Re: Macros for writing (German) letters?

[Alexis]

Hi Tim,

funny you should ask.

I've been working on my own groff macro package to produce documents
that conform to DIN 5008 for quite some time now.
Just a few days ago I started with the implementation of yet another
generation of said macro package that includes the learnings from
previous generations and better understanding of DIN 5008:2020.

The motivation to write a new macro package from scratch rather than
integrate it into an existing one was to focus on and learn the details
of groff(7) while working through implementing the standard¹ and avoid
getting stuck on an issue with an existing macro package due to lack of
my understanding.

Would you and anyone else interested be willing to give feedback
on my macro package or even help with its implementation²?!
Although at this point I feel more comfortable to consider integrating
with an existing package.

A question for the groff maintainers:
What does it take for a new macro package to be considered for inclusion
in groff (e.g.: contrib), so folks like Tim feel the macro package is
"integrated into the groff ecosphere?"

To whet the appetite a bit please find attached a groff/gpic document
(din-5008-dimensions.roff) with which different variants (form a and b,
variable footer height and information block size) can be produced.
Simply change the "user configurable variables" like `form` or 
`informationblock_width`, `footer_height`, etc. and re-create the
document using:

  groff -Tpdf -p -dpaper=a4 -P-pa4 din-5008-dimensions.roff \
    > din-5008-dimensions.pdf

I use a PDF version of din-5008-dimensions.roff to superimpose³
documents produced with my macro package onto it and verify that
the layout adheres to the dimensions given in the DIN 5008 standard.

Insight, advice, best-practices from long-term users and macro package
developers and maintainers is especially welcome and much appreciated!


Best
Alexis

¹ using the special print bundle of the DIN 5008
  https://www.beuth.de/de/publikation/paket-din-5008-das-praxispaket/321130650

² Also happy to share my previous generations

³ using pdfcpu (https://pdfcpu.io):
  pdfcpu watermark add -mode pdf -- \
    "din-5008-dimensions.pdf" "sc:1 abs, rot:0" \
    letter.pdf check.pdf