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This is an excellent introduction to using groff with the -me macro set. It is tailored towards anyone just looking for a quick start and even comes with some sample files at the end.

As stated above, I am curious to know how groff fits into people's lives. Do you write manpages, only take notes with it, prefer it to LaTeX andor ConTeXt for text formatting, or something else entirely? Which macros do you use, if any? Let me know!

As for me, I encountered groff after already learning LaTeX, but I instantly appreciated its concise commands and began using it to take biology notes with the simple -me macro. I'm slowly expanding my usage to encompass math and graphing with eqn and grap, respectively. My needs are not always met by -me as of late, so a macro switch is in order. GNU seems most inclined to continue work on -mom, so I'll likely switch over to that soon enough.

Announcement copied from the main page of the FreeDOS website:

" Please help us test the new release candidate (RC) for the FreeDOS 1.3 release! There are a ton of new changes and improvements from 1.2, including:

• New FreeCOM 0.85a
• New Kernel 2043 and an 8086 version with FAT32 support
• Floppy Edition now uses compression and requires about half as many diskettes
• The return of networking
• Some new programs and games
• Many many many package updates
• Some updates and improvements to NLS
• Improved install process, especially with the MBR
• Some support to automatically set the COUNTRY.SYS information
• Improved CD initialization for the boot media and installed system ... and much, much more! Get your copy of FreeDOS 1.3 RC5 from the FreeDOS Downloads page. Thanks to everyone for helping make this next FreeDOS 1.3 release candidate!

Things are looking pretty good in this release. We'd love to make this the last release candidate before the official release of "FreeDOS 1.3." You can help make that happen by downloading FreeDOS 1.3 RC5 and testing all the programs! Let us know of any bugs or compatibility issues so we can fix them. "

(link above is to the FreeDOS 1.3 RC5 downloads page)

Are you a downtrodden Linux user, forced to use Windows 10 despite your wishes? Do you long to typeset with the simple and powerful groff but aren't sure if it is possible on Windows?

Fortunately for the typesetting inclined, it is possible to use the magnificent groff on Windows as well! I decided to highlight this project in particular, because it allows one to use groff on Windows 10 in a most similar manner as on a linuxbox. The notable (improvement?) that this port of groff makes is automatically assuming pdf output, as ps files aren't supported out-of-the-box on Windows 10. Most importantly, the usual macros are supported as well! I don't use -mom, but -ms and -me seem to work flawlessly so far. The graphing package grap is offered too! Be sure to put the binaries in your path so they're accessible from cmd.exe. Coupled with vim and the ezwinports' manpages, the environment hardly feels like Windows 10 at all, which is a good thing, from my perspective.

The ezwinports from eli-zaretskii on SourceForge offers much more than just groff utilites, one example being texinfo, so feel free to look through the rest of the software binaries offered as detailed on the README :)

I would be curious to know if there ever was a Windows user who began to use groff without learning it first through a *nix operating system. Anyone know someone who fits the bill? It's a long shot, but I think it'd be a nifty thing to see. I'm certainly hoping to popularize groff within mine own circle.

Wondering how I possibly could have managed to find ezwinports? It's front and center on the GNU page about groff: https://www.gnu.org/software/groff/

Pictured above: a printout of an unformatted NRO source document (see link at bottom to get a PostScript or Plaintext copy)

What is NRO?

'NRO is a text processor based on the design provided in "Software Tools" by Kernighan and Plauger.' -- taken from the NRO description

(link: https://gitlab.com/FDOS/unix/nro/-/blob/master/HELP/NRO)

But that's not exactly helpful, is it? Put more simply, NRO is nroff for FreeDOS. Not sure what nroff is? For the GNU/Linux user, it's the program that makes manpages look the way they do. The GNU version used for GNU/Linux is called groff. For those unfamiliar, each line beginning with a period (.sp 2 for example) starts a formatting command. The letters specify which command is meant. All other lines contain the text that will be formatted. To learn more about nroff, look at the following Wikipeidia article on troff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troff

Or visit the related Lemmy:

• https://lemmy.ml/c/groff

  (it's new: first post coming soon, but the sidebar has some info)

Does DOS need this? If so, why?

Good question! I am unsure. Nonetheless, it does its intended job well. It's possible to make easily readable documentation for DOS this way. However, groff can also be used for professional typesetting, akin to LaTeX, albeit with easier and simpler syntax. As I use groff primarily for this purpose, I was curious to see how the NRO version fared. For that, we turn to a printout of my NRO document:

The printout looks awful, and that's mostly due to the monospaced "typewriter font" that it's formatted with. Can this be remedied? Not without printing the document on a real PostScript printer with another font, I would think. Why don't I know for certain? I am printing this to PDF on Linux using CUPS, which creates a PDF document using the processed NRO output. Turning away from the font however, it's clear to see NRO did some fairly remarkable things to the source file. There is a header, an automatically numbered page, various indenting, bolded text, reasonable margins, and all the fragmented lines in the source file have been joined together to fill the page. Wow! It's just like every other word processor! But the real question is: should you start to use NRO? Probably not, unless you already use groff on GNU/Linux already, and want to continue to use it in FreeDOS.

Is there a better way to produce professional looking PostScript and PDF documents in FreeDOS? Up next on my schedule is exploring TeX in FreeDOS.

All the files shown here can be located / downloaded at the following address: https://github.com/sennler/nro/tree/main/EXAMPLES

Have you ever wished there were a proper desktop for your DOS system, and thought that the GUI options, like Ozone or Seal, weren't quite cutting it? They don't really come with much software integrated into the GUI, and the transition back to command line is rather jarring. What if I told you there were a better, more useful alternative?

Well, thanks to TheOuterLinux (link: https://theouterlinux.gitlab.io/), there's now an excellent TUI (text user interface) desktop for DOS! Packed with tons of useful software, such as web browsers, file managers, music players, and even a lock screen, PsychDOS offers an alternative to the entirely command line driven DOS while playing to the strengths text mode offers.

Get PsychDOS: https://psychoslinux.gitlab.io/DOS/INDEX.HTM

Still on the fence about trying it out? Don't just take my word for it! FreeDOS founder Jim Hall provides an overview of PsychDOS on the FreeDOS YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQCiZtnJekU

Featured image: PsychDOS Page 3.5

(link: https://psychoslinux.gitlab.io/DOS/IMAGES/PAGE35.JPG)

Image Attribution: TheOuterLinux

Image License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

More PsychDOS images: https://psychoslinux.gitlab.io/DOS/SCRNSHOT.HTM