Table of Contents
groff - front-end for the groff document formatting system
[file~...] -h | --help -v | --version [option~...]
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 GNU 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).
The
command line is parsed according to the usual CR]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.
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.
- -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.
- -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’ and \X’ps: file’
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 specified using an
absolute path. This option implies the -s option.
- -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 separate -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) [oq]$*[cq] or [oq]$*[cq] 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’ I]foo]
-
- is equivalent to
-
- groff
-X -Z I]foo] |
- gxditview -title ’groff it’ -
- -R
- 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.
- -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 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
- 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; 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), -T selects the output encoding:
- ascii
- 7bit CR]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.
- -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 subprograms.
- -V
- 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 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)
.
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
- CR]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 font 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.
- -W name
- 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 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 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 command line as
-man or -m~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 -mandoc or -m~mandoc.
- mdoc
- The CR]BSD]-style man page format; see
groff_mdoc(7)
. It can be specified on the command line as -mdoc or -m~mdoc.
- me
- The classical me document format; see groff_me(7)
. It can be specified
on the command line as -me or -m~me.
- mm
- The classical mm document format;
see groff_mm(7)
. It can be specified on the command line as -mm or -m~mm.
- ms
- The classical ms document format; see groff_ms(7)
. It can be specified
on the command 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.
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 -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)
.
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)
.
- 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 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 and XHTML formats,
- 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.
- 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 CR]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 CR]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 distributed with X window.
- xtotroff(1)
- Convert X font metrics
into CR]GNU] troff font metrics.
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.
- 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 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
GROFF_COMMAND_PREFIX 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 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 option -k (this is, groff actually always calls preconv). If
set without a value, groff calls preconv without arguments. An explicit
-K command line option overrides 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 environment
variable
TMPDIR instead, temporary files are created in the directory
$TMPDIR. On MS-DOS and Windows~32 platforms, the environment variables
TMP and
TEMP (in that order) are searched also, after
GROFF_TMPDIR
and
TMPDIR. Otherwise, temporary 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.
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 c:/progra~1/groff/share/groff/1.20/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 c:/progra~1/groff/share/groff/1.20/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
- 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 options and execute
the generated command (by using backquotes to specify shell command substitution)
- ‘grog -Tlatin1 foo.me‘
-
The simplest way is to view the contents in an automated
way by calling
- groffer foo.me
-
On CR]EBCDIC] hosts (e.g., CR]OS/390
Unix]), output devices ascii and latin1 aren’t available. Similarly, output
for CR]EBCDIC] code page cp1047 is not available on CR]ASCII] based operating
systems.
Report bugs to the groff maling list Include a complete, self-contained
example that allows 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 groff GNU website The most recent
released version of groff is available at the groff development site
Three groff mailing lists are available:
- for reporting bugs
-
- for general
discussion of
- groff,
- the groff commit list
- 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 Ted Faber The actual version can be found at the grap website
This is the only grap version supported by groff.
Copyright
© 1989, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 Free Software Foundation,
Inc.
This document is distributed under the terms of the CR]FDL] (CR]GNU
Free Documentation License]) version 1.3 or later. You should have received
a copy of the CR]FDL] on your system, it is also available on-line at the
GNU copyleft site
This document is based on the original groff man page
written by James Clark It was rewritten, enhanced, and put under the
FDL license by Bernd Warken. It is maintained by Werner Lemberg
groff
is a CR]GNU] free software project. All parts of the groff package are
protected by CR]GNU copyleft licenses]. The software files are distributed
under the terms of the CR]GNU General Public License] (CR]GPL]), while
the documentation files mostly use the CR]GNU Free Documentation License]
(CR]FDL]).
The groff info file contains all information on
the groff system within a single document, providing many 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)
, 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)
, 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)
,
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)
.
Table of Contents