Hi folks, I haven't received feedback on either of my two previous requests[1][2] for nominations of "headline" items for the groff 1.24.0 release announcement. I assume that's because people found it daunting to boil down ~900 lines of "news". I know I did!
Here's my stab at it.
Let me know of any issues/gripes/suggestions you have.
---snip---
* groff's "configure" script now supports a "--without-urw-fonts"
option to better support systems that don't require full PDF support
from groff.
* groff_man(7) and groff_mdoc(7) now support hyperlinks between man
pages in PDF. They use the "man:" scheme for URLs, and can prepared
to use PDF bookmarks internal to the document in a collection of man
pages if desired. groff builds a "groff-man-pages.pdf" file that
illustrates.
* The groff_man(7) extension macros `SY` and `YS` macros have been
changed to enable greater user control over vertical spacing and to
make them convenient for synopsizing C language functions, not just
commands. In a "Synopsis" section of a man page, existing synopses
consisting of a single item require no migration. This is the most
common case.
* groff 1.24.0 includes mom 2.6, a macro package contributed by Peter
Schaffter.
* The groff_mm(7) macro package has been adjusted in dozens of minor
ways to clean up its user interface and more accurately reproduce
historical mm documents, such as London & Reiser's 1978 paper
describing Unix/V32, the Unix port to the VAX-11/780.
* groff 1.24.0 includes "install-font.bash", an example
script to aid integration of third-party fonts with groff,
contributed by Peter Schaffter and long available at his web site.
* The pic(1) preprocessor supports a new "polygon" command, and extends
reference point syntax to permit selection of objects' vertices and
midpoints (where applicable).
* GNU troff's new `hydefault` request permits a distinct hyphenation
mode default to be configured for each environment. groff's
localization macro files configure an appropriate default for the
selected language.
* The formatter, GNU troff, has many new features to aid debugging
of documents and macro files. All write to the standard error
stream. `pchar`, `pcolor`, `pcomposite`, `pfp`, `pftr`, and `phw`
report the state of data manipulated by requests of the same name
without the "p" prefix. `ptr` has been renamed to `pwh` accordingly.
`pm` now dumps, in JSON encoding, the contents of macros, strings,
and diversions named as arguments. `pline` does the same for a
pending output line. `pstream` reports the status of open file
streams. `pnr` accepts register names as arguments, reporting only
those requsted, and now discloses the autoincrementation amount and
interpolation format of each register (if it is not string-valued).
* GNU troff now implements saturating rather than wrapping integer
arithmetic.
* GNU troff now implements a more regular request syntax. The requests
`cf`, `hpf`, hpfa`, `lf`, `mso`, msoquiet`, `ns`, pi`, `pso`, `so`,
`soquiet`, `sy`, and `trf` now handle their arguments as the string-
populating requests `ds` and `as` do, stripping a leading neutral
double quote from relevant arguments and thereby permitting leading
spaces to be embedded in them. A consequence is that GNU troff
requests now handle file names with spaces in them as easily as any
other file name, unlike other troffs.
* The soelim(1) preprocessor interprets `.so` tokens compatibly with
the foregoing change to GNU troff(1).
* Output localizations for Russian and Spanish, including hyphenation
patterns and macro package string translations, thanks to Nikita
Ivanov and Eloi Montañés, respectively.
* A new macro file "koi8-r.tmac" supports the KOI8-R character
encoding, which in turn supports the new Russian locale for groff.
* The gropdf(1) output driver has several new features.
- JFIF/JPEG and JPEG 2000 image files are embeddable in documents.
- If PerlMagic is installed, many more image formats are as well.
- It ships a grops(1)-compatible "SS" (slanted symbol) font.
- It subsets fonts by default, reducing file size.
- Its output conforms to the ISO 32000/PDF 1.7a standard by default.
- It permits control of page numbers in a PDF reader's outline pane.
- It supports characters outside the Unicode Basic Latin subset
in bookmarks, named destinations, and external hyperlinks.
* The grops(1) output driver now supports fonts encoded using UTF-16.
Much attention has been given to fixing bugs, improving diagnostic
messages, and correcting and expanding documentation. The previous
release shipped with 164 automated tests; this one ships with over 300.
---end snip---
Regards,
Branden
[1] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2026-01/msg00000.html
[2] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2026-01/msg00106.html
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