1DITROFF(7)             Miscellaneous Information Manual             DITROFF(7)
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NAME

6       ditroff - classical device independent roff
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DESCRIPTION

9       The name ditroff once marked a development level of the troff text pro‐
10       cessing system.  In actual roff(7) systems, the name troff is used as a
11       synonym for ditroff.
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13       The  first roff system was written by Joe Ossanna around 1973.  It sup‐
14       ported only two output devices, the nroff program  produced  text  ori‐
15       ented  tty  output,  while the troff program generated graphical output
16       for exactly one output device, the Wang Graphic Systems CAT typesetter.
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18       In 1979, Brian Kernighan rewrote troff to support more devices by  cre‐
19       ating  an  intermediate  output  format  for troff that can be fed into
20       postprocessor programs which actually do the printout  on  the  device.
21       Kernighan's  version  marks what is known as classical troff today.  In
22       order to distinguish it from Ossanna's original mono-device version, it
23       was  called  ditroff (device independent troff) on some systems, though
24       this naming isn't mentioned in the classical documentation.
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26       Today, any existing roff system is based  on  Kernighan's  multi-device
27       troff.   The  distinction between troff and ditroff isn't necessary any
28       longer, for each modern troff provides already the complete functional‐
29       ity  of  ditroff.   On  most  systems, the name troff is used to denote
30       ditroff.
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32       The easiest way to use ditroff is the  GNU  roff  system,  groff.   The
33       groff(1)  program is a wrapper around (di)troff that automatically han‐
34       dles postprocessing.
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SEE ALSO

37       [CSTR #54]
38              The 1992 revision of the Nroff/Troff  User's  Manual  by  J.  F.
39              Ossanna  and  Brian  Kernighan,  see Bell Labs CSTR #54 ⟨http://
40              cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/cstr/54.ps.gz⟩.
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42       [CSTR #97]
43              A Typesetter-independent TROFF by Brian Kernighan is the  origi‐
44              nal documentation of the first multi-device troff (ditroff), see
45              Bell   Labs   CSTR   #97    ⟨http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/cstr/
46              97.ps.gz⟩.
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48       roff(7)
49              This document gives details on the history and concepts of roff.
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51       troff(1)
52              The actual implementation of ditroff.
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54       groff(1)
55              The  GNU  roff  program and pointers to all documentation around
56              groff.
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58       groff_out(5)
59              The groff version of the intermediate output language, the basis
60              for multi-devicing.
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COPYING

63       Copyright © 2001-2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
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65       This file is part of groff, the GNU roff type-setting system.
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67       Permission  is  granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
68       under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version  1.3  or
69       any  later  version  published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
70       Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts.
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72       A copy of the Free Documentation License is included as a  file  called
73       FDL  in  the  main  directory  of  the groff source package, it is also
74       available  on-line  at  the  GNU  copyleft  site   ⟨http://www.gnu.org/
75       copyleft/fdl.html⟩.
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AUTHORS

78       It  was  written  by Bernd Warken ⟨groff-bernd.warken-72@web.de⟩ and is
79       maintained by Werner Lemberg ⟨wl@gnu.org⟩.
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83Groff Version 1.22.3            4 November 2014                     DITROFF(7)