Recent updates



Version 2.08


  • Added menu option for adding obsolete information to RFC References. This used to be permanently added to all auto-generated RFC references. This is now by default set to off but can be switched on in the menu.
  • Made the reading of the RFC citation library more resilient to corrupted citation files. The current citation file provided by the IETF was corrupted for RFC 6247 (at the time of update. This highlighted the problem.

Version 2.07


  • Fixed minor bug that could cause some documents converted from text to nroff to display some hyphens wrong when converted to text.
  • Aligned the generated table of contents to better match the style of xml2rfc.

Version 2.06


  • Fixed an issue causing NroffEdit to fail starting on systems with restricted configurations.
  • Improvement of text2nroff conversion of tables

Version 2.05


  • Fixed Text to Nroff conversion issue that caused NroffEdit to refuse converting drafts with headings less than 72 characters wide.
  • NroffEdit now suggest the current draft name as file name when saving for the first time
  • Fixed issue that could cause the user to overwrite previous work with a newly converted Text file when hitting save.

Version 2.04


  • Added conversion from common non ASCII characters to ASCII equivalent. Useful e.g. if you copy text from a Word document where quotes and long hyphen gets converted automatically to ASCII.
  • Warning if document contains non ASCII characters (marked red underline)
  • Added download button to download latest version of NroffEdit on new releases.
  • Mac application is now only uses internal file references. This means you can rename the application and place it wherever you want and it will still run as intended.

Version 2.03


  • Bug fix to allow comparison of individual drafts
  • Better highlighting of managed content in the nroff coloring scheme
  • Added linked scroll option where the corresponding text follows scrolls in the nroff window

Version 2.02


  • Bug fixes to the nroff to text algorithm, allowing escape sequences to be expressed in documents
  • Bug fixes to text to nroff algorithm to appropriately allow escape secuence characters to be used in text
  • Closing main application frame now also closes the whole application
  • Warning and cancel option when overwriting old files using Save As
  • Warning and cancel option when closing application with unsaved data

Version 2.0


  • Instant Diff check (using IETF tools diff check) against the latest published version of the current edited draft
  • FTP uploading of current edited draft for distribution of IETF tools diffs
  • Bug fixes to the text to nroff conversion algorithm
  • Bug fixes to nroff to text conversion algorithm


Version 1.51


  • Selective font styles and sizes for Nroff editing and font sizes for the text output.
  • Styling of the text output added. Headings are bold, Page headers and footers grayed out and lines exceeding 72 characters are red.
  • A bug fix to the page view makes it easy to effectively browse large documents through mouse scroll. stepping pages now steps 2 pages at the time.
  • Font size for page view is set to the selected font size for text output.
  • The page view Window is now sizable and the selected size and location on screen is saved between sessions.
  • NroffEdit can now open an nroff file which is provided through command line argument (e.g. java -jar nroffedit.jar c:\data\mydraft.nroff
  • The exit command now exits NroffEdit gracefully via a confirm/cancel dialogue


Version 1.40


  • Automatic version detection with alert for new available versions
  • Automatic RFC reference generation
  • Functions for version check and download of RFC reference library and template files
  • RFC lookup dialogue


Older versions


Version 1.32


Added colour and text styles to the edited nroff structure
Added search and replace feature
Added support for the .tl directive, bot in nroff to text and text to nroff conversion
Added automated date update feature
Various bug fixes

Version 1.2


Added Spell checking capability

Version 1.1



News! - Text to Nroff conversion. If you don’t have an nroff file to edit from, but have a text version of your document, then NroffEdit will build an Nroff document from your text version.

Version 1.0


Added automated Table of Content management

Version 0.90


Added an expiry date calculator and a feature to paste Issue and Expiry date into the Nroff document.

Fixed remaining feature from xml2rfc auto generated output. NroffEdit now correctly handles “\0” between text and numbers, i.e. BCP\078, which is translated to “BCP 78” in text, while not allowing line break between text and numbers


Version 0.85


Fixed hyphenation when hyphenated word is entered over multiple lines.
Stores text files with CR+LF line ending to be compatible with Windows text readers.

Version 0.84



Added possibility to select auto conversion for continuous conversion to txt while writing in nroff
Covers all formatting commands used by the xml2rfc nroff generation tool

Version 0.83


Scroll position in right frame preserved when update.
Added Undo and Redo functionality

Version 0.82


Bug fix: Last line lost - 0.81 sometimes looses the last line.

Version 0.80


Bug fix: IETF Template .nroff file does not compile or other .nroff files don’t comile
Bug fix: Menu options sometimes disappear
Bug fix: Page break before title sometimes adds an extra blank page