Re: Consultant wanted: groff -> LaTeX converter

[Frazer Williams]

In article <address@hidden>, "Lester Ingber"
<address@hidden> wrote:

> Once in awhile over the years I've played a bit trying to build a groff
> -> LaTex converter for my scientific papers, e.g., compatible with teTeX
> and revtex.
> 
> I'm willing to negotiate a short contract with someone to build such a
> converter.  The code could be put into the public domain.  Of course I
> assume the consultant will be able to document extreme expertise in
> groff and in LaTeX.  Given my approach, I can't see this project taking
> more than a week?

I used to use gtroff for my text formatting, but finally gave up fighting
the majority and converted to LaTeX.  I had a lot of stuff in gtroff that
I wanted converted to LaTex, and I tried to write a converter.  I had
some success, but the LaTeX output still requires considerable diddling.
The problem is that some things just aren't done the same in TeX as in
troff.  For example, I used a lot of .in commands in troff.  I don't know
any simple way to do that in LaTeX.  (I'm all ears if anyone has any
suggestions!)  I think you have to put everything in a parbox or
minipage.

Another problem was with macros either defined by me, or more commonly,
defined in a package like ms or mm.  I wound up treating the common mm
macros the same as troff commands in the converter.  Some things worked
pretty well, some didn't.

Anyway, I never got around to packaging the whole thing up, and the code
isn't the cleanest, but it only core dumps during full moons.  If you're
interested, I'd be happy to tar up everything I have and send it to you.
With any luck, it should compile without much trouble, but I suspect
you'll have to mess with it quite a bit to get it to do what you want.

Frazer