4 Last update: 4 Jan 2002
6 This file is part of groff, the GNU roff type-setting system.
8 Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
9 written by Bernd Warken <bwarken@mayn.de>
10 maintained by Werner Lemberg <wl@gnu.org>
12 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
13 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or
14 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the
15 Invariant Sections being this .ig-section and AUTHORS, with no
16 Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts.
18 A copy of the Free Documentation License is included as a file called
19 FDL in the main directory of the groff source package.
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43 .TH DITROFF @MAN7EXT@ "@MDATE@" "Groff Version @VERSION@"
45 ditroff \- classical device independent roff
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54 once marked a development level of the
56 text processing system.
62 is used as a synonym for
66 The first roff system was written by Joe Osanna around 1973.
68 It supported only two output devices, the
70 program produced text oriented tty output, while the
72 program generated graphical output for exactly one output device, the Wang
73 .I Graphic Systems CAT
77 In 1979, Brian Kernighan rewrote troff to support more devices by
78 creating an intermediate output format for troff that can be fed into
79 postprocessor programs which actually do the printout on the device.
81 Kernighan's version marks what is known as
85 In order to distinguish it from Osanna's original mono-device version,
88 .RI ( d\/ evice\~ i\/ ndependent\~ troff\/ )
89 on some systems, though this naming isn't mentioned in the classical
93 Today, any existing roff system is based on Kernighan's multi-device
96 The distinction between
100 isn't necessary any longer, for each modern
102 provides already the complete functionality of
105 On most systems, the name
111 The easiest way to use ditroff is the GNU roff system,
114 .BR groff (@MAN1EXT@)
115 program is a wrapper around
117 that automatically handles postprocessing.
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126 The 1992 revision of the
127 .I Nroff/Troff User's Manual
131 .IR "Brian Kernighan" ,
134 .URL http://\:cm.bell-labs.com/\:cm/\:cs/\:cstr/\:54.ps.gz \
135 "Bell Labs CSTR\~#54" .
139 .I A Typesetter-independent TROFF
142 is the original documentation of the first multi-device troff
146 .URL http://\:cm.bell-labs.com/\:cm/\:cs/\:cstr/\:97.ps.gz \
147 "Bell Labs CSTR\~#97" .
151 This document gives details on the history and concepts of roff.
154 .BR @g@troff (@MAN1EXT@)
155 The actual implementation of
159 .BR groff (@MAN1EXT@)
160 The GNU roff program and pointers to all documentation around groff.
163 .BR groff_out (@MAN5EXT@)
164 The groff version of the intermediate output language, the basis for
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172 Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
175 This document is distributed under the terms of the FDL (GNU Free
176 Documentation License) version 1.1 or later.
178 You should have received a copy of the FDL on your system, it is also
179 available on-line at the
180 .URL http://\:www.gnu.org/\:copyleft/\:fdl.html "GNU copyleft site" .
183 This document is part of
185 the GNU roff distribution.
188 .MTO bwarken@mayn.de "Bernd Warken"
190 .MTO wl@gnu.org "Werner Lemberg" .
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