groff 1.25.0.rc2 available for evaluation
"G. Branden Robinson" <[email protected]> Sat, 1 Aug 2026 21:16:22 -0500
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Subject: groff 1.25.0.rc2 available for evaluation
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groff 1.25.0 release candidate 2, 1.25.0.rc2, is now available from
GNU's alpha site. You may download the distribution archive from there.
https://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/groff/
Ensure the integrity of your download by checking this source code
archive's cryptographic signature; see "Obtaining groff" below.
What is groff?
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groff (GNU roff) is a typesetting system that reads plain text input
that includes formatting commands to produce output in PostScript,
PDF, HTML, or DVI formats or for display to a terminal. Formatting
commands can be low-level typesetting primitives, macros from a
supplied package, or user-defined macros. All three approaches can be
combined.
A reimplementation and extension of troff and other programs from AT&T
Unix, groff is widely available on POSIX and other systems owing to its
long association with Unix manuals, including man pages. It and its
predecessor have produced several best-selling software engineering
texts. groff can create typographically sophisticated documents while
consuming minimal system resources.
https://www.gnu.org/software/groff/
Changes since groff 1.25.0.rc1
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Since the groff 1.25.0.rc1 release candidate was made available on 18
July, 4 people have authored a total of 67 commits.
$ git shortlog --summary 1.25.0.rc1..1.25.0.rc2
1 Bruno Haible
1 Deri James
64 G. Branden Robinson
1 Richard Purdie
Thanks to Alexis Hildebrandt, Nguy=E1=BB=85n Gia Phong, Bruno Haible, and E=
lias
Hasas for reporting defects in rc1.
* Several memory management problems, including 1-byte heap
overreads in multiple programs and one heap overwrite in troff(1)
when constructing a diagnostic message, have been corrected.
* A potential signed integer overflow in troff(1) is fixed.
* An assertion failure in grops(1) is fixed.
* New automated regression tests accompany several of the foregoing
fixes.
* A missing prerequisite declaration in an Automake script is fixed.
* The "configure" script is now less easily fooled by an installed
Ghostscript's copies of URW fonts. See section "Feature service
levels and URW font support" of gropdf(1).
* Diagnostic messages in glilypond(1) and tbl(1) are improved.
* groff now overrides Automake 2.70-2.72's imposed preference for C11
and C++11. groff attempts to employ only C99 and C++98 language
features (plus some Gnulib extensions).
* groff's build confines itself better to its own build tree when
employing its own tools to generate its documentation.
* Building groff from its Git repository now requires the
`--enable-maintainer-mode` option to its 'configure' script.
* Documentation is corrected and improved.
Details
-------
For a comprehensive list of feature changes, see "News" below.
Much attention has been given to fixing bugs, validating input,
clarifying diagnostic messages, improving memory management, and
correcting and expanding documentation. The previous release shipped
with 314 automated tests; this one ships with over 360.
As of this writing, per the GNU Savannah bug tracker, the groff
project has resolved 90 issues as fixed for the 1.25.0 release.
Classifying these issues by type and the component of the project to
which they apply, we find the following.
Type Component
---- ---------
Build/installation 11 Core 50
Crash/unresponsive 15 Driver: grohtml 1
Documentation 9 Driver: gropdf 0
Feature change 14 Driver: grops 2
Incorrect behavior 22 Driver: grotty 1
Lint 0 Driver: others/general 1
Refactoring 4 Font: devpdf 1
Rendering/cosmetics 6 Font: devps 0
Test 1 Font: others/general 0
Warning/suspicious behavior 8 General 15
Macros: man 2
Macros: mdoc 1
Macros: me 0
Macros: mm 3
Macros: mom 1
Macros: ms 2
Macros: others/general 3
Preprocessor: eqn 2
Preprocessor: grn 1
Preprocessor: html 0
Preprocessor: pic 1
Preprocessor: preconv 0
Preprocessor: refer 0
Preprocessor: soelim 0
Preprocessor: tbl 1
Preprocessor: others/general 1
Utilities 1
Another way of capturing the amount of revision is as follows.
$ git diff --stat 1.24.1 1.25.0.rc2 | tail -n 1
396 files changed, 51411 insertions(+), 33537 deletions(-)
Obtaining groff
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Here are the compressed sources and a GPG detached signature[*].
https://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/groff/groff-1.25.0.rc2.tar.gz
https://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/groff/groff-1.25.0.rc2.tar.gz.sig
Here are the SHA-1 and SHA-256 checksums.
9baf335516459c38d869e58b6c9425d91024ade5 groff-1.25.0.rc2.tar.gz
Xl5/las/1lnyhIQiCI4bmTPRaj9DowvyWPCTlVwxLm0=3D groff-1.25.0.rc2.tar.gz
The SHA-256 checksum is encoded in Base64 instead of the hexadecimal
form that most checksum tools default to. The mechanism follows.
sha256sum < groff-1.25.0.rc2.tar.gz | cut -f1 -d\ | xxd -r -p | base64
(Because "base64" reads from a pipe, it doesn't know the file name, and
so the file name will not appear in the output.)
[*] Use a .sig file to verify that the corresponding file (without the
.sig suffix) is intact. First, be sure to download both the .sig
file and the corresponding archive. Then, verify the archive.
gpg --verify groff-1.25.0.rc2.tar.gz{.sig,}
If that command fails because you don't have the required public
key, you can import it.
wget -O 108747.asc \
'https://savannah.gnu.org/people/viewgpg.php?user_id=3D108747'
gpg --import 108747.asc
Re-run the 'gpg --verify' command above again subsequently.
Caveats
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* GNU tools, or otherwise POSIX-conforming ones, are generally required
to build on Solaris 10 or 11. See the "PROBLEMS" file in the
distribution archive.
* Solaris 10 has known problems with automated tests; see the
"PROBLEMS" file in the distribution archive.
News
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troff
-----
* GNU troff, the formatter, now employs the unusual Roman numerals "W"
and "Z" of AT&T troff only in compatibility mode.
* The `dt` request, when given invalid arguments, now does nothing
instead of removing any existing diversion trap. This change is
inconsistent with AT&T troff but more consistent with general *roff
syntax; as a rule, requests given invalid arguments (and that don't
process a list of similar objects, as `rm` and `rr` do) perform no
operation. (However, see "Other differences" in groff_diff(7) or
groff's Texinfo manual regarding `rm` and `rr` request behavior that
is discrepant among various troffs.)
* The `dt` and `wh` requests now enforce their requirement of space
between their arguments. While consistent with GNU troff input
syntax, said enforcement is not consistent with AT&T troff. We did
not add support in groff's AT&T troff compatibility mode because
we're aware of no legacy documents that require it. Example:
`.wh9i+.5+\n(xxuPT` is, while validly planting a trap for the `PT`
macro in AT&T troff, an input considerably more cryptic than any
specimens known to us.
* The formatter now enables the "delim", "syntax", and "escape" warning
categories by default.
* The `trf` (transparent file throughput) request now discards input
characters that are invalid in GNU troff's output format, meaning all
character codes less than decimal 32 (except 10, the line feed) and
greater than decimal 127.
* A new read-only register `.ul` reports the count of productive input
lines remaining to be be underlined in the environment (as configured
by either the `cu` or `ul` requests).
* The formatter supports a new warning category, "style". It is used
to diagnose input that is non-idiomatic or likely to produce an
unexpected result (or none at all), but is not invalid.
* When issuing warning diagnostic messages, GNU troff now reports the
warning category governing its emission. This change is to make it
easier for users to select warnings of interest.
* When the `substring` request is given two index arguments whose
magnitudes both exceed the operand string, macro, or diversion's
length, it now ignores the request (and issues a warning in category
"range"), leaving the operand (first request argument) unchanged
instead of emptying it.
* When the `ti` request is given no arguments, the formatter now
cancels any pending temporary indentation. (Formerly, it did nothing
in any troff, except, in GNU troff, issuing a warning in category
"missing".)
* The `phw` request now accepts arguments. Each is interpreted as a
possible hyphenation word (ignoring hyphens in the input), looked
up in the hyphenation exception list for the hyphenation language,
and if found, is reported with its hyphenation points. Only
hyphenation exceptions defined by the `hw` request are reported.
* The `pwh` request, when invoked while the diversion is not the
top-level diversion, now reports the name and location of any
configured diversion trap instead of reporting nothing.
* A new request, `rhw`, removes user-defined hyphenation exception
words from the current hyphenation language's list thereof. Those
supplied by files like "tmac/hyphenex.{cs,en,pl}" are retained.
* The built-in, read-only register `.zoom` is now named `.fzoom` for
consistency with other GNU troff extensions, which largely pair
names of requests with those of read-only registers they affect. The
old name remains as an alias configured by the default "troffrc"
file.
grn
---
* The `-M` command-line option is renamed to `-I`, better paralleling
troff(1). Inclusions are not the same things as macro file
resources. The program accepts `-L` (the original Berkeley name for
this option), and `-M` (groff grn prior to this point) synonymously.
groff
-----
* groff now passes `-I` options as-is to grn(1), instead of translating
the option name to `-M`.
* groff's `-I` option no longer implies `-g` or `-s`; if your document
needs to be piped through grn(1) and/or soelim(1), specify the
foregoing options as appropriate.
pic
---
* groff's pic(1) manual, "Making Pictures With GNU PIC", is now built
and installed as a PDF rather than a PostScript document. Thanks to
Deri James.
Macro packages
--------------
* The an (man) package offers new macros to ease the formatting of
lists. Enclose paragraphing macros between `LS` and `LE` to identify
them as list items. Doing so can mark them as "compact", ease
management of their indentation, and supply hints to the output
driver to improve their rendering (as with HTML). Lists can be
nested. (Sub)sectioning macro calls, and the end of the document,
close all open lists. See groff_man(7) for details, and
groff_man_style(7) for an example. Thanks to Alex Colomar, Chet
Ramey, P=C3=A1draig Brady, and Stephen Gildea for consultation and
encouragement, and to Alex for selecting these macros' names.
Because these macros format no text, documents employing them risk no
damage to their content if the formatter does not support them. A
man(7) document author can choose either to transition to these
macros, to manage list "compactness" and item indentation with
existing man(7) package facilities, or to employ both approaches.
* The m (mm) macro package's `IA` and `WA` macros--used only with the
"letter" document type configured by calling the `LT` macro--no
longer disable the escape character, and their counterparts `IE` and
`WE` no longer re=C3=ABnable it. This change makes groff mm consistent
with DWB 3.3 mm. If you require the previous groff mm behavior,
consider writing and using wrapper macros such as the following in
your document.
.de iA
.IA
.eo
..
.de iE
.ec
.IE
..
These macro definitions are harmlessly redundant when formatting such
a document with an older version of groff mm.
* The s (ms) macro package now supports PDF features. Pass groff (or
troff) the command-line option `-r PDFFEAT=3D1` to enable them when
used with the "pdf" output device ("-T pdf").
The PDF thus produced shows an overview bookmark panel or navigation
pane (viewer application support allowing); the viewer's interface to
document properties includes the document title and author(s), if
specified by the `TL` and `AU` macros, respectively; if the document
calls the package's `TC` macro, the table of contents entries it
produces are hyperlinked to navigate the document (even if it does
not use the `XN` macro introduced in groff 1.23.0); and if the
document calls `RP` to configure a cover page, the table of contents
relocates to follow it.
The new macros `XM` and `XR` respectively anchor a location within
the document and format text that hyperlinks to it, respectively.
These changes were inspired by Keith Marshall's "spdf.tmac" which was
withdrawn from groff in 1.24.0, but continues to be developed at:
https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/groff-pdfmark/
...though groff ms(7) differs in some respects. Our objective is to
enable and support PDF features in any ms document without requiring
its author to update its content.
We welcome feedback on these extensions to the package's macro
interface. We expect to finalize these changes in a future release,
and effectively default `PDFFEAT` "on". Thanks to Deri James.
* The s (ms) macro package now supports the use of automatically
numbered footnote marks (interpolated via `\**` or `\*[*]`) in tbl(1)
table entries. Other implementations of ms do not. Thanks to Deri
James.
* groff's ms(7) manual, "Using groff with the ms macros", is now built
and installed as a PDF rather than a PostScript document. Thanks to
Deri James.
Miscellaneous
-------------
* The new document "Groff PDF Features" is built and installed as a
PDF. It surveys the PDF features that groff enables and exposes in
its full-service macro packages. Thanks to Deri James.
* The grn command now exits with status 2 instead of 8 on usage errors
arising from missing arguments to command-line options. It now exits
with the POSIX standard `EXIT_FAILURE` status (1) instead of 8 when
reading an unrecognized command keyword.
* The 'configure' options '--{en,dis}able-groff-allocator' introduced
in groff 1.23.0 are now deprecated. `--disable-groff-allocator` has
been implicit since that release, and we've received no reports of a
C++ runtime unable to handle groff's demands on its heap/"free store"
allocator. We expect to withdraw these configuration options
completely in groff 1.26.
* You need the "convert" program from ImageMagick or GraphicsMagick to
build groff from its Git repository. The program is not required for
builds from distribution archives.
* Building groff from its Git repository now requires the
`--enable-maintainer-mode` option to its 'configure' script.
Acknowledgements
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We'd like to thank the following people for helping ensure the quality
of this release.
Alex Colomar
Alexis Hildebrandt
Avi Halachmi
Benno Schulenberg
Bob Friesenhahn
Bruno Haible
Chet Ramey
Colin Watson
Dave Kemper
Deri James
Dmytro Bagrii
Elias Hasas
Hilmar Preu=C3=9Fe
Hubert Garavel
Ingo Schwarze
Johannes Altmanninger
John Gardner
Karl Berry
Luis Rivera
Martin Simmons
Morten Bo Johansen
Nguy=E1=BB=85n Gia Phong
P=C3=A1draig Brady
Richard Purdie
Ross Burton
Russ Allbery
Santiago Vila
Stefan M=C3=B6ding
Stephen Gildea
Zack Weinberg
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