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Unix Document Preparation Tools

There are several commonly used text formatting packages used in CS: troff, and the related me macros which present a somewhat simpler interface to this tool, and latex. You have access to these packages for doing any papers, resumes, etc. Output can be to a standard line printer, or to one of the laser printers. The paradigm used in each is similar, but each has it proponents. You are free to use these, or whatever package you wish, to produce your documents and assignments.

1. Nroff and me

Nroff and me embed macro commands within the text to tell the formatter what to do. All macros must be the first thing in the line so the period is the first character of a new line; otherwise they are considered to be part of the text.

1.1. A short sub-list of me commands

This is only a very small subset of what is available. You can read further in the manual "Formatting Documents" which is available in the CSL. Companion products include tbl for formatting tables, eqn for mathematical equations, xfig for figures and others.

2. Previewing your document

If you plan to print your document on a standard line printer, and/or you are working from home, you can get a preview of your document by doing the following:
~kar/scripts/me -plain file-name |more
If you plan to print on a laser printer, and are running in an xterm window you can use the command

        ~kar/scripts/me -Tlwroff file-name >,out

This will create a file ,out with a version of your document that can be displayed on a window by typing

        ghostview ,out

This will show you how the document will look printed on a laser printer, although the font is not exact (the spacing is however). The program uses the left mouse button for bringing down menus, and the middle mouse button to select which page to display. You can preview and modify your document, before committing it to physical paper (and using up your quota!).

3. Printing your document

To print on a laser printer do :

        ~kar/scripts/me -Tlwroff filename |lpr -Pcsl_lw#

(where # is 1 or 2). If you need color transparencies, then send it to csl_xpar. Documents turned in for this course should be printed on laser printers, or if you are using some other system, laser-quality printers.

4. Spelling Checker

One of the spelling checkers, that allows you to replace your mistakes is called "ispell". To use it, just type
ispell filename
and it will prompt you with words it did not find in its dictionary. If you do no wish to change the word, hit 'a'; if you want to make a change, just type 'r', then the new word or words and hit return, you then get a chance to accept it or change it. It also gives a list of things it thinks might be correct (it's kind of braindead if you ask me). Just remember that spelling checkers won't catch all your errors, since words like "their" and "there" are both correctly spelled but are not used interchangeably. There is an on-line manual page for it that will give you more information.

Another program that just gives you a list of misspelled words is spell. An advantage of spell is that it understands most of the macros used by me, so it won't misinterpret those as spelling mistakes. The best way to use this is to have one window open in which you've run spell, and another in which you run your favorite editor to make the actual changes. There is an on-line manual page for this program also.

September 10, 1998 at 11:14 AM