This directory contains supplementary documentation on GNU pic2plot.
`pic2plot' is a translator from the pic language to numerous graphics
formats such as X11, PS/EPS, PCL 5, PNM, GIF, Tektronix, and to editable
formats such as idraw, xfig, Illustrator, and CGM.

The pic language makes it easy to create and modify box-and-arrow diagrams
of the kind frequently found in technical papers and textbooks.  It was
originally designed to be translated to the troff text-processing language,
so that diagrams could be interspersed with text.  The utility program
`pic', the GNU version of which is `gpic', can perform this translation.
It is usually invoked on the command line by doing `groff -p', where
`groff' is the GNU version of the troff text-processing utility.  `gpic'
can also translate pic diagrams to TeX macros, for inclusion in a TeX
document.

`pic2plot' provides a third alternative.  By using `pic2plot', you may
translate diagrams, written in the pic language, directly to graphics
formats.

In this directory, the file pic0.ps is Brian Kernighan's original Bell Labs
technical report on the pic language.  The file pic1.ps is Eric Raymond's
report "Making Pictures with GNU pic", which contains additional details.
Neither of these mentions `pic2plot', however.

The documentation file picmacros.ps was kindly contributed by the late
W. Richard Stevens, who died on Sept. 1, 1999.  Rich Stevens wrote many
fine books on programming and network programming, including `TCP/IP
Illustrated' (Addison-Wesley, 1994).  picmacros.ps shows how pic macros may
be used to draw diagrams (the diagrams are taken from his books).  The
macros themselves are given in the file macros.pic.  Rich asked me to
describe them as "work in progress".
