GROFF(1)                                                              GROFF(1)



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

SYNOPSIS
       groff [-abcegilpstzCEGNRSUVXZ] [-d cs] [-f fam] [-F dir] [-I dir]
             [-L arg] [-m name] [-M dir] [-n num] [-o list] [-P arg] [-r cn]
             [-T dev] [-w name] [-W name] [file ...]
       groff -h | --help
       groff -v | --version [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.

DESCRIPTION
       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 collec-
       tion  GNU  <http://www.gnu.org>.   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).

OPTIONS
       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.

       -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 will be searched in
              the order specified.  No directory search is performed for files
              specified using an absolute path.  This option  implies  the  -s
              option.

       -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 com-
              mand 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) `-'
              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

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

              is equivalent to

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

       -R     Preprocess with refer.  No mechanism is provided for passing ar-
              guments to refer because most refer options have equivalent lan-
              guage  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 post-
              processor 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), -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.

              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 usu-
              al 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 giv-
              en  more  than  once,  the  commands will be 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 deter-
              mining 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

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

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

       -Z     Print  the  groff  intermediate  output  to standard output; see
              groff_out(5).  Normally groff calls automatically a  postproces-
              sor.   With this option, the output of troff for the device, the
              so-called intermediate output is issued without  postprocessing.

   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 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.

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 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.

   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 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 ...

   Front-ends
       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.

   Preprocessors
       The groff preprocessors are reimplementations  of  the  classical  pre-
       processors  with  moderate  extensions.   The preprocessors distributed
       with the groff package are

       eqn(1) for mathematical formulae,

       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 automati-
       cally run with some devices.  These aren't visible to the user.

   Macro Packages
       Macro  packages  can be included by option -m.  The groff system imple-
       ments 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 speci-
              fied 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 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 auxil-
       iary 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).

       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).

   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 classi-
       cal nroff.  It tries to automatically select the proper  output  encod-
       ing, 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).

       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.

   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 for-
       mats 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.

   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.

       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.

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

       GROFF_BIN_PATH
              This  search  path, followed by $PATH, 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 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 will internally
              call xxxtroff instead of troff.  This also applies to  the  pre-
              processors  eqn, grn, pic, refer, tbl, soelim, and to the utili-
              ties indxbib and lookbib.  This feature does not  apply  to  any
              programs  different  from the ones above (most notably groff it-
              self) since they are unique to the groff package.

       GROFF_FONT_PATH
              A list of directories in which to search for the devname  direc-
              tory  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  ad-
              dition   to   the   default   directories.    See  troff(1)  and
              groff_tmac(5) for more details.

       GROFF_TMPDIR
              The directory in which temporary files will be created.  If this
              is  not  set but the environment variable TMPDIR instead, tempo-
              rary files will be 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  will be 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.

FILES
       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.

   groff Macro Directory
       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 con-
       tained in the groff macro directory have a special meaning:

       troffrc
              Initialization file for troff.  This is interpreted by troff be-
              fore 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 directory is searched for those files; see troff(1).
       For the groff installation corresponding to this document, it is locat-
       ed  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.

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

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

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

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

       An even easier way to call this is to use grog(1)  to  guess  the  pre-
       processor and macro options and execute the generated command (by using
       backquotes to specify shell command substitution)

       sh# `grog -Tlatin1 foo.me`

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

       sh# 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.

       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.

AVAILABILITY
       Information on how to get groff and related information is available at
       the GNU website <http://www.gnu.org/software/groff>.  The  most  recent
       released version of groff is available for anonymous ftp at the groff
       development site <ftp://ftp.ffii.org/pub/groff/devel/
       groff-current.tar.gz>.

       Three groff mailing lists are available:

       bug-groff@gnu.org
              for reporting bugs,

       groff@gnu.org
              for general discussion of groff,

       groff-commit@ffii.org
              a  read-only list showing logs of commitments to the CVS reposi-
              tory.

       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 <faber@lunabase.org>.  The actual version can be found at the
       grap   website   <http://www.lunabase.org/~faber/Vault/software/grap/>.
       This is the only grap version supported by groff.

AUTHORS
       Copyright (C) 1989, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005  Free  Software  Foundation,
       Inc.

       This document is distributed under the terms of the FDL (GNU Free Docu-
       mentation 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 GNU
       copyleft site <http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html>.

       This document is based on the original groff man page written by  James
       Clark  <jjc@jclark.com>.  It was rewritten, enhanced, and put under the
       FDL license by Bernd  Warken.   It  is  maintained  by  Werner  Lemberg
       <wl@gnu.org>.

       groff  is  a GNU free software project.  All parts of the groff package
       are protected by GNU copyleft licenses.  The software  files  are  dis-
       tributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL), while
       the documentation files mostly use the GNU Free  Documentation  License
       (FDL).

SEE ALSO
       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).



Groff Version 1.19.2            6 February 2006                       GROFF(1)
