groff - front-end for the groff document formatting system
\*[@arg1]\0\c \ \)\$* \ \)\$* \ \)\$* \ \)\$* \ \)\$* \ \)\$* \ \)\$* \
  \)\$* \ \)\$* \ \)\$* \ \)\$* \ \)\$* \ \)\$* \ \)\$* \ \)\$* [file
  \)\$*
\*[@arg1]\0\c \)\$* | \)\$*
\*[@arg1]\0\c \)\$* | \)\$* [option \)\$*
The command line is parsed according to the usual GNU convention.
    The whitespace between a command line option and its argument is optional.
    Options can be grouped behind a single \)\$* (minus character). A filename
    of \)\$* (minus character) denotes the standard input.
This document describes the groff program, the main front-end for the
  groff document formatting system. The groff program and macro
  suite is the implementation of a roff(7) system within the free
  software collection The groff system has all features of the classical
  roff, but adds many extensions.
The groff program allows to control the whole groff
    system by command line options. This is a great simplification in comparison
    to the classical case (which uses pipes only).
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.
The following options either do not exist for troff or are differently
  interpreted by groff. \ \ \ \
  - \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- Preprocess with eqn. \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- Preprocess with grn. \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- Preprocess with grap. \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- Print a help message. \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- 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' and \X'ps: file' escapes). The
      current directory is always searched first. This option may be specified
      more than once; the directories will be searched in the order specified.
      No directory search is performed for files specified using an absolute
      path. This option implies the \)\$* option. \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- 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 \)\$* and \)\$* \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- Pass arg to the spooler program. Several arguments should be passed
      with a separate \)\$* option each. Note that groff does not prepend
      \)\$* (a minus sign) to arg before passing it to the spooler
      program. \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- Don't allow newlines within eqn delimiters. This is the same as the
      \)\$* option in eqn. \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- Preprocess with pic. \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- 
    
 \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- 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
- 
    
 \)\$*
 
- is equivalent to
- 
    
 \)\$*
 \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- Preprocess with refer. No mechanism is provided for passing
      arguments to refer because most refer options have
      equivalent language elements that can be specified within the document.
      See refer(1) for more details. \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- Preprocess with soelim. \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- Safer mode. Pass the \)\$* option to pic and disable the following
      troff requests: .open, .opena, .pso,
      .sy, and .pi. For security reasons, safer mode is enabled by
      default. \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- Preprocess with tbl. \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- Set output device to dev. For this device, troff generates
      the intermediate output; see groff_out(5). Then
      groff calls a postprocessor to convert troff's
      intermediate output to its final format. Real devices in
      groff are
  - dvi
- TeX DVI format (postprocessor is grodvi).
- html
- HTML output (preprocessors are soelim and pre-grohtml,
      postprocessor is post-grohtml).
- lbp
- Canon CAPSL printers (LBP-4 and LBP-8 series laser printers; postprocessor
      is grolbp).
- lj4
- HP LaserJet4 compatible (or other PCL5 compatible) printers (postprocessor
      is grolj4).
- ps
- PostScript output (postprocessor is grops).
 
 
  
  - For the following TTY output devices (postprocessor is always
      grotty), \)\$* 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.
 
 
  
  - 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. \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- Unsafe mode. Reverts to the (old) unsafe behaviour; see option \)\$* \ \ \
      \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- 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 \)\$* to all subprograms. \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- Output the pipeline that would be run by groff (as a wrapper
      program) on the standard output, but do not execute it. If given more than
      once, the commands will be both printed on the standard error and run. \ \
      \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- Use gxditview instead of using the usual postprocessor to (pre)view
      a document. The printing spooler behavior as outlined with options \)\$*
      and \)\$* 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. \)\$* only produces good results with \)\$* \)\$* \)\$* \)\$*
      and \)\$* The default resolution for previewing \)\$* output is 75dpi;
      this can be changed by passing the \)\$* option to gxditview, for
      example
- 
    
 \)\$*
 \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- Suppress output generated by troff. Only error messages will be
      printed. \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- Print the groff intermediate output to standard output; see
      groff_out(5). Normally groff calls automatically a
      postprocessor. With this option, the output of troff for the
      device, the so-called intermediate output is issued without
      postprocessing.
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). \ \ \ \
  - \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- ascii approximation of output. \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- backtrace on error or warning. \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- disable color output. Please consult the grotty(1) man page for
      more details. \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- enable compatibility mode. \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- 
    
 \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- define string. \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- disable troff error messages. \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- set default font family. \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- set path for font DESC files. \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- process standard input after the specified input files. \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- include macro file name.tmac (or tmac.name);
      see also groff_tmac(5). \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- path for macro files. \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- number the first page num. \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- output only pages in list. \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- 
    
 \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- set number register. \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- enable warning name. \ \ \ \
- \f[R]\*[@short]\*[@long]\*[@arg]\f[]
- disable warning name.
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 overview 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.
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 option -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 ...
 
The groff program is a wrapper around the troff(1) program. It
  allows to specify the preprocessors by command line options and automatically
  runs the postprocessor that is appropriate 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 allround-viewer for groff
    files and man pages.
The groff preprocessors are reimplementations of the classical preprocessors
  with moderate extensions. The preprocessors distributed with the groff
  package are
  - eqn(1)
- for mathematical formulæ,
- grn(1)
- for including gremlin(1) pictures,
- pic(1)
- for drawing diagrams,
- refer(1)
- for bibliographic references,
- soelim(1)
- for including macro files from standard locations,
and
  - tbl(1)
- for tables.
Besides these, there are some internal preprocessors that are
    automatically run with some devices. These aren't visible to the user.
Macro packages can be included by option \)\$* 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 command line as \)\$* or \)\$* man.
- mandoc
- The general package for man pages; it automatically recognizes whether the
      documents uses the man or the mdoc format and branches to
      the corresponding macro package. It can be specified on the command line
      as \)\$* or \)\$* mandoc.
- mdoc
- The BSD-style man page format; see groff_mdoc(7). It can be
      specified on the command line as \)\$* or \)\$* mdoc.
- me
- The classical me document format; see groff_me(7). It can be
      specified on the command line as \)\$* or \)\$* me.
- mm
- The classical mm document format; see groff_mm(7). It can be
      specified on the command line as \)\$* or \)\$* mm.
- ms
- The classical ms document format; see groff_ms(7). It can be
      specified on the command line as \)\$* or \)\$* 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.
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).
The groff language as a whole is described in the (still
    incomplete) groff info file; a short (but complete) reference can be
    found in groff(7).
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 \)\$* 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).
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 \)\$* 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).
- utf8
- Text output using the Unicode (ISO 10646) character set with UTF-8
      encoding; see unicode(7).
- 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 device description file; see
    groff_font(5). This can be overridden with the -X option.
The default device is ps.
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 format,
- grops(1)
- for PostScript.
Combined with the many existing free conversion tools this should
    be sufficient to convert a troff document into virtually any existing data
    format.
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.
- 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.
- pfbtops(1)
- Translate a PostScript font in .pfb format to ASCII.
- tfmtodit(1)
- Create font description files for TeX DVI device.
- xditview(1x)
- roff viewer distributed with X window.
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 instead.
  - \%\$1\$2
- This search path, followed by \%\$1\$2 will be 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
    \%\$1\$2
- \%\$1\$2
- 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 provoke name clashings at run time (default is to have
      none). Historically, this prefix 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 \%\$1\$2 to different values, the different roff
      installations can be addressed. More exactly, if it is set to prefix
      xxx then groff as a wrapper program will internally call
      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.
- \%\$1\$2
- 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.
- \%\$1\$2
- 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.
- \%\$1\$2
- The directory in which temporary files will be created. If this is not set
      but the environment variable \%\$1\$2 instead, temporary files will
      be created in the directory \%\$1\$2 On MS-DOS and
      Windows 32 platforms, the environment variables \%\$1\$2 and
      \%\$1\$2 (in that order) are searched also, after \%\$1\$2
      and \%\$1\$2 Otherwise, temporary files will be created in
      /tmp. The refer(1), groffer(1), grohtml(1),
      and grops(1) commands use temporary files.
- \%\$1\$2
- Preset the default device. If this is not set the ps device is used
      as default. This device name is overwritten by the option \)\$*
There are some directories in which groff installs all of its data files.
  Due to different installation habits on different operating systems, their
  locations are not absolutely fixed, but their function is clearly defined and
  coincides on all systems.
This contains all information related to macro packages. Note that more than a
  single directory is searched for those files as documented in
  groff_tmac(5). For the groff installation corresponding to this
  document, it is located at /usr/share/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.
This contains all information related to output devices. Note that more than a
  single directory is searched for those files; see troff(1). For the
  groff installation corresponding to this document, it is located at
  /usr/share/groff_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.
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
\)\$*
  
Using groff, this pipe can be shortened to the equivalent
    command
\)\$*
  
An even easier way to call this is to use grog(1) to guess
    the preprocessor and macro options and execute the generated command (by
    using backquotes to specify shell command substitution)
\)\$*
  
The simplest way is to view the contents in an automated way by
    calling
\)\$*
  
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.
Report bugs to bug-groff@gnu.org. Include a complete,
    self-contained example that will allow the bug to be reproduced, and say
    which version of groff you are using.
Information on how to get groff and related information is available at the The
  most recent released version of groff is available for anonymous ftp at the
Three groff mailing lists are available:
  - for reporting bugs,
- for general discussion of groff,
- a read-only list showing logs of commitments to the CVS repository.
Details on CVS access and much more can be found in the file
    README at the top directory of the groff source package.
There is a free implementation of the grap preprocessor,
    written by The actual version can be found at the This is the only grap
    version supported by groff.
Copyright © 1989, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This document is distributed under the terms of the FDL (GNU Free
    Documentation License) version 1.1 or later. You should have received a copy
    of the FDL on your system, it is also available on-line at the
This document is based on the original groff man page written by
    It was rewritten, enhanced, and put under the FDL license by Bernd Warken.
    It is maintained by
groff is a GNU free software project. All parts of the
    groff package are protected by GNU copyleft licenses. The software
    files are distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License
    (GPL), while the documentation files mostly use the GNU Free Documentation
    License (FDL).
The groff info file contains all information on the groff system within a
  single document. Beneath the detailed documentation of all aspects, it
  provides examples and background information. See info(1) on how to
  read it.
Due to its complex structure, the groff system has many man pages.
    They can be read with man(1) or groffer(1).
  - 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), 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), 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),
      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),
      grap2graph(1), groffer(1), gxditview(1),
      hpftodit(1), indxbib(1), lookbib(1),
      pfbtops(1), pic2graph(1), tfmtodit(1).