Computing with Abelian sections of finitely presented groups

Let G be a finitely presented group. This paper describes the theory and practice of a method for obtaining information about the finite and abelian-by-finite quotients of G, which often allows computation about larger quotients of the group than has been possible by more traditional methods. The paper also describes the authors' software package quotpic, which provides a user-friendly implementation of the algorithms involved in this method, as part of a complete range of facilities for computing various types of quotients of finitely presented groups. (C) 1999 Academic Press