* Originally by: Maurice Kinal (1:153/7001), 24 May 25 03:00.

Hello Grant!

24 May 25 03:00, Maurice Kinal wrote to Grant Weasner:

Have you looked at makeinfo, which comes with the texinfo package? 'makeinfo --help' reports 'makeinfo --plaintext foo.texi' which
offhand looks to me what you're looking for.

There is usually a command named "texi2any" (along with texi2dvi and texi2pdf) installed with the texinfo package that does exactly this.


Regards,
Gerrit

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* Origin: We are the second generation (2:240/12)

Hey Gerrit!

There is usually a command named "texi2any"

On my systems "makeinfo" is a symlink to "texi2any". The little I've used it directly would explain why I posted it as "makeinfo".

installed with the texinfo package that does exactly this.

I would hope so! Something would be amiss if that weren't true.

Life is good,
Maurice

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* Origin: Little Mikey's Brain - Ladysmith BC, Canada (1:153/7001)

Hello Grant!

19 May 25, Grant Weasner wrote to All:

Gopher friendly:
1) 64 columns wide.
2) any indents will remain, but if a line goes beyond 64 cols, the remaining characters will go to the line below but indent to the same column as the prior line.

This seems pretty difficult and I'm wondering how others would
approch this task.

Indent to the same column as the prior line - that sounds like the man manpages layout?

If yes then you may like to peek into the manpage display processes for more hints.

Regards

Kai

--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.4.7
* Origin: Monobox (2:240/77)

Re: text reformating
By: Kai Richter to Grant Weasner on Wed May 28 2025 15:03:50

Hi Kai,

Gopher friendly:
1) 64 columns wide.
2) any indents will remain, but if a line goes beyond 64 cols, the remaining characters will go to the line below but
indent
to the same column as the prior line.

Indent to the same column as the prior line - that sounds like the man manpages layout?

Yes I'm working on the algorithm for the process.

So far its counting the proceeding whitespace starting at char[0] for the line, and finding any '\t' tabs as well.
If the next line proceeding whitespace is equal to current line, read the next->next line check for equal whitespace. Repeat the process until whitespace is not equal, or whitespace is equal but directly after whietspace there is a '\n'.
create new lines with current whitespace for every joined line.

If yes then you may like to peek into the manpage display processes for more hints.

I looked at man man, but I wasn't sure what I was looking for. Lots of references to groff within man man.
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Hej Grant!

and finding any '\t' tabs as well.

'col -x' will replace tabs with spaces.

$ echo -e '\tSome text.' | wc -c
12

$ echo -e '\tSome text.' | col -x | wc -c
19

You'll probably want to replace tabs before counting characters.

Het leven is goed,
Maurice

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--- GNU bash, version 5.2.37(1)-release (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)
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Hello Grant!

04 Jun 25, Grant Weasner wrote to Maurice Kinal:

In my original post I had chosen 64 columns wide is from the link
below, so my gopher pages could have enough width left over to pretty
some of the text with boxes.

This display/format/layout problem is the reason why markup languages have been invented. For example css within html or markdown on github readme.md files.

If you are not looking for a one time conversion then text processing workflow may be a good idea. You could keep two text files, one for easy human editing and the output of text processing for the gopher files.

troff/groff have its own markup language. For example:
.ll 67
sets the line lenght to 67 chars
.sp 2
insert two blank lines.

The groff system can do macros. Some examples and better than mine explanations can be found here:

https://www.davebucklin.com/play/2018/03/04/gopher-groff.html

For the manpages format there is an existing macro set called "groff an.tmac" macro package or man macro package. I think it comes with man usually, because on my outdated system it can be found with "man 7 man". There are macros for relative margin indent and indented paragraph macros.

Regards

Kai

--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.4.7
* Origin: Monobox (2:240/77)