Amazingly Workable Formatter
Author: Henry Spencer Download: ftp://ftp.freefriends.org/arnold/Awkstuff/awf.tgz Family: MarkupLanguage Platform: awk License: Open source
"This is awf, the Amazingly Workable Formatter -- a "nroff -man" or (subset) "nroff -m"s" clone written entirely in (old) awk.
It is slow and has many restrictions, but does a decent job on most manual pages and simple -ms documents, and isn't subject to AT&T's brain-damaged licensing that denies many System V users any text formatter at all. It is also a text formatter that is simple enough to be tinkered with, for people who want to experiment.
Type "make r" to run a regression test, formatting the manual page (awf.1) and comparing it to a preformatted copy (awf.1.out). Type "make install" to install it. Pathnames may need changing.
I don't know whether awf will run on 16-bit machines. Data requirements are modest, but I fear the programs are probably big enough to run awk out of space.
I can't believe I really wrote this.
Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry 13 July 1990"