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Date: 1987 Sep 28   22:57 EDT
From: (John F. Chandler)   PEPMNT@CFAAMP.BITNET
To:   (Frank da Cruz)   SY.FDC@CU20B.COLUMBIA.EDU
Subject: Suggested new Kermit distribution file
Message-id: <PEPMNT.870928.225724.A0@CFAAMP.BITNET>

Frank,
   It might pay to include a brief description of Scribe functions in the
Kermit distribution for the benefit of (A) people creating documentation
for new versions of Kermit and (B) people who would otherwise have to
translate someone's DOC file back into Scribe.  The following is what I
think is the "essential" subset of Scribe (at least, it's all I know, and
I hope it's all correct now).
                                            John
---------------------------------------
The Scribe formatting language uses one special character, namely, "@"
to signal commands to the formatter.  Functions consist of the "@" plus
the command name (case-insensitive) plus the arguments enclosed in any
variety of parentheses, i.e., "()", "[]", or "<>".  Certain obvious
syntactical rules apply, such as: @Begin() must be paired with @End(),
and that combination may be replaced (for a one-line text) by a simple
function.  The following functions and commands are available.

Command     Result
@           significant blank
@|          marks required hyphen
@*          line break
@^          set column marker
@>          right-justify tab
@@          '@'
@\          tab

Font-select function  Resulting font
@i(text)              italic
@q(text)              fixed-width
@qq(text)             quoted string in fixed font
@r(text)              roman (proportional)
@u(text)              underscore
@ux(text)             underscore (even blanks)
@+(text)              superscript

Function               Result
@bar()                 long dash
@begin(unit)           start text unit, where unit may be:
                        Center, Description, Enumerate, Example, Format,
                        Itemize, Table, Text, or Verbatim.
@blankspace(count)     vertical space
@caption(text)         figure caption
@chapter(title)        header
@device(dover)         define output device
@end(unit)             end of formatting text unit
@foot(text)            footnote
@heading(title)        header
@index(item)           index entry
@label(-label)         define label
@prefacesection(title) header
@ref(-tag)             substitute
@section(title)        header
@string(-tag=value)    assign
@subh(title)           header
@subheading(title)     header
@subsection(title)     header
@tabclear()            clear tabs
@tabdivide(n)          set multiple tabs for n columns
@tabset(col,col,...)   set multiple tabs
@tag(-label)           define label
@value(-label)         use variable
@w(text)               significant blanks, not to be broken

.
