On Wed, 12 Apr 2017, Toby Thain wrote:
You can get really really close to that dream
with TeX based tools
like LyX, etc (and indeed Blue Sky Research had a wysiwyg TeX system
back in the late 1980s).
While troff can get stuff done in its area, for heavy duty work and
exacting typography, TeX's markup blows troff out of the water, I am
afraid.
Heh, yeah. I'd defy anyone to typeset a Bible with troff, but I did it
reasonably well with XeLaTeX.
I did a 400+ page novel in it once. This had a few benefits. One was
that the same markup could generate double spaced typewriter-style
printouts for the novelist to bind and scribble his corrections on,
while at the same time producing the final plate-ready negatives for the
printer.
Sadly I'm not called much to use it any more but it's a tangible
pleasure when I do.
(Although I have to say that I don't like CMR much.)
--T