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Name | Synopsis | Description | Options | Using groff | Environment | Examples | Notes | Bugs | Installation Directories | Availability | Authors | See also | COLOPHON |
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groff(1) General Commands Manual groff(1)
groff - front-end for the GNU roff document formatting system
groff [-abcegijklpstzCEGNRSUVXZ] [-d cs] [-D arg] [-f fam]
[-F dir] [-I dir] [-K arg] [-L arg] [-m name] [-M dir]
[-n num] [-o list] [-P arg] [-r cn] [-T dev] [-w name]
[-W name] [file ...]
groff -h
groff --help
groff -v [option ...]
groff --version [option ...]
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 ⟨http://www.gnu.org/⟩. The groff
system has all features of the classical roff, but adds many
extensions.
The groff program allows control of the whole groff system by
command-line options. This is a great simplification in
comparison to the classical case (which uses pipes only).
--help displays a usage message and exits.
As groff is a wrapper program for troff both programs share a set
of options. But the groff program has some additional, native
options and gives a new meaning to some troff options. On the
other hand, not all troff options can be fed into groff.
Native groff options
The following options either do not exist for troff or are
differently interpreted by groff.
-D arg Set default input encoding used by preconv to arg.
Implies -k.
-e Preprocess with eqn.
-g Preprocess with grn.
-G Preprocess with grap. Implies -p.
-I dir Works as troff's option (see below), but also implies -s
and passes the -I options to soelim.
-j Preprocess with chem. Implies -p.
-k Preprocess with preconv. This is run before any other
preprocessor. Please refer to preconv's manual page for
its behaviour if no -K (or -D) option is specified.
-K arg Set input encoding used by preconv to arg. Implies -k.
-l Send the output to a spooler program for printing. The
command that should be used for this is specified by the
print command in the device description file, see
groff_font(5). If this command is not present, the output
is piped into the lpr(1) program by default. See options
-L and -X.
-L arg Pass arg to the spooler program. Several arguments should
be passed with a 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 arg
-P -option
-P -option -P arg
Pass arguments to the postprocessor.
Each command-line option to a postprocessor must be
specified with any required leading dashes “-” because
groff passes the arguments as-is to the postprocessor;
this permits arbitrary arguments to be transmitted. For
example, to pass a title to the gxditview postprocessor,
the shell command
groff -X -P -title -P 'trial run' mydoc.t
is equivalent to
groff -X -Z mydoc.t | gxditview -title 'trial run' -
-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).
pdf Portable Document Format (PDF) output
(postprocessor is gropdf).
For the following TTY output devices (postprocessor is
always grotty), -T selects the output encoding:
ascii 7bit ASCII.
cp1047 Latin-1 character set for EBCDIC hosts.
latin1 ISO 8859-1.
utf8 Unicode character set in UTF-8 encoding.
This mode has the most useful fonts for TTY
mode, so it is the best mode for TTY output.
The following arguments select gxditview as the
‘postprocessor’ (it is rather a viewing program):
X75 75dpi resolution, 10pt document base font.
X75-12 75dpi resolution, 12pt document base font.
X100 100dpi resolution, 10pt document base font.
X100-12
100dpi resolution, 12pt document base font.
The default device is ps.
-U Unsafe mode. Reverts to the (old) unsafe behaviour; see
option -S.
-v
--version
Output version information of groff and of all programs
that are run by it; that is, the given command line is
parsed in the usual way, passing -v to all 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).
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 Generate a plain text approximation of the typeset 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 Inhibit troff error messages; implies -Ww.
-f fam Set default font family.
-F dir Set path for device DESC files.
-I dir Search dir for files (those on the command line, those
named in .psbb and .so requests, and those named in
certain device commands issued with the \X escape).
-i Process standard input after the specified input files.
-m name
Include macro file name.tmac (or tmac.name); see also
groff_tmac(5).
-M dir Path for macro files.
-n num Number the first page num.
-o list
Output only pages in list.
-r cn
-r name=n
Set number register.
-w name
Enable warning name. See troff(1) for names.
-W name
disable warning name. See troff(1) for names.
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 one 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.
Preprocessors
The groff preprocessors are reimplementations of the classical
preprocessors with moderate extensions. The standard
preprocessors distributed with the groff package are
eqn(1) for mathematical formulae,
grn(1) for including gremlin(1) pictures,
pic(1) for drawing diagrams,
chem(1)
for chemical structure diagrams,
refer(1)
for bibliographic references,
soelim(1)
for including macro files from standard locations,
and
tbl(1) for tables.
A new preprocessor not available in classical troff is preconv(1)
which converts various input encodings to something groff can
understand. It is always run first before any other
preprocessor.
Besides these, there are some internal preprocessors that are
automatically run with some devices. These aren't visible to the
user.
Macro packages
Macro packages can be included in a roff document by using option
-m. The groff system implements most well-known macro packages
for AT&T troff in a compatible way, extends them, and adds some
packages of its own. Several of them have one- or two-letter
names due to the intense sense of naming economy practiced in
early Unix culture. This laconic approach led to many of the
packages being identified in general usage with the nroff and
troff option letter used to invoke them, sometimes to punning
effect, as with “man” (short for “manual”) and even with the
option dash, as in the case of the s package, much better known
as ms or even -ms.
Available macro packages include:
an is the man page formatter originating in Version 7 Unix
(1979); see groff_man(7). It can be specified on the
command line as -man or -m man.
doc is the man page formatter originating in 4.3BSD-Reno
(1990); see groff_mdoc(7). It can be specified on the
command line as -mdoc or -m mdoc.
andoc is a wrapper that automatically recognizes whether a
document uses man or mdoc format and branches to the
corresponding macro package. It can be specified on the
command line as -mandoc or -m mandoc.
e is the BSD general-purpose document formatter; see
groff_me(7). It can be specified on the command line as
-me or -m me.
m is the second-generation AT&T general-purpose document
formatter; see groff_mm(7). It can be specified on the
command line as -mm or -m mm.
om (invariably called “mom”) is a modern package written by
Peter Schaffter specifically for groff. Consult the mom
home page ⟨https://www.schaffter.ca/mom/⟩ for extensive
documentation. She—for mom takes the female pronoun—can
be specified on the command line as -mom or -m mom.
s is the original AT&T general-purpose ms document
formatter; see groff_ms(7). It can be specified on the
command line as -ms or -m ms.
www is a supplemental package providing 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 page also documents some other,
minor auxiliary macro packages not mentioned here.
Programming language
General concepts common to all roff programming languages are
described in roff(7).
The groff extensions to the classical troff language are
documented in groff_diff(7).
An overview of language features, including all supported escapes
and requests, can be found in groff(7).
Formatters
The central roff formatter within the groff system is troff(1).
It provides the features of both the classical troff and nroff,
as well as the groff extensions. The command-line option -C
switches troff into compatibility mode which tries to emulate
classical roff as much as possible.
There is a shell script nroff(1) that emulates the behavior of
classical nroff. It tries to automatically select the proper
output encoding, according to the current locale.
The formatter program generates a device-independent, but not
device-agnostic, intermediate output format, documented in
groff_out(5).
Devices
In roff, the output targets are called devices. A device can be
a piece of hardware, e.g., a printer, or a software file format.
A device is specified by the option -T. The groff devices are as
follows.
ascii Text output using the ascii(7) character set.
cp1047 Text output using the EBCDIC code page IBM cp1047 (e.g.,
OS/390 Unix).
dvi TeX DVI format.
html HTML output.
latin1 Text output using the ISO Latin-1 (ISO 8859-1) character
set; see iso_8859_1(7).
lbp Output for Canon CAPSL printers (LBP-4 and LBP-8 series
laser printers).
lj4 HP LaserJet4-compatible (or other PCL5-compatible)
printers.
ps PostScript output; suitable for printers and previewers
like gv(1).
pdf PDF files; suitable for viewing with tools such as
evince(1) and okular(1).
utf8 Text output using the Unicode (ISO 10646) character set
with UTF-8 encoding; see unicode(7).
xhtml XHTML output.
X75 75dpi X Window System output suitable for the previewers
xditview(1x) and gxditview(1). A variant for a 12pt
document base font is X75-12.
X100 100dpi X Window System output suitable for the previewers
xditview(1x) and gxditview(1). A variant for a 12pt
document base font is X100-12.
The postprocessor to be used for a device is specified by the
postpro command in the 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 formats are
grodvi(1)
for the DVI format,
grohtml(1)
for HTML and XHTML formats,
grops(1)
for PostScript.
gropdf(1)
for PDF.
Combined with the many existing free conversion tools this should
be sufficient to convert a troff document into virtually any
existing data format.
Utilities
The following utility programs around groff are available.
addftinfo(1)
Add information to troff font description files for use
with groff.
afmtodit(1)
Create font description files for PostScript device.
eqn2graph(1)
Convert an eqn image into a cropped image.
gdiffmk(1)
Mark differences between groff, nroff, or troff files.
grap2graph(1)
Convert a grap diagram into a cropped bitmap image.
gxditview(1)
The groff X viewer, the GNU version of xditview.
hpftodit(1)
Create font description files for lj4 device.
indxbib(1)
Make inverted index for bibliographic databases.
lkbib(1)
Search bibliographic databases.
lookbib(1)
Interactively search bibliographic databases.
pdfroff(1)
Create PDF documents using groff.
pfbtops(1)
Translate a PostScript font in .pfb format to ASCII.
pic2graph(1)
Convert a pic diagram into a cropped image.
tfmtodit(1)
Create font description files for TeX DVI device.
xditview(1x)
roff viewer historically distributed with the X Window
System.
xtotroff(1)
Convert X font metrics into GNU troff font metrics.
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 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), 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.
The following example illustrates the power of the groff program
as a wrapper around troff.
To process a roff input file using the preprocessors tbl and pic
and the me macro package in the way to which AT&T troff users
were accustomed, one would type (or script) a pipeline.
pic foo.me | tbl | troff -me -Tutf8 | grotty
Using groff, this pipe can be shortened to the equivalent command
groff -p -t -me -T utf8 foo.me
An even easier way to do this is to use grog(1) to guess the
preprocessor and macro options and execute the result by using
the command substitution feature of the shell.
$(grog -Tutf8 foo.me)
When paging output for the “ascii”, “cp1047”, “latin1”, and
“utf8” devices, programs like more(1) and less(1) may require
command-line options to correctly handle some output sequences;
see grotty(1).
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.
groff installs files in varying locations depending on its
compile-time configuration. On this installation, the following
locations are used.
Application defaults directory for
gxditview(1).
/usr/local/bin
Directory containing groff's executable commands.
/usr/local/share/groff/1.23.0/eign
List of common words for indxbib(1).
/usr/local/share/groff/1.23.0
Directory for data files.
/usr/dict/papers/Ind
Default index for lkbib(1) and refer(1).
/usr/local/share/doc/groff-1.23.0
Documentation directory.
/usr/local/share/doc/groff-1.23.0/examples
Example directory.
/usr/local/share/groff/1.23.0/font
Font directory.
/usr/local/share/doc/groff-1.23.0/html
HTML documentation directory.
/usr/lib/font
Legacy font directory.
/usr/local/share/groff/site-font
Local font directory.
/usr/local/share/groff/site-tmac
Local macro package (tmac file) directory.
/usr/local/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac
Macro package (tmac file) directory.
/usr/local/share/groff/1.23.0/oldfont
Font directory for compatibility with old versions of
groff; see grops(1).
/usr/local/share/doc/groff-1.23.0/pdf
PDF documentation directory.
/usr/local/lib/groff/site-tmac
System macro package (tmac file) directory.
groff macro directory
This contains all information related to macro packages. Note
that more than a single 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/local/
share/groff/1.23.0/tmac. The following files contained in the
groff macro directory have a special meaning:
troffrc
Initialization file for troff. This is interpreted by
troff before reading the macro sets and any input.
troffrc-end
Final startup file for troff. It is parsed after all
macro sets have been read.
name.tmac
tmac.name
Macro file for macro package name.
groff font directory
This contains all information related to output devices. Note
that more than a single directory is searched for those files;
see troff(1). For the groff installation corresponding to this
document, it is located at /usr/local/share/groff/1.23.0/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.
Information on how to get groff and related information is
available at the groff page of the GNU website
⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/groff⟩.
Three groff mailing lists are available:
bug tracker activity (read-only) ⟨bug-groff@gnu.org⟩;
general discussion ⟨groff@gnu.org⟩; and
commit activity (read-only) ⟨groff-commit@gnu.org⟩, which
reports changes to groff's source code repository by its
developers.
Details on repository access and much more can be found in the
file README at the top directory of the groff source package.
A free implementation of the grap preprocessor, written by Ted
Faber ⟨faber@lunabase.org⟩, can be found at the grap website
⟨http://www.lunabase.org/~faber/Vault/software/grap/⟩. This is
the only grap supported by groff.
groff was written by James Clark ⟨jjc@jclark.com⟩. This document
was rewritten, enhanced, and put under the GNU FDL license in
2002 by Bernd Warken ⟨groff-bernd.warken-72@web.de⟩.
Groff: The GNU Implementation of troff, by Trent A. Fisher and
Werner Lemberg, is the primary groff manual. You can browse it
interactively with “info groff”.
Introduction, history, and further reading:
roff(7), ditroff(7)
Viewer for groff (and AT&T device-independent) troff documents:
gxditview(1)
Preprocessors:
chem(1), eqn(1), neqn(1), glilypond(1), grn(1),
preconv(1), gperl(1), pic(1), gpinyin(1), refer(1),
soelim(1), tbl(1)
Macro packages and macro-specific utilities:
groff_hdtbl(7), groff_man(7), groff_man_style(7),
groff_mdoc(7), groff_me(7), groff_mm(7), groff_mmse(7),
mmroff(1) groff_mom(7), pdfmom(1), groff_ms(7),
groff_www(7), groff_trace(7)
Bibliographic and index tools:
indxbib(1), lkbib(1), lookbib(1)
Language, conventions, and GNU extensions:
groff(7), groff_char(7), groff_diff(7),
groff_filenames(5), groff_font(5), groff_tmac(5)
Intermediate output language:
groff_out(5)
Formatter program:
troff(1)
Formatter wrappers:
nroff(1), pdfroff(1)
Postprocessors for output devices:
grodvi(1), grohtml(1), grolbp(1), grolj4(1), lj4_font(5),
gropdf(1), grops(1), grotty(1)
Font support utilities:
addftinfo(1), afmtodit(1), hpftodit(1), pfbtops(1),
tfmtodit(1), xtotroff(1)
Graphics conversion utilities:
eqn2graph(1), grap2graph(1), pic2graph(1)
Difference-marking utility:
gdiffmk(1)
“groff guess” utility:
grog(1)
This page is part of the groff (GNU troff) project. Information
about the project can be found at
⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/groff/⟩. If you have a bug report
for this manual page, see ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/groff/⟩.
This page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/groff.git⟩ on 2020-12-18. (At
that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
the repository was 2020-12-09.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there
is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
man-pages@man7.org
groff 1.23.0.rc1.56-5346-dirty3 December 2020 groff(1)
Pages that refer to this page: addftinfo(1), afmtodit(1), chem(1), eqn(1), eqn2graph(1), gdiffmk(1), glilypond(1), gperl(1), gpinyin(1), grap2graph(1), grn(1), grodvi(1), groffer(1), grog(1), grohtml(1), grolbp(1), grolj4(1), gropdf(1), grops(1), grotty(1), hpftodit(1), man(1), mmroff(1), nroff(1), pdfmom(1), pdfroff(1), pfbtops(1), pic2graph(1), preconv(1), refer(1), roff2dvi(1), roff2html(1), roff2pdf(1), roff2ps(1), roff2text(1), roff2x(1), soelim(1), tbl(1), tfmtodit(1), troff(1), zsoelim(1), groff_font(5), groff_out(5), groff_tmac(5), lj4_font(5), ditroff(7), groff(7), groff_char(7), groff_diff(7), groff_hdtbl(7), groff_me(7), groff_mm(7), groff_mmse(7), groff_mom(7), groff_ms(7), groff_trace(7), groff_www(7), man(7), roff(7), suffixes(7)
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HTML rendering created 2020-12-21 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface, maintainer of the Linux man-pages project. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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