groff - front end for the groff document formatting system
SYNOPSIS
groff [ -abeghilpstvzCEGNRSUVXZ ] [ -wname ] [ -Wname ]
[ -mname ] [ -Fdir ] [ -Idir ] [ -Tdev ] [ -ffam ]
[ -Mdir ] [ -dcs ] [ -rcn ] [ -nnum ] [ -olist ]
[ -Parg ] [ -Larg ] [ files... ]
It is possible to have whitespace between a command line
option and its parameter.
DESCRIPTION
groff is a front-end to the groff document formatting sys
tem. Normally it runs the troff program and a postproces
sor appropriate for the selected device. Available
devices are:
ps For PostScript printers and previewers
dvi For TeX dvi format.
X75 For a 75dpi X11 previewer.
X100 For a 100dpi X11 previewer.
ascii For typewriter-like devices.
ascii8 For typewriter-like devices. Unlike ascii, this
device is 8 bit clean. This device is intended to
be used for codesets other than ASCII and
ISO-8859-1.
latin1 For typewriter-like devices using the ISO Latin-1
(ISO 8859-1) character set.
utf8 For typewriter-like devices using the Unicode (ISO
10646) character set with UTF-8 encoding.
cp1047 For typewriter-like devices which use the EBCDIC
code page IBM cp1047 (e.g. OS/390 Unix).
nippon For typewriter-like devices using the Japanese-EUC
character set.
lj4 For an HP LaserJet4-compatible (or other PCL5-com
patible) printer.
lbp For Canon CAPSL printers (LBP-4 and LBP-8 series
laser printers).
html To produce HTML output.
The postprocessor to be used for a device is specified by
can be overridden with the -X option.
The default device is ps. It can optionally preprocess
with any of pic, eqn, grn, grap, tbl, refer, or soelim.
Options without an argument can be grouped behind a single
-. A filename of - denotes the standard input.
The grog command can be used to guess the correct groff
command to use to format a file.
OPTIONS
-h Print a help message.
-e Preprocess with eqn.
-t Preprocess with tbl.
-g Preprocess with grn.
-G Preprocess with grap.
-p Preprocess with pic.
-s Preprocess with soelim.
-Idir This option is as described in soelim(1). This
option implies the -s option.
-R Preprocess with refer. No mechanism is provided
for passing arguments to refer because most refer
options have equivalent commands which can be
included in the file. See refer(1) for more
details.
-v Make programs run by groff print out their version
number.
-V Print the pipeline on stdout instead of executing
it.
-z Suppress output from troff. Only error messages
will be printed.
-Z Do not postprocess the output of troff. Normally
groff will automatically run the appropriate post
processor.
-Parg Pass arg to the postprocessor. Each argument
should be passed with a separate -P option. Note
that groff does not prepend - to arg before passing
it to the postprocessor.
command used for this is specified by the print
command in the device description file (if not pre
sent, -l has no effect).
-Larg Pass arg to the spooler. Each argument should be
passed with a separate -L option. Note that groff
does not prepend - to arg before passing it to the
postprocessor. If there is no print command in the
device description file, -L is ignored.
-Tdev Prepare output for device dev. The default device
is ps.
-X Preview with gxditview instead of using the usual
postprocessor. Groff passes gxditview a -printCom
mand option which will make the Print action do
what groff would have done if the -l option had
been given. This is unlikely to produce good
results except with -Tps.
-N Don't allow newlines with eqn delimiters. This is
the same as the -N option in eqn.
-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.
-U Unsafe mode. Reverts to the old unsafe behaviour.
-a
-b
-i
-C
-E
-wname
-Wname
-mname
-olist
-dcs
-rcn
-Fdir
-Mdir
-ffam
-nnum These are as described in troff(1).
ENVIRONMENT
GROFF_COMMAND_PREFIX
If this is set X, then groff will run Xtroff
instead of troff. This also applies to tbl, pic,
eqn, grn, refer, and soelim. It does not apply to
grap, grops, grodvi, grotty, grolj4, grohtml, and
gxditview.
A colon separated list of directories in which to
search for macro files in addition to the default
directories. See troff(1) for more details.
GROFF_TYPESETTER
Default device.
GROFF_FONT_PATH
A colon separated list of directories in which to
search for the devname directory in addition to the
default one. See troff(1) for more details.
GROFF_BIN_PATH
This search path, followed by PATH, will be used
for commands executed by groff. If not set,
`/usr/bin' is prepended to PATH.
GROFF_TMPDIR
The directory in which temporary files will be cre
ated. If this is not set and TMPDIR is set, tempo
rary files will be created in that directory. Oth
erwise temporary files will be created in /tmp.
The grops(1) and refer(1) commands can create tem
porary files.
FILES
/usr/share/groff/1.17.2/font/devname/DESC
Device description file for device name.
/usr/share/groff/1.17.2/font/devname/F
Font file for font F of device name.
Note that on EBCDIC hosts, output devices ascii, latin1,
and utf8 aren't available. Similarly, cp1047 is not
available on ASCII based operating systems.
EXAMPLE
To print the man page foo.1 to the standard output using
the latin-1 output device and less as the pager, the fol
lowing command can be used:
groff -mandoc -Tlatin1 foo.1 | less
Alternatively, you can say
groff -m mandoc -Tlatin1 foo.1 | less
AUTHOR
James Clark <jjc@jclark.com>
BUGS
Report bugs to bug-groff@gnu.org. Include a complete,
self-contained example that will allow the bug to be
COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 1989-2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
groff is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public
License as published by the Free Software Foundation;
either version 2, or (at your option) any later version.
groff is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied war
ranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PUR
POSE. See the GNU General Public License for more
details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public
License along with groff; see the file COPYING. If not,
write to the Free Software Foundation, 59 Temple Place -
Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
AVAILABILITY
The most recent released version of groff is always avail
able for anonymous ftp from ftp.gnu.org in the directory
gnu/groff.
groff only supports the freely available grap implementa
tion written by Ted Faber <faber@lunabase.org>. The
actual version can be found at
http://www.lunabase.org/~faber/Vault/software/grap/
SEE ALSO
grog(1), troff(1), tbl(1), pic(1), eqn(1), grn(1),
grap(1), soelim(1), refer(1), grops(1), grodvi(1),
grotty(1), grolj4(1), grolbp(1), grohtml(1), gxditview(1),
groff_font(5), groff_out(5), groff_man(7), groff_ms(7),
groff_me(7), groff_char(7)
Man(1) output converted with
man2html