4 This file is part of groff, the GNU roff type-setting system.
6 Copyright (C) 2001, 2002, 2004, 2007, 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
7 written by Bernd Warken <bwarken@mayn.de>
8 maintained by Werner Lemberg <wl@gnu.org>
10 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
11 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or
12 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the
13 Invariant Sections being this .ig-section and AUTHORS, with no
14 Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts.
16 A copy of the Free Documentation License is included as a file called
17 FDL in the main directory of the groff source package.
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25 .TH DITROFF @MAN7EXT@ "@MDATE@" "Groff Version @VERSION@"
29 ditroff \- classical device independent roff
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38 once marked a development level of the
40 text processing system.
46 is used as a synonym for
50 The first roff system was written by Joe Ossanna around 1973.
52 It supported only two output devices, the
54 program produced text oriented tty output, while the
56 program generated graphical output for exactly one output device, the Wang
57 .I Graphic Systems CAT
61 In 1979, Brian Kernighan rewrote troff to support more devices by
62 creating an intermediate output format for troff that can be fed into
63 postprocessor programs which actually do the printout on the device.
65 Kernighan's version marks what is known as
69 In order to distinguish it from Ossanna's original mono-device version,
73 .IR d\/ "evice " i\/ "ndependent " troff\/\c
75 on some systems, though this naming isn't mentioned in the classical
79 Today, any existing roff system is based on Kernighan's multi-device
82 The distinction between
86 isn't necessary any longer, for each modern
88 provides already the complete functionality of
91 On most systems, the name
97 The easiest way to use ditroff is the GNU roff system,
100 .BR groff (@MAN1EXT@)
101 program is a wrapper around
103 that automatically handles postprocessing.
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112 The 1992 revision of the
113 .I Nroff/Troff User's Manual
117 .IR "Brian Kernighan" ,
119 .UR http://\:cm.bell-labs.com/\:cm/\:cs/\:cstr/\:54.ps.gz
125 .I A Typesetter-independent TROFF
128 is the original documentation of the first multi-device troff
131 .UR http://\:cm.bell-labs.com/\:cm/\:cs/\:cstr/\:97.ps.gz
137 This document gives details on the history and concepts of roff.
140 .BR @g@troff (@MAN1EXT@)
141 The actual implementation of
145 .BR groff (@MAN1EXT@)
146 The GNU roff program and pointers to all documentation around groff.
149 .BR groff_out (@MAN5EXT@)
150 The groff version of the intermediate output language, the basis for
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158 Copyright (C) 2001, 2002, 2004, 2007, 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
161 This document is distributed under the terms of the FDL (GNU Free
162 Documentation License) version 1.1 or later.
164 You should have received a copy of the FDL on your system, it is also
165 available on-line at the
166 .UR http://\:www.gnu.org/\:copyleft/\:fdl.html
171 This document is part of
173 the GNU roff distribution.
176 .MT bwarken@\:mayn.de
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