Newsgroups: comp.archives
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!ox.com!emv
From: rbraun@spdcc.COM (Rich Braun)
Subject: [sysv386...] Re: YELP about obtaining nroff (longish)
Message-ID: <1991Feb10.211129.9885@ox.com>
Followup-To: comp.unix.sysv386
Keywords: nroff groff psroff man Coherent
Sender: emv@ox.com (Edward Vielmetti)
Reply-To: rbraun@spdcc.COM (Rich Braun)
Organization: Kronos Inc., Waltham, Mass.
References: <1991Feb07.195547.22813@crom2.uucp> <6408@spdcc.SPDCC.COM>
Date: Sun, 10 Feb 1991 21:11:29 GMT
Approved: emv@ox.com (Edward Vielmetti)
X-Original-Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386,comp.unix.questions

Archive-name: text/troff/xfmt/1991-02-09
Archive: uunet.uu.net:/comp.sources.unix/volume16/xfmt.Z [137.39.1.2]
Original-posting-by: rbraun@spdcc.COM (Rich Braun)
Original-subject: Re: YELP about obtaining nroff (longish)
Reposted-by: emv@ox.com (Edward Vielmetti)

jim@crom2.uucp (James P. H. Fuller) writes:
>In summary, I've really run into a blank wall on this.
>
>   WHERE CAN I GET NROFF?  (I can't FTP, I'm a uucp-only site.)
>
>   Or where can I get fake nroff, or enough of nroff to read ...

This frustrated me too, but there is a simple solution.  Get flex from
uunet.uu.net in directory comp.sources.unix/volume19/flex2 (files part01-07),
and get xfmt from the same system (file comp.sources.unix/volume16/xfmt.Z).

This will fix your problem; you can then type 'xfmt -mu foo.man > foo.1' to
create readable man pages.  It uses termcap to translate certain escape
sequences.  I also had to patch a couple of places in xfmt source, because
it assumes 'printf ("%s", NULL)' prints nothing whereas the Microsoft
library prints '(null)' for that case.  That's the only source bug I can
recall.

I know nothing about how to use uucp, but I know uunet is easy enough to
get to.

-rich
