groff
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Description:
GNU troff text-formatting system
Type: Formula  |  Tracked Since: Dec 28, 2025
Links: Homepage  |  formulae.brew.sh
Category: System utilities
Tags: text-processing typesetting documentation unix gnu
Install: brew install groff
About:
Groff is a GNU implementation of the classic troff typesetting system. It processes plain text files marked up with troff macros into formatted output like PostScript, PDF, and HTML. It is the engine behind most man pages on Unix-like systems.
Key Features:
  • Multi-format output generation (PostScript, PDF, HTML, TeX)
  • Extensible macro packages (ms, me, man, mdoc)
  • Preprocessors for tables (tbl), equations (eqn), and diagrams (pic)
  • Robust text formatting and layout control
Use Cases:
  • Generating Unix/Linux manual pages
  • Typesetting technical documents and books
  • Converting text markup to printable formats
Alternatives:
  • mandoc – Specialized for man pages; faster and smaller than groff but less feature-rich for general typesetting.
Version History
Detected Version Rev Change Commit
Sep 14, 2025 10:22pm 1 VERSION_BUMP c27fb98e
Nov 25, 2024 10:36pm 1 VERSION_BUMP 34053226