Typesetting with FreeBSD

hruodr said:
What do you use to write letters? To write articles, etc?
Click to expand...
I write informal notes to myself in a basic editor like ee/mousepad, things I need to write rapidly for other people in Openoffice, and I have a side hobby typesetting out-of-copyright books in texlive with the Kyle editor, which has a wysiwyg type interface that updates a preview window when I press save, it also has an autocomplete feature for tags. Texlive also comes with pdfjam, for splitting and concatenating pdfs, and pdfbook2 for creating book signatures out of pdfs.

I also write formal letters in latex with Kyle.
However, I'm just a hobbyist and no expert on latex.
Texlive does seem very bloated, but they don't update it very often maybe once every 3 or 4 years.
 
Textlive used to hold up my compilations. The speed on the website would be slow sometimes and it would take 45 minutes, with DSL. Everything used to require that shit. IIRC it was from some Linux website, perhaps Redhat. Later that got taken out of being a dependency out of nearly everything. I would leave and come back, and within the few hours, it was on the textlive. At some point, I fetched separately and compiled in a different process, but I still ran into that issue. Or the package didn't match the version that it wanted.

That needs to be forked and trimmed down. They don't understand that.
 
I'm going to be a little contrarian, and suggest that in evaluating "fitness for purpose", I still have a lot of time for troff(1).

troff(1) has been around Unix from the beginning. In fact, it was the official reason for Unix (typesetting patent applications).

James Clark's now universal groff(1) variant is very well supported with an active team tracking and fixing bugs.

It's in the base system, so does not contribute to the alarming bloat that accompanies TeX.

Unless your typesetting needs approach those of Donald Knuth's in The Art of Computer Programming, my suggestion would be to give groff(1) a try.

For simple tasks, like letter writing, it works reliably and well, especially if you choose a suitable set of macros (see groff_tmac()).
 
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If TeX is a must (or rather LaTeX - who on Earth really uses TeX itself nowadays), I strongly recommend LyX. You can think of LyX as a LaTeX front-end on steroids.
The FreeBSD version is relatively up-to-date. I started using LyX 20+ years ago and never looked back.
 
gpw928 said:
For simple tasks, like letter writing, it works reliably and well, especially if you choose a suitable set of macros (see groff_tmac()).
Click to expand...

Hi!

Thanks for the advice.
I am really interested in your solution.
Would it be possible to have an example (source) of a document composed with groff(tmac) ?

Thank you by advance.
 
daridro said:
Would it be possible to have an example (source) of a document composed with groff(tmac) ?
Click to expand...
Put the following in a file tmp.me and run groff -me -Tps -dpaper=a4 tmp.me > tmp.ps for generating a postscript file you can print. It uses me macros, you can see USD 19, 20, 21, 22.


.he /Max Mustermann, Musterstr. 35, 99999 Musterstadt.///
.fo //%//

.he //// \" Nur Einmal Header

Verwaltungsgericht Musterstadt
Musterstr. 7
99999 Musterstadt

.br
.ad r
Urlaubstadt, 15.05.2025
.br
.na

.ce
\fB KLAGE \fP

In der Verwaltungssache

Max Mustermann, Musterberuf, Musterstr.\ 35, 99999 Musterstadt
.br
.ad r
--- ich, Kl\(:ager, Antragsteller
.br
.na


.ce
\fB gegen \fP

Musterbeh\(:orde, Musteralle 8-14, 99999 Muserstadt
.br
.ad r
--- Beklagte
.br
.na

\fBwegen\fP Raubabgabe

erhebe ich Klage und beantrage ich:

.(c
Den Festsetzungsbescheid der Beklagten vom 02.01.2025,
in der Fa\(ssung des Widerspruchsbescheides vom 03.05.2025,
aufzuheben (Zeichen: `Abgabenummer 999 999 999').
.)c

.sp 1

.ce
\fB BEGR\(:UNDUNG\fP

Blah blah blah

Unterschrift
Click to expand...
 
Pap said:
If TeX is a must (or rather LaTeX - who on Earth really uses TeX itself nowadays), I strongly recommend LyX. […]
Click to expand...
The reason why one could prefer TeX over LaTeX is the following: LaTeX is all about ready-to-use layouts and changing these is very difficult, because if you want to do this, all the complexity comes at your face.

If you want to start with a fresh layout, TeX is simpler to use.
 
Holger said:
The reason why one could prefer TeX over LaTeX is the following
Click to expand...
That is one reason.

Note that LaTeX are TeX macros as also plain' TeX. Knuth's idea was that everyone writes his macros.

I prefer TeX because it is meager and I dare more to write macros, but avoid doing it and prefer to write 'dynamic TeX', namely Tcl scripting that generates plain TeX code. With luatex (that I do not use) you also have this possibility with lua.
 
daridro said:
Thanks for the advice.
I am really interested in your solution.
Would it be possible to have an example (source) of a document composed with groff(tmac) ?
Click to expand...
Sorry, I missed this last year. It's difficult to illustrate the scope of groff in limited space. Here is something simple from my recipe collection. It contains a small table and uses the groff_mm(7) macros.
Code: 
.ISODATE
.S 12
.PH "''\f3\s+2Tomato Gastrique\s-2\fP''"
.PF "'$Revision: 1.3 $'\*(DT'Page \\\\nP of \\\\n(nP'"
'\" SET THE NUMBER OF PAGES IN nP
.nr nP 1
.H 1 "Introduction"
I got this excellent idea from Rick Stein.
.P
It's a trick to add zing to a sauce made from tomatoes.
.P
He mentions it a few times in various places, including
\f2Rick Stein's Food Heros\fP.
.P
It's especially useful when the tomatoes are not at their best.
.P
I often add this to a simple tomato sauce made by saut\('eing a chopped
onion with a crushed clove of garlic in some olive oil, and adding a 400\|g
can of tomatoes.
.P
It's also worthwhile researching the multitude of recipes available
for gastriques.  e.g. try this recipe using cider vinegar and honey.
.SP
.H 1 "Ingredients"
.TS
box tab(!);
lf3 | rf3 | rf3 | rf3 | rf3.
Quantity of tomato sauce!500\|ml!1\|L!2\|L!3\|L
=
.T&
l | r | r | r | r.
Red wine vinegar (ml)!30!60!120!180
_
Caster sugar (tablespoons)!\(12!1!2!3
.TE
.SP
.H 1 "Method"
Dissolve the sugar in the vinegar in a small pan over medium to high heat.
.P
Maintain the heat until you achieve a vigorous simmer.
.P
Reduce liquid volume by about 50%.
.P
Don't let the liquid get too thick.
.P
Add the reduction to your tomato sauce while it's still hot,
and then season with salt.
To view:
Code: 
# save the text in gastrique.nr
groff -t -Tps -mm -P-pa4 gastrique.nr >gastrique.ps
gv gastrique.ps
 
As I said, I know someone that write his letters with HTML.
I do not know much more than HTML 1.0 with some elements of HTML 4.01,
little knowledge of CSS and javascript. I cannot judge how good this solution is.

I just googled and there are some articles about HTML + CSS for printing.
If it is usable for simple everyday text, there is a reason for using it:
(1) Browsers, although bloated, are omnipresent and inevitable.
(2) HTML and CSS knowledge is useful not only for printing.
 
For personal letters even handwriting is okay, and there is nothing wrong with setting letters and invoices with troff/groff as mro does, but if one aim for professionally looking and aesthetically pleasing typesetting, TeX (esp. pdfTeX) or InDesign are solutions.

Here is the link to very interesting dissertation by Hàn Thế Thành: "Micro-typographic extensions to the TEX typesetting system" (pdf link) in which he goes in detail about Knuth's work on H&J and Hz-program by Herman Zapf.

My only objection to this disertation is claim that Zapf developed Hz-program at URW. It's true that URW patented it, but Zapf worked with Knuth since early '80s, had his own Design Processing International, Inc ('77), and after '86, Zapf, Burns & Company ('87-'92). Hz-program was patented by URW in '90, but I believe that his work on it started much earlier, especially because he mentions in the patent that Knuth's algorithms were very influential to his. Please see patent, Process for building a compensated typographic aspect., Description sections [0002] and [0006] (Description is in German only)

Adobe acquired this patent from URW and included it as the composition engine in InDesign.

Hàn Thế Thành's pdfTeX is available as part of the TeX Live, LaTeX and ConTeXt.
 
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