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 An Informal Documentation Formatter

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                                 READER'S GUIDE

                            Vassilis V. Dimakopoulos


                        --- Last Revision: May 1992 ---




                                 Quick overview
 
 

          To use OFF make sure that off.exe is in  a  directory  where
          MSDOS can find it (e.g. in one of the  directories  in  your
          PATH variable). If you  want  to  browse  through  the  file
          'fname' then type

                                   off fname

          When  browsing  through  the  document  you  can  press  the
          following keys:

          þ   SPACE or
          þ   ENTER to go to the next page
          þ   Q to quit the program.

          OFF can also save  the  document  in  a  file  or  print  it
          directly to a line printer.




                                  Plain output
 
 

          If you want to convert a document file into a plain  -  with
          no screen attributes - file then type:

                            off -a fname > newfname

          and the file 'newfname' will contain plain ascii text.  Note
          that the '-a' option is necessary because the normal  output
          of OFF cannot be redirected to a file.

 
 

                                 Printer output
 
 

          OFF can sent a document file  directly  to  a  line  printer
          (which supports the IBM escape  sequences)  using  the  '-p'
          option:

                                  off -p fname

          NOTES:

          1.  The characters that appear with  reversed  background  /
              foreground on the screen, appear as italics on the  line
              printer.

          2.  OFF assumes by default that a NLQ  (Near-Letter-Quality)
              printing is  needed.  To  override  this  use  the  '-d'
              option:

                                  off -p -d fname

              and the printer will use draft quality characters.

          3.  While the screen output is  the  default  for  OFF  (and
              consequently the page length is 24 lines), when the '-p'
              or '-a' option is  used,  the  page  length  becomes  by
              default 66 lines. You may need to adjust  this  to  your
              printer page length (or to whatever you want) using  the
              '-l' option. For example

                                 off -p -l 54 fname

              will set the page length to a usual single-sheet printer
              page.

          4.  Similarly the '-p' and '-a' options cause the page width
              to be initialized to 91 columns. Adjust  this  with  the
              '-w' option, e.g.

                                 off -p -w 80 fname

          Note that the '-d' option is ignored if the '-p'  option  is
          not used and that the '-l' and '-w' options can be used  not
          only for printer but for screen output too.




                                   Filenames
 
 

          To browse through 'fname' you do  not  need  to  specify  an
          extension.  If  you  give  one  OFF  will   take   it   into
          consideration otherwise it will supply  some  extensions  by
          itself. The extensions OFF gives to 'fname'  (in  the  order
          shown) are

          1.  The user extension (if any given)
          2.  .off
          3.  .doc
          4.  .txt

          Also you do not have to give the full path on which  'fname'
          resides. OFF will first look for an  environmental  variable
          called  OFFPATH  which  has  the   directories   where   the
          documentation files can normaly  be  found.  Then  OFF  will
          search for 'fname' in  the  following  directories  (in  the
          order shown):

          1.  The current directory.
          2.  The directories in your OFFPATH (if it exists).

          Note that OFF will search in the following manner:

            for each extension
            {
              for each directory
              {
                if "directory\file.extension" found
                  then Done.
                else
                  Continue.
              }
            }