- Groff (software)
Infobox_Software
name = groff
caption =
developer =GNU Project
latest_release_version = 1.19.2
latest_release_date = release date|2005|09|07
operating_system =Cross-platform
genre =Typesetting
license =GNU General Public License
website = http://www.gnu.org/software/groff/groff is the
GNU replacement for thetroff andnroff text formatter s. It is an original implementation written primarily inC++ by James Clark and is modeled afterditroff , including many extensions. The first version, 0.3.1, was released June 1990. The first stable version, 1.04, was announced in November 1991. Groff was developed asfree software to provide an easily-obtained replacement for the standard AT&T troff/nroff package, which at the time was proprietary, and was not always available even on brandedUNIX systems. In 1999, Werner Lemberg and Ted Harding took over maintenance of Groff. [ [http://www.fitug.de/debate/9905/msg00325.html FFII-Nachrichten 1999 Woche 20] .]Groff contains a large number of helper programs, preprocessors, and postprocessors including
eqn ,tbl , pic andsoelim . There are also several macro packages included that duplicate, expand on the capabilities of, or outright replace the standard troff macro packages.Groff development of new features is active, and is an important part of free, open source, and
UNIX derived operating systems such asLinux and 4.4BSD derivatives - notably because troff macros are used to createman pages , the standard form of documentation on Unix and Unix-like systems.Until fairly recently,
O'Reilly and Associates was one publisher that relied heavily on groff for itspage layout and workflow, a fact noted in the colophons of many of its books. (Current books are mostly done in a combination ofAdobe FrameMaker andQuarkXPress .)References
See also
*
TeX
*Desktop publishing External links
* [http://www.gnu.org/software/groff/ Groff homepage]
* [http://www.nabble.com/Groff---General-f1673.html Groff Forum] - hosted by [http://www.nabble.com Nabble] archiving Groff mailing list into a searchable forum.
* [http://troff.org/ troff.org] gives background and examples of troff, including the GNU roff implementation.
* [http://www.groff-wiki.info Groff wiki]
* [http://tylx.tripod.com/groff-resources.html Links to groff resources]
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