
README for mp, the PostScript pretty printer.

Version 2.4 April 1990.

Permission is given to distribute these sources, as long as the
copyright messages are not removed, and no monies are exchanged.

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CONTENTS:

1. What is mp?
2. Getting started.
3. Acknowledgements.
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1. What is mp?
--------------

The mp program will pretty print various files for you. It can be used
in conjunction with a mail reading utility for producing a pretty print
of your mail items. It can be used with a news reading tool to pretty
print news articles. Digests can also be printed, and this version can
pretty print ordinary ASCII files as well. Support for personal organiser
printing was added into the last released version.

This version introduces a landscape mode for mp, to allow you to print
two "pages" per page. This should all help us save some trees.

It uses a PostScript prologue file which normally resides in
/usr/local/lib, but this can be overwritten by use of the -p option.

See the manual pages for more details on these various options.


2. Getting started.
-------------------

Initially there is no Makefile file present in the mp source directory.
You will need to copy Makefile.dist to Makefile, then adjust accordingly.

The Makefile compilation details are setup to default to compiling on a Sun4
running SunOS v4.1. Note that there are various compilation definitions that
might need uncommenting if you are trying to compile and run it on other
machines or operating systems.

These are:

PROLOGUE - Location of the mp prologue file (default: /usr/local/lib)
NOINDEX  - uncomment if you don't have the index() function.

See the Makefile for a detailed description of each of these definitions.

Once you are happy with these settings, then you should do a "make" followed
by a "make install" which will compile the mp program and put the files in
their default locations. You will probably have to be super-user when you do
the "make install"


3. Acknowledgements.
--------------------

The original version of mp was written by Steve Holden in the ICON language,
when Steve worked for Sun Microsystems UK. I converted it to the C language
and added a few features. Bruno Pillard of Chorus Systemes, France added
support for MH mail and news article printing, plus a shell script (mailp)
which tidies up the user interface to mp. Dave Glowacki of Public Works
Computer Services, St Paul, MN. added the ability to print digests and
tidied up some of the other options. Rick Rodgers, UCSF School of Pharmacy,
San Francicso revised the initial version of the mp manual page. Doug
Buchanan added support for printing in filofax and Time Manager format.
Many thanks go to Jerermy Webber, Computer Science Department of the
University of Adelaide who rewrote the message parsing and option code and
made substantial improvements to the programs user friendliness and
robustness. Sam Manogharan added support for printing multiple files
specified on the command line, and subject line filename print for ordinary
files. The landscape mode was written by Michael Tuchiarone.

Thanks go also to Bill Shannon, Roger De Salis, L. Jill Debord, Frederick
Avolio, Mark Prior, Stephen Frede, Craig Bishop, Jimmy Aitken, Hugues Leroy,
Bertrand Decouty, David Fiedler, Scott A. Jordahl, David Boone, Steve Cliffe,
Maureen Chew, Brian Kohn, Walter Underwood, Mike Khaw, Rick Gunderson, Johan
Vromans, Brachet, Pierre Mareschal, Roger Riggs, Larry Tsui and Mike
Bundschuh for bug reports and/or bug fixes plus enhancements.

My thanks also goes to Glenn Reid from Adobe Systems for the backspacefont.ps
code used in the prologue files. I'm grateful to all these people, plus
everybody who has suggested enhancements, and fixed bugs in the previous
versions.

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Suggestions for further improvement would be most welcome, plus bug reports
and comments.

Rich Burridge,          DOMAIN: richb@Aus.Sun.COM
PHONE: +61 2 413 2666   ACSnet: richb@sunaus.sun.oz.au
