Re: code review and strategy for macros set?

[Robert Thorsby]

On 11/08/20 18:27:10, Marc Chantreux wrote:
> i finally took some time to write some roff without the help of  
> existing macros set so i could figure out how hard it would maintain  
> my own page layout and macros set.
> ...
> is there a good practice or a common strategy for this situation?   
> are you maintaining your own macro set (at work or for your local  
> clubs for example)?

G'day Marc,

Your question devolves into, "How long is a piece of string?".

It depends on what you intend to do.  Like all markup languages *roff  
is almost purpose built for incorporating into one's favourite text  
processing application -- in my case, shell scripting with much heavy  
lifting by sed, awk and friends.

So, if you have a lot of boiler plate text (or boiler plate formatting,  
for that matter) you can use native *roff and use your application to  
do most of the "macro" work.

On the other hand, you can use just about any macro set to achieve what  
you want -- ranging to the old and venerable ms and me to the  
ultra-modern (in groff terms) mom.

To give you an idea of what can be achieved without a macro set, see  
the attached.  [If you are a serious typesetter I recommend you have a  
stiff drink before opening the PDF file.]  The CLI to create the file  
is:

groff -p -Tps -dpaper=a4 -P-pa4 model_details.gr | ps2pdf  
-sPAPERSIZE=a4 \
  -sColorModel=Gray -dPDFSETTINGS=/prepress -dEmbedAllFonts=true -  
model_details.pdf

Cheers,
Robert

model_details.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document