1GROFF(1) General Commands Manual GROFF(1)
2
6 groff - front-end for the groff document formatting system
7
9 groff [-abcegijklpstzCEGNRSUVXZ] [-d cs] [-D arg] [-f fam] [-F dir]
10 [-I dir] [-K arg] [-L arg] [-m name] [-M dir] [-n num] [-o list]
11 [-P arg] [-r cn] [-T dev] [-w name] [-W name] [file ...]
12 groff -h
14 groff --help
15 groff -v [option ...]
17 groff --version [option ...]
18
20 This document describes the groff program, the main front-end for the
21 groff document formatting system. The groff program and macro suite is
22 the implementation of a roff(7) system within the free software collec‐
23 tion GNU ⟨http://www.gnu.org⟩. The groff system has all features of
24 the classical roff, but adds many extensions.
25 The groff program allows control of the whole groff system by command-
27 line options. This is a great simplification in comparison to the
28 classical case (which uses pipes only).
29
31 The command line is parsed according to the usual GNU convention.
32 Whitespace is permitted between a command-line option and its argument.
33 Options can be grouped behind a single ‘-’ (minus character). A file‐
34 name of - (minus character) denotes the standard input.
35 As groff is a wrapper program for troff both programs share a set of
37 options. But the groff program has some additional, native options and
38 gives a new meaning to some troff options. On the other hand, not all
39 troff options can be fed into groff.
40 Native groff Options
42 The following options either do not exist for troff or are differently
43 interpreted by groff.
44 -D arg Set default input encoding used by preconv to arg. Implies -k.
46 -e Preprocess with eqn.
48 -g Preprocess with grn.
50 -G Preprocess with grap. Implies -p.
52 -h
54 --help Print a help message.
55 -I dir This option may be used to specify a directory to search for
57 files (both those on the command line and those named in .psbb
58 and .so requests, and \X'ps: import' , \X'ps: file' and \X'pdf:
59 pdfpic' escapes). The current directory is always searched
60 first. This option may be specified more than once; the direc‐
61 tories are searched in the order specified. No directory search
62 is performed for files specified using an absolute path. This
63 option implies the -s option.
64 -j Preprocess with chem. Implies -p.
66 -k Preprocess with preconv. This is run before any other pre‐
68 processor. Please refer to preconv's manual page for its behav‐
69 iour if no -K (or -D) option is specified.
70 -K arg Set input encoding used by preconv to arg. Implies -k.
72 -l Send the output to a spooler program for printing. The command
74 that should be used for this is specified by the print command
75 in the device description file, see groff_font(5). If this com‐
76 mand is not present, the output is piped into the lpr(1) program
77 by default. See options -L and -X.
78 -L arg Pass arg to the spooler program. Several arguments should be
80 passed with a separate -L option each. Note that groff does not
81 prepend ‘-’ (a minus sign) to arg before passing it to the
82 spooler program.
83 -N Don't allow newlines within eqn delimiters. This is the same as
85 the -N option in eqn.
86 -p Preprocess with pic.
88 -P -option
90 -P -option -P arg
91 Pass -option or -option arg to the postprocessor. The option
92 must be specified with the necessary preceding minus sign(s) ‘-’
93 or ‘--’ because groff does not prepend any dashes before passing
94 it to the postprocessor. For example, to pass a title to the
95 gxditview postprocessor, the shell command
96 groff -X -P -title -P 'groff it' foo
98 is equivalent to
100 groff -X -Z foo | gxditview -title 'groff it' -
102 -R Preprocess with refer. No mechanism is provided for passing ar‐
104 guments to refer because most refer options have equivalent lan‐
105 guage elements that can be specified within the document. See
106 refer(1) for more details.
107 -s Preprocess with soelim.
109 -S Safer mode. Pass the -S option to pic and disable the following
111 troff requests: .open, .opena, .pso, .sy, and .pi. For security
112 reasons, safer mode is enabled by default.
113 -t Preprocess with tbl.
115 -T dev Set output device to dev. For this device, troff generates the
117 intermediate output; see groff_out(5). Then groff calls a post‐
118 processor to convert troff's intermediate output to its final
119 format. Real devices in groff are
120 dvi TeX DVI format (postprocessor is grodvi).
122 html
124 xhtml HTML and XHTML output (preprocessors are soelim
125 and pre-grohtml, postprocessor is post-grohtml).
126 lbp Canon CAPSL printers (LBP-4 and LBP-8 series laser
128 printers; postprocessor is grolbp).
129 lj4 HP LaserJet4 compatible (or other PCL5 compatible)
131 printers (postprocessor is grolj4).
132 ps PostScript output (postprocessor is grops).
134 pdf Portable Document Format (PDF) output (postproces‐
136 sor is gropdf).
137 For the following TTY output devices (postprocessor is always
139 grotty), -T selects the output encoding:
140 ascii 7bit ASCII.
142 cp1047 Latin-1 character set for EBCDIC hosts.
144 latin1 ISO 8859-1.
146 utf8 Unicode character set in UTF-8 encoding. This
148 mode has the most useful fonts for TTY mode, so it
149 is the best mode for TTY output.
150 The following arguments select gxditview as the ‘postprocessor’
152 (it is rather a viewing program):
153 X75 75dpi resolution, 10pt document base font.
155 X75-12 75dpi resolution, 12pt document base font.
157 X100 100dpi resolution, 10pt document base font.
159 X100-12
161 100dpi resolution, 12pt document base font.
162 The default device is ps.
164 -U Unsafe mode. Reverts to the (old) unsafe behaviour; see option
166 -S.
167 -v
169 --version
170 Output version information of groff and of all programs that are
171 run by it; that is, the given command line is parsed in the
172 usual way, passing -v to all subprograms.
173 -V Output the pipeline that would be run by groff (as a wrapper
175 program) on the standard output, but do not execute it. If
176 given more than once, the commands are both printed on the stan‐
177 dard error and run.
178 -X Use gxditview instead of using the usual postprocessor to
180 (pre)view a document. The printing spooler behavior as outlined
181 with options -l and -L is carried over to gxditview(1) by deter‐
182 mining an argument for the -printCommand option of gxditview(1).
183 This sets the default Print action and the corresponding menu
184 entry to that value. -X only produces good results with -Tps,
185 -TX75, -TX75-12, -TX100, and -TX100-12. The default resolution
186 for previewing -Tps output is 75dpi; this can be changed by
187 passing the -resolution option to gxditview, for example
188 groff -X -P-resolution -P100 -man foo.1
190 -z Suppress output generated by troff. Only error messages are
192 printed.
193 -Z Do not automatically postprocess groff intermediate output in
195 the usual manner. This will cause the troff output to appear on
196 standard output, replacing the usual postprocessor output; see
197 groff_out(5).
198 Transparent Options
200 The following options are transparently handed over to the formatter
201 program troff that is called by groff subsequently. These options are
202 described in more detail in troff(1).
203 -a ASCII approximation of output.
205 -b Backtrace on error or warning.
207 -c Disable color output. Please consult the grotty(1) man page for
209 more details.
210 -C Enable compatibility mode.
212 -d cs
214 -d name=s
215 Define string.
216 -E Disable troff error messages.
218 -f fam Set default font family.
220 -F dir Set path for device DESC files.
222 -i Process standard input after the specified input files.
224 -m name
226 Include macro file name.tmac (or tmac.name); see also
227 groff_tmac(5).
228 -M dir Path for macro files.
230 -n num Number the first page num.
232 -o list
234 Output only pages in list.
235 -r cn
237 -r name=n
238 Set number register.
239 -w name
241 Enable warning name. See troff(1) for names.
242 -W name
244 disable warning name. See troff(1) for names.
245
247 The groff system implements the infrastructure of classical roff; see
248 roff(7) for a survey on how a roff system works in general. Due to the
249 front-end programs available within the groff system, using groff is
250 much easier than classical roff. This section gives an overview of the
251 parts that constitute the groff system. It complements roff(7) with
252 groff-specific features. This section can be regarded as a guide to
253 the documentation around the groff system.
254 Paper Size
256 The virtual paper size used by troff to format the input is controlled
257 globally with the requests .po, .pl, and .ll. See groff_tmac(5) for
258 the ‘papersize’ macro package which provides a convenient interface.
259 The physical paper size, giving the actual dimensions of the paper
261 sheets, is controlled by output devices like grops with the command-
262 line options -p and -l. See groff_font(5) and the man pages of the
263 output devices for more details. groff uses the command-line option -P
264 to pass options to output devices; for example, the following selects
265 A4 paper in landscape orientation for the PS device:
266 groff -Tps -P-pa4 -P-l ...
268 Front-ends
270 The groff program is a wrapper around the troff(1) program. It allows
271 one to specify the preprocessors by command-line options and automati‐
272 cally runs the postprocessor that is appropriate for the selected de‐
273 vice. Doing so, the sometimes tedious piping mechanism of classical
274 roff(7) can be avoided.
275 The grog(1) program can be used for guessing the correct groff command
277 line to format a file.
278 The groffer(1) program is an all-around viewer for groff files and man
280 pages.
281 Preprocessors
283 The groff preprocessors are reimplementations of the classical pre‐
284 processors with moderate extensions. The standard preprocessors dis‐
285 tributed with the groff package are
286 eqn(1) for mathematical formulae,
288 grn(1) for including gremlin(1) pictures,
290 pic(1) for drawing diagrams,
292 chem(1)
294 for chemical structure diagrams,
295 refer(1)
297 for bibliographic references,
298 soelim(1)
300 for including macro files from standard locations,
301 and
303 tbl(1) for tables.
305 A new preprocessor not available in classical troff is preconv(1) which
307 converts various input encodings to something groff can understand. It
308 is always run first before any other preprocessor.
309 Besides these, there are some internal preprocessors that are automati‐
311 cally run with some devices. These aren't visible to the user.
312 Macro Packages
314 Macro packages can be included by option -m. The groff system imple‐
315 ments and extends all classical macro packages in a compatible way and
316 adds some packages of its own. Actually, the following macro packages
317 come with groff:
318 man The traditional man page format; see groff_man(7). It can be
320 specified on the command line as -man or -m man.
321 mandoc The general package for man pages; it automatically recognizes
323 whether the documents uses the man or the mdoc format and
324 branches to the corresponding macro package. It can be speci‐
325 fied on the command line as -mandoc or -m mandoc.
326 mdoc The BSD-style man page format; see groff_mdoc(7). It can be
328 specified on the command line as -mdoc or -m mdoc.
329 me The classical me document format; see groff_me(7). It can be
331 specified on the command line as -me or -m me.
332 mm The classical mm document format; see groff_mm(7). It can be
334 specified on the command line as -mm or -m mm.
335 ms The classical ms document format; see groff_ms(7). It can be
337 specified on the command line as -ms or -m ms.
338 www HTML-like macros for inclusion in arbitrary groff documents; see
340 groff_www(7).
341 Details on the naming of macro files and their placement can be found
343 in groff_tmac(5); this man page also documents some other, minor auxil‐
344 iary macro packages not mentioned here.
345 Programming Language
347 General concepts common to all roff programming languages are described
348 in roff(7).
349 The groff extensions to the classical troff language are documented in
351 groff_diff(7).
352 An overview of language features, including all supported escapes and
354 requests, can be found in groff(7).
355 Formatters
357 The central roff formatter within the groff system is troff(1). It
358 provides the features of both the classical troff and nroff, as well as
359 the groff extensions. The command-line option -C switches troff into
360 compatibility mode which tries to emulate classical roff as much as
361 possible.
362 There is a shell script nroff(1) that emulates the behavior of classi‐
364 cal nroff. It tries to automatically select the proper output encod‐
365 ing, according to the current locale.
366 The formatter program generates intermediate output; see groff_out(7).
368 Devices
370 In roff, the output targets are called devices. A device can be a
371 piece of hardware, e.g., a printer, or a software file format. A de‐
372 vice is specified by the option -T. The groff devices are as follows.
373 ascii Text output using the ascii(7) character set.
375 cp1047 Text output using the EBCDIC code page IBM cp1047 (e.g., OS/390
377 Unix).
378 dvi TeX DVI format.
380 html HTML output.
382 latin1 Text output using the ISO Latin-1 (ISO 8859-1) character set;
384 see iso_8859_1(7).
385 lbp Output for Canon CAPSL printers (LBP-4 and LBP-8 series laser
387 printers).
388 lj4 HP LaserJet4-compatible (or other PCL5-compatible) printers.
390 ps PostScript output; suitable for printers and previewers like
392 gv(1).
393 pdf PDF files; suitable for viewing with tools such as evince(1) and
395 okular(1).
396 utf8 Text output using the Unicode (ISO 10646) character set with
398 UTF-8 encoding; see unicode(7).
399 xhtml XHTML output.
401 X75 75dpi X Window System output suitable for the previewers
403 xditview(1x) and gxditview(1). A variant for a 12pt document
404 base font is X75-12.
405 X100 100dpi X Window System output suitable for the previewers
407 xditview(1x) and gxditview(1). A variant for a 12pt document
408 base font is X100-12.
409 The postprocessor to be used for a device is specified by the postpro
411 command in the device description file; see groff_font(5). This can be
412 overridden with the -X option.
413 The default device is ps.
415 Postprocessors
417 groff provides 3 hardware postprocessors:
418 grolbp(1)
420 for some Canon printers,
421 grolj4(1)
423 for printers compatible to the HP LaserJet 4 and PCL5,
424 grotty(1)
426 for text output using various encodings, e.g., on text-oriented
427 terminals or line printers.
428 Today, most printing or drawing hardware is handled by the operating
430 system, by device drivers, or by software interfaces, usually accepting
431 PostScript. Consequently, there isn't an urgent need for more hardware
432 device postprocessors.
433 The groff software devices for conversion into other document file for‐
435 mats are
436 grodvi(1)
438 for the DVI format,
439 grohtml(1)
441 for HTML and XHTML formats,
442 grops(1)
444 for PostScript.
445 gropdf(1)
447 for PDF.
448 Combined with the many existing free conversion tools this should be
450 sufficient to convert a troff document into virtually any existing data
451 format.
452 Utilities
454 The following utility programs around groff are available.
455 addftinfo(1)
457 Add information to troff font description files for use with
458 groff.
459 afmtodit(1)
461 Create font description files for PostScript device.
462 eqn2graph(1)
464 Convert an eqn image into a cropped image.
465 gdiffmk(1)
467 Mark differences between groff, nroff, or troff files.
468 grap2graph(1)
470 Convert a grap diagram into a cropped bitmap image.
471 groffer(1)
473 General viewer program for groff files and man pages.
474 gxditview(1)
476 The groff X viewer, the GNU version of xditview.
477 hpftodit(1)
479 Create font description files for lj4 device.
480 indxbib(1)
482 Make inverted index for bibliographic databases.
483 lkbib(1)
485 Search bibliographic databases.
486 lookbib(1)
488 Interactively search bibliographic databases.
489 pdfroff(1)
491 Create PDF documents using groff.
492 pfbtops(1)
494 Translate a PostScript font in .pfb format to ASCII.
495 pic2graph(1)
497 Convert a pic diagram into a cropped image.
498 tfmtodit(1)
500 Create font description files for TeX DVI device.
501 xditview(1x)
503 roff viewer historically distributed with the X Window System.
504 xtotroff(1)
506 Convert X font metrics into GNU troff font metrics.
507
509 Normally, the path separator in the following environment variables is
510 the colon; this may vary depending on the operating system. For exam‐
511 ple, DOS and Windows use a semicolon instead.
512 GROFF_BIN_PATH
514 This search path, followed by PATH, is used for commands that
515 are executed by groff. If it is not set then the directory
516 where the groff binaries were installed is prepended to PATH.
517 GROFF_COMMAND_PREFIX
519 When there is a need to run different roff implementations at
520 the same time groff provides the facility to prepend a prefix to
521 most of its programs that could provoke name clashings at run
522 time (default is to have none). Historically, this prefix was
523 the character g, but it can be anything. For example, gtroff
524 stood for groff's troff, gtbl for the groff version of tbl. By
525 setting GROFF_COMMAND_PREFIX to different values, the different
526 roff installations can be addressed. More exactly, if it is set
527 to prefix xxx then groff as a wrapper program internally calls
528 xxxtroff instead of troff. This also applies to the preproces‐
529 sors eqn, grn, pic, refer, tbl, soelim, and to the utilities
530 indxbib and lookbib. This feature does not apply to any pro‐
531 grams different from the ones above (most notably groff itself)
532 since they are unique to the groff package.
533 GROFF_ENCODING
535 The value of this environment value is passed to the preconv
536 preprocessor to select the encoding of input files. Setting
537 this option implies groff's command-line option -k (this is,
538 groff actually always calls preconv). If set without a value,
539 groff calls preconv without arguments. An explicit -K command-
540 line option overrides the value of GROFF_ENCODING. See pre‐
541 conv(1) for details.
542 GROFF_FONT_PATH
544 A list of directories in which to search for the devname direc‐
545 tory in addition to the default ones. See troff(1) and
546 groff_font(5) for more details.
547 GROFF_TMAC_PATH
549 A list of directories in which to search for macro files in ad‐
550 dition to the default directories. See troff(1) and
551 groff_tmac(5) for more details.
552 GROFF_TMPDIR
554 The directory in which temporary files are created. If this is
555 not set but the environment variable TMPDIR instead, temporary
556 files are created in the directory TMPDIR. On MS-DOS and Win‐
557 dows platforms, the environment variables TMP and TEMP (in that
558 order) are searched also, after GROFF_TMPDIR and TMPDIR. Other‐
559 wise, temporary files are created in /tmp. The refer(1),
560 groffer(1), grohtml(1), and grops(1) commands use temporary
561 files.
562 GROFF_TYPESETTER
564 Preset the default device. If this is not set the ps device is
565 used as default. This device name is overwritten by the option
566 -T.
567
569 The following example illustrates the power of the groff program as a
570 wrapper around troff.
571 To process a roff file using the preprocessors tbl and pic and the me
573 macro set, classical troff had to be called by
574 pic foo.me | tbl | troff -me -Tlatin1 | grotty
576 Using groff, this pipe can be shortened to the equivalent command
578 groff -p -t -me -T latin1 foo.me
580 An even easier way to call this is to use grog(1) to guess the pre‐
582 processor and macro options and execute the generated command (by using
583 backquotes to specify shell command substitution)
584 `grog -Tlatin1 foo.me`
586 The simplest way is to view the contents in an automated way by calling
588 groffer foo.me
590
592 On EBCDIC hosts (e.g., OS/390 Unix), output devices ascii and latin1
593 aren't available. Similarly, output for EBCDIC code page cp1047 is not
594 available on ASCII based operating systems.
595
597 groff installs files in varying locations depending on its compile-time
598 configuration. On this installation, the following locations are used.
599 /usr/share/X11/app-defaults
601 Application defaults directory for gxditview(1).
602 /usr/bin
604 Directory containing groff's executable commands.
605 /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/eign
607 List of common words for indxbib(1).
608 /usr/share/groff/1.22.4
610 Directory for data files.
611 /usr/dict/papers/Ind
613 Default index for lkbib(1) and refer(1).
614 /usr/share/doc/groff
616 Documentation directory.
617 /usr/share/doc/groff/examples
619 Example directory.
620 /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/font
622 Font directory.
623 /usr/share/doc/groff/html
625 HTML documentation directory.
626 /usr/lib/font
628 Legacy font directory.
629 /etc/groff/site-font
631 Local font directory.
632 /etc/groff/site-tmac
634 Local macro package (tmac file) directory.
635 /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac
637 Macro package (tmac file) directory.
638 /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/oldfont
640 Font directory for compatibility with old versions of groff; see
641 grops(1).
642 /usr/share/doc/groff/pdf
644 PDF documentation directory.
645 /etc/groff/site-tmac
647 System macro package (tmac file) directory.
648 groff Macro Directory
650 This contains all information related to macro packages. Note that
651 more than a single directory is searched for those files as documented
652 in groff_tmac(5). For the groff installation corresponding to this
653 document, it is located at /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac. The following
654 files contained in the groff macro directory have a special meaning:
655 troffrc
657 Initialization file for troff. This is interpreted by troff be‐
658 fore reading the macro sets and any input.
659 troffrc-end
661 Final startup file for troff. It is parsed after all macro sets
662 have been read.
663 name.tmac
665 tmac.name
666 Macro file for macro package name.
667 groff Font Directory
669 This contains all information related to output devices. Note that
670 more than a single directory is searched for those files; see troff(1).
671 For the groff installation corresponding to this document, it is lo‐
672 cated at /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/font. The following files contained
673 in the groff font directory have a special meaning:
674 devname/DESC
676 Device description file for device name, see groff_font(5).
677 devname/F
679 Font file for font F of device name.
680
682 Information on how to get groff and related information is available at
683 the groff page of the GNU website ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/groff⟩.
684 Three groff mailing lists are available:
686 bug tracker activity (read-only) ⟨bug-groff@gnu.org⟩;
688 general discussion ⟨groff@gnu.org⟩; and
690 commit activity (read-only) ⟨groff-commit@gnu.org⟩, which re‐
692 ports changes to groff's source code repository by its develop‐
693 ers.
694 Details on repository access and much more can be found in the file
696 README at the top directory of the groff source package.
697 A free implementation of the grap preprocessor, written by Ted Faber
699 ⟨faber@lunabase.org⟩, can be found at the grap website ⟨http://
700 www.lunabase.org/~faber/Vault/software/grap/⟩. This is the only grap
701 supported by groff.
702
704 groff was written by James Clark ⟨jjc@jclark.com⟩. This document was
705 rewritten, enhanced, and put under the FDL license in 2002 by Bernd
706 Warken ⟨groff-bernd.warken-72@web.de⟩.
707
709 Groff: The GNU Implementation of troff, by Trent A. Fisher and Werner
710 Lemberg, is the primary groff manual. You can browse it interactively
711 with “info groff”.
712 Due to its complex structure, the groff system has many man pages.
714 They can be read with man(1) or groffer(1).
715 But there are special sections of man pages. groff has man pages in
717 sections 1, 5,and 7. When there are several man pages with the same
718 name in the same man section, the one with the lowest section is should
719 as first. The other man pages can be shown anyway by adding the sec‐
720 tion number as argument before the man page name. Reading the man page
721 about the groff language is done by one of
722 man 7 groff
723 groffer 7 groff
724 Introduction, history and further readings:
726 roff(7).
727 Viewer for groff files:
729 groffer(1), gxditview(1), xditview(1x).
730 Wrapper programs for formatters:
732 groff(1), grog(1).
733 Roff preprocessors:
735 eqn(1), grn(1), pic(1), chem(1), preconv(1), refer(1),
736 soelim(1), tbl(1), grap(1).
737 Roff language with the groff extensions:
739 groff(7), groff_char(7), groff_diff(7), groff_font(5).
740 Roff formatter programs:
742 nroff(1), troff(1), ditroff(7).
743 The intermediate output language:
745 groff_out(7).
746 Postprocessors for the output devices:
748 grodvi(1), grohtml(1), grolbp(1), grolj4(1), lj4_font(5),
749 grops(1), gropdf(1), grotty(1).
750 Groff macro packages and macro-specific utilities:
752 groff_tmac(5), groff_man(7), groff_mdoc(7), groff_me(7),
753 groff_mm(7), groff_mmse(7), groff_mom(7), groff_ms(7),
754 groff_www(7), groff_trace(7), mmroff(7).
755 The following utilities are available:
757 addftinfo(1), afmtodit(1), eqn2graph(1), gdiffmk(1),
758 grap2graph(1), groffer(1), gxditview(1), hpftodit(1),
759 indxbib(1), lkbib(1), lookbib(1), pdfroff(1), pfbtops(1),
760 pic2graph(1), tfmtodit(1), xtotroff(1).
761groff 1.22.4 20 January 2022 GROFF(1)