Re: [Groff] Typesetting Software

[Peter Schaffter]

On Wed, Jun 03, 2009, John? wrote:
> Many years ago, when type used to be set by hand, I was one of those who 
> did the typesetting.

On the basis of your opening, I suggest, in addition to other
members' comments, that you take a look at the mom macro set for
groff.  I'm assuming that, besides setting type by hand, you
most likely worked on dedicated phototypesetting systems such as
Compugraphic and/or Linotronic.

I come from the same background, and wrote the mom macros in order
to mimic as closely as possible the commands commonly found on
those systems.  Thus, in addition to all the fancy stuff groff/mom
can do automatically (running headers, bibliographies, tables of
contents, etc), you get familiar "manual" control over all those
little refinements typesetters used to pride themselves on.

So if you're not familiar with Unix-style text processing, groff/mom
might make a comfortable place for you to start, especially since
there's tons of very readable documentation to go along with it.

-- 
Peter Schaffter