defrag

[Kevin Kinsey]

Giorgos Keramidas wrote:
> On 2007-03-02 11:27, Mario Lobo <mario.lobo at ipad.com.br> wrote:
>> On Thursday 01 March 2007 17:27, Pietro Cerutti wrote:
>>> On 3/1/07, Kevin Kinsey <kdk at daleco.biz> wrote:
>>>> Kevin Kinsey wrote:
>>>>
>>>> groff /usr/share/doc/smm/05.fastfs/* > ~/ffs.ps
>> This is what worked for me:
>>
>> [~]>gunzip -c /usr/share/doc/smm/05.fastfs/paper.ascii.gz > paper.ascii
>> [~]>groff paper.ascii > ffs.ps
>> [~]>ps2pdf ffs.ps
>> [~]>acroread ffs.pdf
> 
> Actually 'paper.ascii' is a plain ASCII file with some 'escape
> sequences' -- like literal backspace and repeated characters, to denote
> *bold* text.  It's not valid groff input AFAIK, but you can strip off
> the special characters with:
> 
>     gunzip -c /usr/share/doc/smm/05.fastfs/paper.ascii.gz > 05.fastfs.ascii
>     col -b < 05.fastfs.ascii > 05.fastfs.txt && rm 05.fastfs.ascii
> 
> Then you have a plain text version of 05.fastfs.txt, which can be
> converted to PS and/or PDF with tools like a2ps or enscript :)
> 

As *you* know, but maybe some others don't, I'm a (relative) newb and 
was clueless about these "old papers"; I believe I came across my 
hackage by, err, hacking?  It worked, but not nearly so prettily ;-)

Oh, and I tried *piping* to `col -bx`, but no joy.  Thanks for the 
__real__ magic!

KDK

-- 
There is one difference between a tax collector and
a taxidermist -- the taxidermist leaves the hide.
		-- Mortimer Caplan