T1_FONTDIR/text.enc"
echo -n "Family directory name: "
read FAMILYDIR
if [ ! -d "$T1_FONTDIR/$FAMILYDIR" ] ; then
echo "Creating $FAMILYDIR in $T1_FONTDIR"
mkdir $T1_FONTDIR/$FAMILYDIR
fi
echo -n "Groff name for this font: "
read FONTNAME
echo "Creating .pfb and .afm files from $FONT.ttf"
(ttf2pt1 \-b $FONT.ttf)
echo "Moving .afm and .pfb file to $T1_FONTDIR/$FAMILYDIR.."
mv $FONT.afm $T1_FONTDIR/$FAMILYDIR
mv $FONT.pfb $T1_FONTDIR/$FAMILYDIR
echo "Changing to $T1_FONTDIR/$FAMILYDIR.."
cd $T1_FONTDIR/$FAMILYDIR
echo "Creating $FONTNAME.."
afmtodit -e $TEXTENC $T1_FONTDIR/$FAMILYDIR/$FONT.afm $TEXTMAP $FONTNAME
mv -i $FONTNAME $GROFF_FONTS
echo "Linking $FONTNAME in $GROFF_SITE_FONTDIR.."
sudo ln -s $GROFF_FONTS/$FONTNAME $GROFF_SITE_FONTDIR/$FONTNAME
echo "Linking $FONT.pfb and $FONT.afm in $GS_FONTDIR.."
cd $GS_FONTDIR
sudo ln -s $T1_FONTDIR/$FAMILYDIR/$FONT.afm $FONT.afm
sudo ln -s $T1_FONTDIR/$FAMILYDIR/$FONT.pfb $FONT.pfb
echo "Font installation complete"
exit 0
</span>
</div>
<div class="rule-medium" style="margin-top: 2em;"><hr/></div>
<!-- ===================================================================== -->
<h2 id="codenotes" class="docs">Some reflections on mom</h2>
<p>
If, as Eric Raymond asserts, open source begins with a programmer
scratching a personal itch, then mom can truly be called open
source.
</p>
<p>
Mom had her origins in a library of groff routines I wrote over
the years to handle various aspects of typesetting and document
processing that weren’t adequately covered by ms, me, mm, and
friends. Typically, I’d use the library to cobble together
macro sets for new challenges as they came my way.
</p>
<p>
As a writer living in a perpetual state of penury, all the computers
I’ve ever owned have been hand-me-downs—several
generations out-of-date and resource challenged. Disk space has
always been an issue, as has processor speed and available RAM. One
of the reasons I run GNU/Linux rather than the offering from Redmond
is that it has helped enormously to get the most out of my poor
little boxes.
</p>
<p>
In Linux-land (all Unix variants, in fact), the choice of
typesetting systems basically comes down to groff or TeX. Both are
wonderful—monumental achievements if you ask me—and both
have their own particular strengths. However, for people in my
financial position (and there are millions of us around the globe,
in both developed and developing countries), TeX and groff have one
big difference: size. TeX is huge. Even its most ardent supporters
agree it suffers from bloat, on top of being complex and unwieldy to
manage. Groff is tiny by comparison, occupying minimal disk space
and having only a small memory footprint while at the same time
being flexible and powerful, typographically speaking. Back in the
Jurassic Period, I ran it successfully on a 386 with 8 megs of RAM
and a 250 meg hard disk.
</p>
<p>
However, groff has always had a liability: it’s incredibly geeky.
Owing to its very long history, it—and its “power users”
—seem to have remained stuck in a time warp. The canonical macro packages
still look as they did back in those decades when memory was exorbitantly
expensive and every byte mattered.
</p>
<p>
For some time now, groff users and macro writers have had the option
to use “long” names for macros (i.e. longer than two
letters, the original limit), yet have mostly chosen not to. With
long names, it’s possible to create macro sets that are
humanly readable and easy to interpret, encouraging development and
evolution. What’s more, the macros themselves need not be
terse, intimidating, and easily forgotten 1- or 2-letter commands
inserted in the body of a document. They can be sensible and
helpful to everyone, groff newbies and old hands alike.
</p>
<p>
Mom’s macro file, om.tmac, uses long names, aliases, and a
host of other groff goodies that have become part of the whole
groff picture under the unflagging guidance of groff’s
current maintainer, Werner Lemberg. The function of nearly
every macro, number register and string can be infered simply
from its name. The file is heavily commented. A consistent, if
idiosyncratic, indenting style is used as well, significantly
improving readability. Anyone wanting to futz around with
mom’s macros should be able to do so with a minimum of head
scratching.
</p>
<div class="box-tip">
<p class="tip">
<span class="note">Addendum:</span>
As of version 1.4-a, the main macro file, om.tmac, is now stripped
of comments when groff is built from sources. om.tmac in the sources
themselves still contains the comments, as do the tarballs posted on
mom’s homepage.
</p>
</div>
<div class="rule-medium"><hr/></div>
<!-- ===================================================================== -->
<h2 id="contact" class="docs">Contact the author</h2>
<p>
If you have any questions or comments about mom,
suggestions to make, criticisms to offer, or bugs to report, use the
groff mailing list at
<a href="mailto:groff@ffii.org">groff@ffii.org</a>
(subscription information available
<a href="http://ffii.org/mailman/listinfo/groff/">here</a>)
or contact me, Peter Schaffter, directly at of the following
address:
<br/>
<span class="pre-in-pp">
peter@schaffter.ca
</span>
Please include the word “mom” or “groff” in the
Subject: line of any message sent to my personal address, or you
risk the wrath of my implacable spam filters. :)
</p>
<p>
If you want to visit mom’s website, you’ll find a link
to it at
<br/>
<span class="pre-in-pp">
http://www.schaffter.ca
</span>
The site contains links to some of my fiction, all of which was
typeset with mom and groff.
</p>
<div class="rule-long"><hr/></div>
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