Maybe you are thinking of LaTeX (pronounced La-Tech)? It is a "What You See Is What You Mean" (WYSIWYM) markup language, rather than "What You See Is What You Get" (WYSIWYG) like most word processor software. You write your document using a text editor, mark it up using specific LaTeX language elements, then "compile" it into your final document (PDF, etc.) There is a GUI for LaTeX too, called LyX (and apparently some newer ones: https://beebom.com/best-latex-editors/)
Or are you thinking of trofff/nroff which predates LaTeX? Speaking of which, would WLUG members be interested in Maddog giving a talk about the latter? I'm sure Maddog wouldn't mind me reposting his Facebook post about talks he gave on troff/nroff in 1984:
"In 1984 I wrote some troff macros that would allow me to easily update and format my resume. I wrote these macros to help illustrate one of three talks I gave at DECUS.
The three talks were:
o "nroff(1) for beginners: All I want to do is write a simple letter"
o "troff(1) for nroff(1)ers" All I want to do is write a simple resume"
o "macro writing for nroff(1)ers and troff(1)ers: All I want to do is help someone else write a simple resume"
The talks were very successful, with the first talk attracting 30 people, the second talk attracting 150 and the third talk had standing room only with people in the hallway trying to hear. Over the years I changed the engine from AT&T troff(1) which was really only good for a certain type of typesetter, to device independent troff (ditroff) to GNU troff (groff) which produced PostScript. In all that time I did not have to change my macros in the least, nor the input to the macros. Two days ago someone asked me for a copy of my resume, and I realized that I had not updated it since the year 2000, and that was also the last time I had used my macros or groff(1). I tried to take the PDF of my last resume and update it with Libre Office Writer, but that would take a VERY long time just to update it, and even longer to get the formatting right. Then I went into vim(1) and just added a page or two to the sources for my year 2000 resume, typed in the one command line I needed and created a pdf of my updated resume. Total time: two hours. Not bad for forty year old "code".
"
On Sun, Oct 20, 2024 at 01:44:56PM GMT, hammerron via WLUG wrote:
> Probably a couple years back, I think Tim might have mentioned a
> software program that was used by many people to write and edit books
> with. I think the perk was that it was easier to work with the font
> types than it was in Microsoft Word or Libre Office.
>
> Would anyone recall what software that was?
>
> Ron
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