In article <C19wp9.3Fz@ccu.umanitoba.ca> umwan010@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Nga T A Wan) writes:
>
> I want to use oriental languages in troff but I don't want to reinvent
>the wheel. Rather, I want to ask if there is any way I can control standard
>C/A/T troff or device independent troff to use my character set, specifically mycharacter set is going to be multibyte. I guess it requires at least some
>knowledge in troff font format.
I presume that you're thinking of handling a 16 bit input characters with
troff. It's not possible with any existing version of troff because
they're all 8-bit (indeed, most are 7 bit). That being said, you can
introduce a lot more if you're willing to use \(xx sequences.
C/A/T troff can only be made to extend its character set thru the use
of psroff 3.0 (Transcript won't). However, it's not likely to be reliable
enough for any serious use.
Troff doesn't know about fonts directly. It has font metrics files,
and the troff-to-whatever-printer filter *may* have to deal directly
with fonts rather than simply asking the printer for them.
The width table format is relatively simple. Consult the width tables
that come with your troff. Though, if you have C/A/T troff, you'll
need psroff3.0's width table handling.
--
Chris Lewis; clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca; Phone: Canada 613 832-0541
