TBLP—A Simple Preprocessor for Tables
Michael E. Dewey · Software Practice and Experience · 1986
Although powerful text processing programs have removed much of the tedium from the preparation of documents, some types of text are still difficult to lay out. Specialized preprocessors have been developed to prepare such text for input to general purpose text processors, and this paper discusses a program which lays out tabular material. The program has two main design aims: operation with very simple terminals, printers and text processors, and independence from the devices and other programs in the system. The paper also considers ways in which a variety of other types of text material can be processed as though they were tables: examples include simple diagrams, histograms and mathematical formulae.