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Brailsford, David F. (1984) In-house Preparation of Examination Papers using troff, tbl, and eqn. In: Protext I International Conference/Workshop on Text Processing Systems, 22-23 October 1984, Dublin, Ireland.

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Abstract

Starting in December 1982 the University of Nottingham decided to phototypeset almost all of its examination papers `in house' using the troff, tbl and eqn programs running under UNIX. This tutorial lecture highlights the features of the three programs with particular reference to their strengths and weaknesses in a production environment. The following issues are particularly addressed:

Standards -- all three software packages require the embedding of commands and the invocation of pre-written macros, rather than `what you see is what you get'. This can help to enforce standards, in the absence of traditional compositor skills.

Hardware and Software -- the requirements are analysed for an inexpensive preview facility and a low-level interface to the phototypesetter.

Mathematical and Technical papers -- the fine-tuning of eqn to impose a standard house style.

Staff skills and training -- systems of this kind do not require the operators to have had previous experience of phototypesetting. Of much greater importance is willingness and flexibility in learning how to use computer systems.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
RIS ID:	https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1025526
Keywords:	Technical typesetting, UNIX, troff, eqn, Linotype typesetters, PDP11
Schools/Departments:	University of Nottingham, UK > Faculty of Science > School of Computer Science
Depositing User:	Brailsford, Prof David
Date Deposited:	11 Jan 2006
Last Modified:	04 May 2020 20:34
URI:	https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/363

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