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GROFF(1)                             General Commands Manual                             GROFF(1)

NAME
       groff - front-end for the groff document formatting system

SYNOPSIS
       groff [-abcegijklpstzCEGNRSUVXZ] [-d cs] [-D arg] [-f fam] [-F dir] [-I dir] [-K arg]
             [-L arg] [-m name] [-M dir] [-n num] [-o list] [-P arg] [-r cn] [-T dev] [-w name]
             [-W name] [file ...]

       groff -h
       groff --help

       groff -v [option ...]
       groff --version [option ...]

DESCRIPTION
       This  document describes the groff program, the main front-end for the groff document for-
       matting system.  The groff program and macro suite is the implementation of a roff(7) sys-
       tem  within  the  free software collection GNU <http://www.gnu.org>.  The groff system has
       all features of the classical roff, but adds many extensions.

       The groff program allows control of the whole groff system by command-line options.   This
       is a great simplification in comparison to the classical case (which uses pipes only).

OPTIONS
       The command line is parsed according to the usual GNU convention.  Whitespace is permitted
       between a command-line option and its argument.  Options can be grouped  behind  a  single
       '-' (minus character).  A filename of - (minus character) denotes the standard input.

       As  groff  is  a  wrapper program for troff both programs share a set of options.  But the
       groff program has some additional, native options and gives a new meaning  to  some  troff
       options.  On the other hand, not all troff options can be fed into groff.

   Native groff Options
       The  following  options  either  do  not exist for troff or are differently interpreted by
       groff.

       -D arg Set default input encoding used by preconv to arg.  Implies -k.

       -e     Preprocess with eqn.

       -g     Preprocess with grn.

       -G     Preprocess with grap.  Implies -p.

       -h
       --help Print a help message.

       -I dir This option may be used to specify a directory to search for files (both  those  on
              the  command  line  and those named in .psbb and .so requests, and \X'ps: import' ,
              \X'ps: file' and  \X'pdf:  pdfpic'  escapes).   The  current  directory  is  always
              searched  first.   This option may be specified more than once; the directories are
              searched in the order specified.  No directory search is performed for files speci-
              fied using an absolute path.  This option implies the -s option.

       -j     Preprocess with chem.  Implies -p.

       -k     Preprocess  with preconv.  This is run before any other preprocessor.  Please refer
              to preconv's manual page for its behaviour if no -K (or -D) option is specified.

       -K arg Set input encoding used by preconv to arg.  Implies -k.

       -l     Send the output to a spooler program for printing.  The command that should be used
              for  this  is  specified  by  the print command in the device description file, see
              groff_font(5).  If this command is not present, the output is piped into the lpr(1)
              program by default.  See options -L and -X.

       -L arg Pass  arg  to the spooler program.  Several arguments should be passed with a sepa-
              rate -L option each.  Note that groff does not prepend '-' (a minus  sign)  to  arg
              before passing it to the spooler program.

       -N     Don't  allow  newlines within eqn delimiters.  This is the same as the -N option in
              eqn.

       -p     Preprocess with pic.

       -P -option
       -P -option -P arg
              Pass -option or -option arg to the postprocessor.  The  option  must  be  specified
              with  the  necessary  preceding  minus  sign(s)  '-' or '--' because groff does not
              prepend any dashes before passing it to the postprocessor.  For example, to pass  a
              title to the gxditview postprocessor, the shell command

                     groff -X -P -title -P 'groff it' foo

              is equivalent to

                     groff -X -Z foo | gxditview -title 'groff it' -

       -R     Preprocess with refer.  No mechanism is provided for passing arguments to refer be-
              cause most refer options have equivalent language elements that  can  be  specified
              within the document.  See refer(1) for more details.

       -s     Preprocess with soelim.

       -S     Safer  mode.   Pass  the -S option to pic and disable the following troff requests:
              .open, .opena, .pso, .sy, and .pi.  For security reasons, safer mode is enabled  by
              default.

       -t     Preprocess with tbl.

       -T dev Set  output  device to dev.  For this device, troff generates the intermediate out-
              put; see groff_out(5).  Then groff calls a postprocessor to convert troff's  inter-
              mediate output to its final format.  Real devices in groff are

                     dvi    TeX DVI format (postprocessor is grodvi).

                     html
                     xhtml  HTML  and  XHTML  output  (preprocessors  are soelim and pre-grohtml,
                            postprocessor is post-grohtml).

                     lbp    Canon CAPSL printers (LBP-4 and LBP-8 series laser printers; postpro-
                            cessor is grolbp).

                     lj4    HP LaserJet4 compatible (or other PCL5 compatible) printers (postpro-
                            cessor is grolj4).

                     ps     PostScript output (postprocessor is grops).

                     pdf    Portable Document Format (PDF) output (postprocessor is gropdf).

              For the following TTY output devices (postprocessor is always grotty),  -T  selects
              the output encoding:

                     ascii  7bit ASCII.

                     cp1047 Latin-1 character set for EBCDIC hosts.

                     latin1 ISO 8859-1.

                     utf8   Unicode character set in UTF-8 encoding.  This mode has the most use-
                            ful fonts for TTY mode, so it is the best mode for TTY output.

              The following arguments select gxditview as the 'postprocessor'  (it  is  rather  a
              viewing program):

                     X75    75dpi resolution, 10pt document base font.

                     X75-12 75dpi resolution, 12pt document base font.

                     X100   100dpi resolution, 10pt document base font.

                     X100-12
                            100dpi resolution, 12pt document base font.

              The default device is ps.

       -U     Unsafe mode.  Reverts to the (old) unsafe behaviour; see option -S.

       -v
       --version
              Output  version  information  of groff and of all programs that are run by it; that
              is, the given command line is parsed in the usual way, passing -v  to  all  subpro-
              grams.

       -V     Output  the pipeline that would be run by groff (as a wrapper program) on the stan-
              dard output, but do not execute it.  If given more than once, the commands are both
              printed on the standard error and run.

       -X     Use  gxditview  instead  of  using the usual postprocessor to (pre)view a document.
              The printing spooler behavior as outlined with options -l and -L is carried over to
              gxditview(1)   by   determining   an  argument  for  the  -printCommand  option  of
              gxditview(1).  This sets the default Print action and the corresponding menu  entry
              to  that  value.  -X only produces good results with -Tps, -TX75, -TX75-12, -TX100,
              and -TX100-12.  The default resolution for previewing -Tps output  is  75dpi;  this
              can be changed by passing the -resolution option to gxditview, for example

                     groff -X -P-resolution -P100 -man foo.1

       -z     Suppress output generated by troff.  Only error messages are printed.

       -Z     Do  not  automatically  postprocess  groff intermediate output in the usual manner.
              This will cause the troff output to appear on standard output, replacing the  usual
              postprocessor output; see groff_out(5).

   Transparent Options
       The following options are transparently handed over to the formatter program troff that is
       called by groff subsequently.  These options are described in more detail in troff(1).

       -a     ASCII approximation of output.

       -b     Backtrace on error or warning.

       -c     Disable color output.  Please consult the grotty(1) man page for more details.

       -C     Enable compatibility mode.

       -d cs
       -d name=s
              Define string.

       -E     Disable troff error messages.

       -f fam Set default font family.

       -F dir Set path for device DESC files.

       -i     Process standard input after the specified input files.

       -m name
              Include macro file name.tmac (or tmac.name); see also groff_tmac(5).

       -M dir Path for macro files.

       -n num Number the first page num.

       -o list
              Output only pages in list.

       -r cn
       -r name=n
              Set number register.

       -w name
              Enable warning name.  See troff(1) for names.

       -W name
              disable warning name.  See troff(1) for names.

USING GROFF
       The groff system implements the infrastructure of classical roff; see roff(7) for a survey
       on how a roff system works in general.  Due to the front-end programs available within the
       groff system, using groff is much easier than classical roff.  This section gives an over-
       view  of  the  parts that constitute the groff system.  It complements roff(7) with groff-
       specific features.  This section can be regarded as a guide to  the  documentation  around
       the groff system.

   Paper Size
       The  virtual  paper size used by troff to format the input is controlled globally with the
       requests .po, .pl, and .ll.  See groff_tmac(5) for the  'papersize'  macro  package  which
       provides a convenient interface.

       The  physical  paper size, giving the actual dimensions of the paper sheets, is controlled
       by output devices like grops with the command-line options -p and -l.   See  groff_font(5)
       and the man pages of the output devices for more details.  groff uses the command-line op-
       tion -P to pass options to output devices; for example, the following selects A4 paper  in
       landscape orientation for the PS device:

              groff -Tps -P-pa4 -P-l ...

   Front-ends
       The  groff program is a wrapper around the troff(1) program.  It allows one to specify the
       preprocessors by command-line options and automatically runs the postprocessor that is ap-
       propriate  for  the  selected device.  Doing so, the sometimes tedious piping mechanism of
       classical roff(7) can be avoided.

       The grog(1) program can be used for guessing the correct groff command line  to  format  a
       file.

       The groffer(1) program is an all-around viewer for groff files and man pages.

   Preprocessors
       The groff preprocessors are reimplementations of the classical preprocessors with moderate
       extensions.  The standard preprocessors distributed with the groff package are

       eqn(1) for mathematical formulae,

       grn(1) for including gremlin(1) pictures,

       pic(1) for drawing diagrams,

       chem(1)
              for chemical structure diagrams,

       refer(1)
              for bibliographic references,

       soelim(1)
              for including macro files from standard locations,

       and

       tbl(1) for tables.

       A new preprocessor not available in classical troff is preconv(1) which  converts  various
       input  encodings  to  something  groff  can understand.  It is always run first before any
       other preprocessor.

       Besides these, there are some internal preprocessors that are automatically run with  some
       devices.  These aren't visible to the user.

   Macro Packages
       Macro  packages can be included by option -m.  The groff system implements and extends all
       classical macro packages in a compatible way and adds some packages of its own.  Actually,
       the following macro packages come with groff:

       man    The traditional man page format; see groff_man(7).  It can be specified on the com-
              mand line as -man or -m man.

       mandoc The general package for man pages; it automatically recognizes  whether  the  docu-
              ments uses the man or the mdoc format and branches to the corresponding macro pack-
              age.  It can be specified on the command line as -mandoc or -m mandoc.

       mdoc   The BSD-style man page format; see groff_mdoc(7).  It can be specified on the  com-
              mand line as -mdoc or -m mdoc.

       me     The classical me document format; see groff_me(7).  It can be specified on the com-
              mand line as -me or -m me.

       mm     The classical mm document format; see groff_mm(7).  It can be specified on the com-
              mand line as -mm or -m mm.

       ms     The classical ms document format; see groff_ms(7).  It can be specified on the com-
              mand line as -ms or -m ms.

       www    HTML-like macros for inclusion in arbitrary groff documents; see groff_www(7).

       Details on the naming of macro files and their placement can be  found  in  groff_tmac(5);
       this  man  page  also  documents  some other, minor auxiliary macro packages not mentioned
       here.

   Programming Language
       General concepts common to all roff programming languages are described in roff(7).

       The groff extensions to the classical troff language are documented in groff_diff(7).

       An overview of language features, including all supported escapes  and  requests,  can  be
       found in groff(7).

   Formatters
       The  central roff formatter within the groff system is troff(1).  It provides the features
       of both the classical troff and nroff, as well as the groff extensions.  The  command-line
       option  -C switches troff into compatibility mode which tries to emulate classical roff as
       much as possible.

       There is a shell script nroff(1) that emulates the behavior of classical nroff.  It  tries
       to automatically select the proper output encoding, according to the current locale.

       The formatter program generates intermediate output; see groff_out(7).

   Devices
       In  roff,  the  output  targets  are called devices.  A device can be a piece of hardware,
       e.g., a printer, or a software file format.  A device is specified by the option -T.   The
       groff devices are as follows.

       ascii  Text output using the ascii(7) character set.

       cp1047 Text output using the EBCDIC code page IBM cp1047 (e.g., OS/390 Unix).

       dvi    TeX DVI format.

       html   HTML output.

       latin1 Text output using the ISO Latin-1 (ISO 8859-1) character set; see iso_8859_1(7).

       lbp    Output for Canon CAPSL printers (LBP-4 and LBP-8 series laser printers).

       lj4    HP LaserJet4-compatible (or other PCL5-compatible) printers.

       ps     PostScript output; suitable for printers and previewers like gv(1).

       pdf    PDF files; suitable for viewing with tools such as evince(1) and okular(1).

       utf8   Text  output  using  the Unicode (ISO 10646) character set with UTF-8 encoding; see
              unicode(7).

       xhtml  XHTML output.

       X75    75dpi  X  Window  System  output  suitable  for  the  previewers  xditview(1x)  and
              gxditview(1).  A variant for a 12pt document base font is X75-12.

       X100   100dpi  X  Window  System  output  suitable  for  the  previewers  xditview(1x) and
              gxditview(1).  A variant for a 12pt document base font is X100-12.

       The postprocessor to be used for a device is specified by the postpro command in  the  de-
       vice description file; see groff_font(5).  This can be overridden with the -X option.

       The default device is ps.

   Postprocessors
       groff provides 3 hardware postprocessors:

       grolbp(1)
              for some Canon printers,

       grolj4(1)
              for printers compatible to the HP LaserJet 4 and PCL5,

       grotty(1)
              for  text  output using various encodings, e.g., on text-oriented terminals or line
              printers.

       Today, most printing or drawing hardware is handled by the  operating  system,  by  device
       drivers,  or  by  software  interfaces, usually accepting PostScript.  Consequently, there
       isn't an urgent need for more hardware device postprocessors.

       The groff software devices for conversion into other document file formats are

       grodvi(1)
              for the DVI format,

       grohtml(1)
              for HTML and XHTML formats,

       grops(1)
              for PostScript.

       gropdf(1)
              for PDF.

       Combined with the many existing free conversion tools this should be sufficient to convert
       a troff document into virtually any existing data format.

   Utilities
       The following utility programs around groff are available.

       addftinfo(1)
              Add information to troff font description files for use with groff.

       afmtodit(1)
              Create font description files for PostScript device.

       eqn2graph(1)
              Convert an eqn image into a cropped image.

       gdiffmk(1)
              Mark differences between groff, nroff, or troff files.

       grap2graph(1)
              Convert a grap diagram into a cropped bitmap image.

       groffer(1)
              General viewer program for groff files and man pages.

       gxditview(1)
              The groff X viewer, the GNU version of xditview.

       hpftodit(1)
              Create font description files for lj4 device.

       indxbib(1)
              Make inverted index for bibliographic databases.

       lkbib(1)
              Search bibliographic databases.

       lookbib(1)
              Interactively search bibliographic databases.

       pdfroff(1)
              Create PDF documents using groff.

       pfbtops(1)
              Translate a PostScript font in .pfb format to ASCII.

       pic2graph(1)
              Convert a pic diagram into a cropped image.

       tfmtodit(1)
              Create font description files for TeX DVI device.

       xditview(1x)
              roff viewer historically distributed with the X Window System.

       xtotroff(1)
              Convert X font metrics into GNU troff font metrics.

ENVIRONMENT
       Normally, the path separator in the following environment variables is the colon; this may
       vary depending on the operating system.  For example, DOS and Windows use a semicolon  in-
       stead.

       GROFF_BIN_PATH
              This  search  path,  followed  by  PATH,  is used for commands that are executed by
              groff.  If it is not set then the directory where the groff binaries were installed
              is prepended to PATH.

       GROFF_COMMAND_PREFIX
              When  there  is a need to run different roff implementations at the same time groff
              provides the facility to prepend a prefix to most of its programs that  could  pro-
              voke name clashings at run time (default is to have none).  Historically, this pre-
              fix was the character g, but it can be anything.  For  example,  gtroff  stood  for
              groff's  troff, gtbl for the groff version of tbl.  By setting GROFF_COMMAND_PREFIX
              to different values, the different roff installations can be addressed.   More  ex-
              actly,  if it is set to prefix xxx then groff as a wrapper program internally calls
              xxxtroff instead of troff.  This also applies to the preprocessors eqn,  grn,  pic,
              refer,  tbl,  soelim,  and to the utilities indxbib and lookbib.  This feature does
              not apply to any programs different from the ones above (most notably groff itself)
              since they are unique to the groff package.

       GROFF_ENCODING
              The value of this environment value is passed to the preconv preprocessor to select
              the encoding of input files.  Setting this option implies groff's command-line  op-
              tion  -k  (this  is, groff actually always calls preconv).  If set without a value,
              groff calls preconv without arguments.  An explicit -K  command-line  option  over-
              rides the value of GROFF_ENCODING.  See preconv(1) for details.

       GROFF_FONT_PATH
              A  list  of directories in which to search for the devname directory in addition to
              the default ones.  See troff(1) and groff_font(5) for more details.

       GROFF_TMAC_PATH
              A list of directories in which to search for macro files in addition to the default
              directories.  See troff(1) and groff_tmac(5) for more details.

       GROFF_TMPDIR
              The directory in which temporary files are created.  If this is not set but the en-
              vironment variable TMPDIR instead, temporary files are  created  in  the  directory
              TMPDIR.   On  MS-DOS  and Windows platforms, the environment variables TMP and TEMP
              (in that order) are searched also, after GROFF_TMPDIR and TMPDIR.  Otherwise,  tem-
              porary  files  are  created  in  /tmp.   The  refer(1), groffer(1), grohtml(1), and
              grops(1) commands use temporary files.

       GROFF_TYPESETTER
              Preset the default device.  If this is not set the ps device is  used  as  default.
              This device name is overwritten by the option -T.

EXAMPLES
       The  following  example  illustrates  the  power  of the groff program as a wrapper around
       troff.

       To process a roff file using the preprocessors tbl and pic and the me macro set, classical
       troff had to be called by

              pic foo.me | tbl | troff -me -Tlatin1 | grotty

       Using groff, this pipe can be shortened to the equivalent command

              groff -p -t -me -T latin1 foo.me

       An  even easier way to call this is to use grog(1) to guess the preprocessor and macro op-
       tions and execute the generated command (by using backquotes to specify shell command sub-
       stitution)

              `grog -Tlatin1 foo.me`

       The simplest way is to view the contents in an automated way by calling

              groffer foo.me

BUGS
       On  EBCDIC  hosts  (e.g.,  OS/390 Unix), output devices ascii and latin1 aren't available.
       Similarly, output for EBCDIC code page cp1047 is not available on  ASCII  based  operating
       systems.

INSTALLATION DIRECTORIES
       groff installs files in varying locations depending on its compile-time configuration.  On
       this installation, the following locations are used.

       /etc/X11/app-defaults
              Application defaults directory for gxditview(1).

       /usr/bin
              Directory containing groff's executable commands.

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/eign
              List of common words for indxbib(1).

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.4
              Directory for data files.

       /usr/dict/papers/Ind
              Default index for lkbib(1) and refer(1).

       /usr/share/doc/groff-base
              Documentation directory.

       /usr/share/doc/groff-base/examples
              Example directory.

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/font
              Font directory.

       /usr/share/doc/groff-base/html
              HTML documentation directory.

       /usr/lib/font
              Legacy font directory.

       /usr/share/groff/site-font
              Local font directory.

       /usr/share/groff/site-tmac
              Local macro package (tmac file) directory.

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac
              Macro package (tmac file) directory.

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/oldfont
              Font directory for compatibility with old versions of groff; see grops(1).

       /usr/share/doc/groff-base/pdf
              PDF documentation directory.

       /usr/lib/groff/site-tmac
              System macro package (tmac file) directory.

   groff Macro Directory
       This contains all information related to macro packages.  Note that more than a single di-
       rectory is searched for those files as documented in groff_tmac(5).  For the groff instal-
       lation corresponding to this document, it is located at /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac.  The
       following files contained in the groff macro directory have a special meaning:

       troffrc
              Initialization  file  for  troff.   This is interpreted by troff before reading the
              macro sets and any input.

       troffrc-end
              Final startup file for troff.  It is parsed after all macro sets have been read.

       name.tmac
       tmac.name
              Macro file for macro package name.

   groff Font Directory
       This contains all information related to output devices.  Note that more than a single di-
       rectory is searched for those files; see troff(1).  For the groff installation correspond-
       ing to this document, it is located at /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/font.  The following  files
       contained in the groff font directory have a special meaning:

       devname/DESC
              Device description file for device name, see groff_font(5).

       devname/F
              Font file for font F of device name.

AVAILABILITY
       Information  on how to get groff and related information is available at the groff page of
       the GNU website <http://www.gnu.org/software/groff>.

       Three groff mailing lists are available:

              bug tracker activity (read-only) <bug-groff AT gnu.org>;

              general discussion <groff AT gnu.org>; and

              commit  activity  (read-only)  <groff-commit AT gnu.org>,  which  reports  changes  to
              groff's source code repository by its developers.

       Details  on repository access and much more can be found in the file README at the top di-
       rectory of the groff source package.

       A free implementation of the grap preprocessor, written by Ted Faber <faber AT lunabase.org>,
       can  be  found  at the grap website <http://www.lunabase.org/~faber/Vault/software/grap/>.
       This is the only grap supported by groff.

AUTHORS
       groff was written by James Clark <jjc AT jclark.com>.  This document was rewritten, enhanced,
       and put under the FDL license in 2002 by Bernd Warken <groff-bernd.warken-72 AT web.de>.

SEE ALSO
       Groff: The GNU Implementation of troff, by Trent A. Fisher and Werner Lemberg, is the pri-
       mary groff manual.  You can browse it interactively with "info groff".

       Due to its complex structure, the groff system has many man pages.  They can be read  with
       man(1) or groffer(1).

       But  there are special sections of man pages.  groff has man pages in sections 1, 5,and 7.
       When there are several man pages with the same name in the same man section, the one  with
       the  lowest section is should as first.  The other man pages can be shown anyway by adding
       the section number as argument before the man page name.  Reading the man page  about  the
       groff language is done by one of
              man 7 groff
              groffer 7 groff

       Introduction, history and further readings:
              roff(7).

       Viewer for groff files:
              groffer(1), gxditview(1), xditview(1x).

       Wrapper programs for formatters:
              groff(1), grog(1).

       Roff preprocessors:
              eqn(1), grn(1), pic(1), chem(1), preconv(1), refer(1), soelim(1), tbl(1), grap(1).

       Roff language with the groff extensions:
              groff(7), groff_char(7), groff_diff(7), groff_font(5).

       Roff formatter programs:
              nroff(1), troff(1), ditroff(7).

       The intermediate output language:
              groff_out(7).

       Postprocessors for the output devices:
              grodvi(1), grohtml(1), grolbp(1), grolj4(1), lj4_font(5), grops(1), gropdf(1),
              grotty(1).

       Groff macro packages and macro-specific utilities:
              groff_tmac(5), groff_man(7), groff_mdoc(7), groff_me(7), groff_mm(7), groff_mmse(7)
              (only in Swedish locales), groff_mom(7), groff_ms(7), groff_www(7), groff_trace(7),
              mmroff(7).

       The following utilities are available:
              addftinfo(1), afmtodit(1), eqn2graph(1), gdiffmk(1), grap2graph(1), groffer(1),
              gxditview(1), hpftodit(1), indxbib(1), lkbib(1), lookbib(1), pdfroff(1),
              pfbtops(1), pic2graph(1), tfmtodit(1), xtotroff(1).

groff 1.22.4                              23 March 2022                                  GROFF(1)

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