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Name | Synopsis | Description | Options | Usage | Exit status | Environment | Examples | Limitations | Installation directories | Availability | Authors | See also | COLOPHON |
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groff(1) General Commands Manual groff(1)
groff - front end to the GNU roff document formatting system
groff [-abcCeEgGijklNpRsStUVXzZ] [-d ctext] [-d string=text]
[-D fallback-encoding] [-f font-family] [-F font-directory]
[-I inclusion-directory] [-K input-encoding] [-L spooler-
argument] [-m macro-package] [-M macro-directory] [-n page-
number] [-o page-list] [-P postprocessor-argument]
[-r cnumeric-expression] [-r register=numeric-expression]
[-T output-device] [-w warning-category] [-W warning-
category] [file ...]
groff -h
groff --help
groff -v [option ...] [file ...]
groff --version [option ...] [file ...]
groff is the primary front end to the GNU roff document formatting
system. GNU roff is a typesetting system that reads plain text
input that includes formatting commands to produce output in
PostScript, PDF, HTML, or other formats, or for display to a
terminal. Formatting commands can be low-level typesetting
primitives, macros from a supplied package, or user-defined
macros. All three approaches can be combined. If no file
operands are specified, or if file is “-”, groff reads the
standard input stream.
A reimplementation and extension of troff and other programs from
AT&T Unix, groff is widely available on POSIX and other systems
owing to its long association with Unix manuals, including man
pages. It and its predecessor have produced several best-selling
software engineering texts. groff can create typographically
sophisticated documents while consuming minimal system resources.
The groff command orchestrates the execution of preprocessors, the
transformation of input documents into a device-independent page
description language, and the production of output from that
language.
-h and --help display a usage message and exit.
Because groff is intended to subsume most users' direct
invocations of the troff(1) formatter, the two programs share a
set of options. However, groff has some options that troff does
not share, and others which groff interprets differently. At the
same time, not all valid troff options can be given to groff.
[1mgroff[24m-specific options
The following options either do not exist in GNU troff or are
interpreted differently by groff.
-D enc Use enc as preconv(1)'s fallback input encoding; implies
-k.
-e Run eqn(1) preprocessor.
-g Run grn(1) preprocessor.
-G Run grap(1) preprocessor; implies -p.
-I dir Works as troff's option (see below), but also implies -g
and -s. groff passes -I options and their arguments to
soelim(1), troff(1), and output drivers; with the option
letter changed to -M, the same arguments are passed to
grn(1).
-j Run chem(1) preprocessor; implies -p.
-k Run preconv(1) preprocessor. Refer to its man page for its
behavior if neither of groff's -K or -D options is also
specified.
-K enc Set input encoding used by preconv(1) to enc; implies -k.
-l Send the output to a spooler program for printing. The
“print” directive in the device description file specifies
the default command to be used; see groff_font(5). If no
such directive is present for the output device, output is
piped to lpr(1). See options -L and -X.
-L arg Pass arg to the print spooler. If multiple args are
required, pass each with a separate -L option. groff does
not prefix an option dash to arg before passing it to the
spooler.
-M Works as troff's option (see below), but is also passed to
eqn(1), grap(1), and grn(1).
-N Prohibit newlines between eqn delimiters: pass -N to
eqn(1).
-p Run pic(1) preprocessor.
-P arg Pass arg to the postprocessor. If multiple args are
required, pass each with a separate -P option. groff does
not prefix an option dash to arg before passing it to the
postprocessor.
-R Run refer(1) preprocessor. No mechanism is provided for
passing arguments to it; most refer options have equivalent
language elements that can be specified within the
document.
-s Run soelim(1) preprocessor.
-S Operate in “safer” mode; see -U below for its opposite.
Safer mode is enabled by default.
-t Run tbl(1) preprocessor.
-T dev Prepare output for device dev. groff passes the -T option
and its argument to troff, then (unless the -Z option is
used) runs an output driver to convert troff's output to a
form appropriate for dev; see subsection “Output devices”
below.
-U Operate in unsafe mode. groff passes the -U option to
pic(1) and troff(1).
--version
-v Write version information for groff and all programs run by
it to the standard output stream; that is, the given
command line is processed in the usual way, passing -v to
the formatter and any pre- or postprocessors invoked.
-V Output the pipeline that groff would run to the standard
output stream and exit. If given more than once, groff
both writes the pipeline to the standard error stream and
runs it.
-X Use gxditview(1) instead of the usual postprocessor to
(pre)view a document on an X11 display. Combining this
option with “-T ps” uses the font metrics of the PostScript
device, whereas the “-T X75”, “-T X75-12” “-T X100”, and
“-T X100-12” options use the metrics of X11 fonts.
-Z Disable postprocessing. troff output will appear on the
standard output stream (unless suppressed with -z); see
groff_out(5) for a description of this format.
Transparent options
The following options are passed as-is to the formatter program
troff(1) and described in more detail in its man page.
-a Generate a plain text approximation of the typeset output.
-b Write a backtrace to the standard error stream on each
error or warning.
-c Start with color output disabled.
-C Enable AT&T troff compatibility mode; implies -c.
-d ctext
-d string=text
Define string.
-E Inhibit troff error messages; implies -Ww.
-f fam Set default font family.
-F dir Search in directory dir for the selected output device's
directory of device and font description files.
-i Process standard input after the specified input files.
-I dir Search dir for input files.
-m mac Read macro package mac before input. groff passes -m
options and their arguments to eqn(1), grap(1), and grn(1).
-M dir Search directory dir for macro files. groff passes -M
options and their arguments to eqn(1), grap(1), and grn(1).
-n num Begin numbering pages at num.
-o list
Output only pages in list.
-r cnumeric-expression
-r register=numeric-expression
Define register.
-w cat
-W cat Enable and inhibit, respectively, warnings in category cat.
-z Suppress formatted device-independent output of troff.
The architecture of the GNU roff system follows that of other
device-independent roff implementations, comprising preprocessors,
macro packages, output drivers (or “postprocessors”), and a suite
of utilities, with the formatter program troff(1) at its heart.
See roff(7) for a survey of how a roff system works.
The front end programs available in the GNU roff system make it
easier to use than traditional roffs that required the
construction of pipelines or use of temporary files to carry a
source document from maintainable form to device-ready output.
The discussion below summarizes the constituent parts of the GNU
roff system. It complements roff(7) with groff-specific
information.
Getting started
Those who prefer to learn by experimenting or are desirous of
rapid feedback from the system may wish to start with a “Hello,
world!” document.
$ echo "Hello, world!" | groff -Tascii | sed '/^$/d'
Hello, world!
We used a sed(1) command only to eliminate the 65 blank lines that
would otherwise flood the terminal screen. (roff systems were
developed in the days of paper-based terminals with 66 lines to a
page.)
Today's users may prefer output to a UTF-8-capable terminal.
$ echo "Hello, world!" | groff -Tutf8 | sed '/^$/d'
Producing PDF, HTML, or TeX's DVI is also straightforward. The
hard part may be selecting a viewer program for the output.
$ echo "Hello, world!" | groff -Tpdf > hello.pdf
$ evince hello.pdf
$ echo "Hello, world!" | groff -Thtml > hello.html
$ firefox hello.html
$ echo "Hello, world!" | groff -Tdvi > hello.dvi
$ xdvi hello.dvi
Using groff as a REPL
Those with a programmer's bent may be pleased to know that they
can use groff in a read-evaluate-print loop (REPL). Doing so can
be handy to verify one's understanding of the formatter's behavior
and/or the syntax it accepts. Turning on all warnings with -ww
can aid this goal.
$ groff -ww -Tutf8
\# This is a comment. Let's define a register.
.nr a 1
\# Do integer arithmetic with operators evaluated left-to-right.
.nr b \n[a]+5/2
\# Let's get the result on the standard error stream.
.tm \n[b]
3
\# Now we'll define a string.
.ds name Leslie\" This is another form of comment.
.nr b (\n[a] + (7/2))
\# Center the next two text input lines.
.ce 2
Hi, \*[name].
Your secret number is \n[b].
\# We will see that the division rounded toward zero.
It is
\# Here's an if-else control structure.
.ie (\n[b] % 2) odd.
.el even.
\# This trick sets the page length to the current vertical
\# position, so that blank lines don't spew when we're done.
.pl \n[nl]u
<Control-D>
Hi, Leslie.
Your secret number is 4.
It is even.
Paper format
troff reads the device description file DESC for the selected
output device when it starts; page dimensions declared there are
used if present. groff's build process configures a default page
format and writes it to typesetters' DESC files. This
installation defaults to “letter”. If the DESC file lacks this
information, the formatter and output driver use a page length of
11i (inches) for compatibility with AT&T troff. See
groff_font(5).
In the formatter, the pl request changes the page length, but
macro packages often do not support alteration of the paper format
within a document. One might, for instance, want to switch
between portrait and landscape orientations. Macro packages lack
a consistent approach to configuration of parameters dependent on
the paper format; some, like ms, benefit from a preamble in the
document prior to the first macro call, while others, like mm,
instead require the specification of registers on the command
line, or otherwise before its macro file is interpreted, to
configure page dimensions.
Output drivers for typesetters also recognize command-line options
-p to override the default page dimensions and -l to use landscape
orientation. The output driver's man page, such as grops(1), may
be helpful.
groff's “-d paper” command-line option is a convenient means of
setting the paper format; see groff_tmac(5). Combine it with
appropriate -P options for the output driver, overriding its
defaults. The following command formats for PostScript on A4
paper in landscape orientation.
$ groff -T ps -d paper=a4l -P -pa4 -P -l -ms my.ms >my.ps
Front end
The groff program wraps troff(1), allowing one to specify
preprocessors via command-line options and running the appropriate
output driver for the selected output device. This convenience
avoids the manual construction of pipelines or management of
temporary files required of users of traditional roff(7) systems.
Use grog(1) to infer an appropriate groff command line to format a
document.
Language
Input to a roff system is in plain text interleaved with control
lines and escape sequences. The combination constitutes a
document in one of a family of languages we also call roff; see
roff(7) for background. An overview of GNU roff language syntax
and features, including lists of all supported escape sequences,
requests, and predefined registers, can be found in groff(7). GNU
roff extensions to the AT&T troff language, a common subset of
roff dialects extant today, are detailed in groff_diff(7).
Preprocessors
A preprocessor interprets a domain-specific language that produces
roff language output. Frequently, such input is confined to
sections or regions of roff input (bracketed with macro calls
specific to each preprocessor), which it replaces. Preprocessors
therefore often interpret a subset of roff syntax along with their
own language. GNU roff provides reimplementations of most
preprocessors familiar to users of AT&T troff; these routinely
have extended features and/or require GNU troff to format their
output.
tbl lays out tables;
eqn typesets mathematics;
pic draws diagrams;
refer processes bibliographic references;
soelim preprocesses “sourced” input files;
grn renders gremlin(1) diagrams;
chem draws chemical structural formulæ using pic;
gperl populates groff registers and strings using
perl(1);
glilypond embeds LilyPond sheet music; and
gpinyin eases Mandarin Chinese input using Hanyu
Pinyin.
A preprocessor unique to GNU roff is preconv(1), which converts
various input encodings to something GNU troff can understand.
When used, it is run before any other preprocessors.
Most preprocessors enclose content between a pair of
characteristic tokens. Such a token must occur at the beginning
of an input line and use the dot control character. Spaces and
tabs must not follow the control character or precede the end of
the input line. Deviating from these rules defeats a token's
recognition by the preprocessor. Tokens are generally preserved
in preprocessor output and interpreted as macro calls subsequently
by troff. The ideal preprocessor is not yet available in groff.
┌──────────────┬─────────────────┬────────────────┐
│ preprocessor │ starting token │ ending token │
├──────────────┼─────────────────┼────────────────┤
│ chem │ .cstart │ .cend │
│ eqn │ .EQ │ .EN │
│ grap │ .G1 │ .G2 │
│ grn │ .GS │ .GE │
│ ideal │ .IS │ .IE │
│ │ │ .IF │
│ pic │ .PS │ .PE │
│ │ │ .PF │
│ │ │ .PY │
│ refer │ .R1 │ .R2 │
│ tbl │ .TS │ .TE │
├──────────────┼─────────────────┼────────────────┤
│ glilypond │ .lilypond start │ .lilypond stop │
│ gperl │ .Perl start │ .Perl stop │
│ gpinyin │ .pinyin start │ .pinyin stop │
└──────────────┴─────────────────┴────────────────┘
Macro packages
Macro files are roff input files designed to produce no output
themselves but instead ease the preparation of other roff
documents. When a macro file is installed at a standard location
and suitable for use by a general audience, it is termed a macro
package.
Macro packages can be loaded prior to any roff input documents
with the -m option. The GNU roff system implements most well-
known macro packages for AT&T troff in a compatible way and
extends them. These have one- or two-letter names arising from
intense practices of naming economy in early Unix culture, a
laconic approach that 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.
Macro packages serve a variety of purposes. Some are “full-
service” packages, adopting responsibility for page layout among
other fundamental tasks, and defining their own lexicon of macros
for document composition; each such package stands alone and a
given document can use at most one.
an is used to compose man pages in the format originating in
Version 7 Unix (1979); see groff_man(7). It can be
specified on the command line as -man.
doc is used to compose man pages in the format originating in
4.3BSD-Reno (1990); see groff_mdoc(7). It can be specified
on the command line as -mdoc.
e is the Berkeley general-purpose macro suite, developed as
an alternative to AT&T's s; see groff_me(7). It can be
specified on the command line as -me.
m implements the format used by the second-generation AT&T
macro suite for general documents, a successor to s; see
groff_mm(7). It can be specified on the command line as
-mm.
om (invariably called “mom”) is a modern package written by
Peter Schaffter specifically for GNU roff. Consult the mom
HTML manual ⟨file:///usr/local/share/doc/groff-1.23.0/html/
mom/toc.html⟩ for extensive documentation. She—for mom
takes the female pronoun—can be specified on the command
line as -mom.
s is the original AT&T general-purpose document format; see
groff_ms(7). It can be specified on the command line as
-ms.
Others are supplemental. For instance, andoc is a wrapper package
specific to GNU roff that recognizes whether a document uses man
or mdoc format and loads the corresponding macro package. It can
be specified on the command line as -mandoc. A man(1) librarian
may use this macro file to delegate loading of the correct macro
package; it is thus unnecessary for man itself to scan the
contents of a document to decide the issue.
Many macro files augment the function of the full-service
packages, or of roff documents that do not employ such a package—
the latter are sometimes characterized as “raw”. These auxiliary
packages are described, along with details of macro file naming
and placement, in groff_tmac(5).
Formatters
The formatter, the program that interprets roff language input, is
troff(1). It provides the features of the AT&T troff and nroff
programs as well as many extensions. The command-line option -C
switches troff into compatibility mode, which tries to emulate
AT&T troff as closely as is practical to enable the formatting of
documents written for the older system.
A shell script, nroff(1), emulates the behavior of AT&T nroff. It
attempts to correctly encode the output based on the locale,
relieving the user of the need to specify an output device with
the -T option and is therefore convenient for use with terminal
output devices, described in the next subsection.
GNU troff generates output in a device-independent, but not
device-agnostic, page description language detailed in
groff_out(5).
Output devices
troff output is formatted for a particular output device,
typically specified by the -T option to the formatter or a front
end. If neither this option nor the GROFF_TYPESETTER environment
variable is used, the default output device is ps. An output
device may be any of the following.
ascii for terminals using the ISO 646 1991:IRV character set and
encoding, also known as US-ASCII.
dvi for TeX DVI format.
html
xhtml for HTML and XHTML output, respectively.
latin1 for terminals using the ISO Latin-1 (8859-1) character set
and encoding.
lbp for Canon CaPSL printers (LBP-4 and LBP-8 series laser
printers).
lj4 for HP LaserJet4-compatible (or other PCL5-compatible)
printers.
pdf for PDF output.
ps for PostScript output.
utf8 for terminals using the ISO 10646 (“Unicode”) character set
in UTF-8 encoding.
X75 for previewing with gxditview using 75 dpi resolution and a
10-point base type size.
X75-12 for previewing with gxditview using 75 dpi resolution and a
12-point base type size.
X100 for previewing with gxditview using 100 dpi resolution and
a 10-point base type size.
X100-12
for previewing with gxditview using 100 dpi resolution and
a 12-point base type size.
Postprocessors
Any program that interprets the output of GNU troff is a
postprocessor. The postprocessors provided by GNU roff are output
drivers, which prepare a document for viewing or printing.
Postprocessors for other purposes, such as page resequencing or
statistical measurement of a document, are conceivable.
An output driver supports one or more output devices, each with
its own device description file. A device determines its
postprocessor with the postpro directive in its device description
file; see groff_font(5). The -X option overrides this selection,
causing gxditview to serve as the output driver.
grodvi(1)
provides dvi.
grohtml(1)
provides html and xhtml.
grolbp(1)
provides lbp.
grolj4(1)
provides lj4.
gropdf(1)
provides pdf.
grops(1)
provides ps.
grotty(1)
provides ascii, latin1, and utf8.
gxditview(1)
provides X75, X75-12, X100, and X100-12, and additionally
can preview ps.
Utilities
GNU roff includes a suite of utilities.
gdiffmk(1)
marks differences between a pair of roff input files.
grog(1)
infers the groff command a document requires.
Several utilities prepare descriptions of fonts, enabling the
formatter to use them when producing output for a given device.
addftinfo(1)
adds information to AT&T troff font description files to
enable their use with GNU troff.
afmtodit(1)
creates font description files for PostScript Type 1 fonts.
pfbtops(1)
translates a PostScript Type 1 font in PFB (Printer Font
Binary) format to PFA (Printer Font ASCII), which can then
be interpreted by afmtodit.
hpftodit(1)
creates font description files for the HP LaserJet 4 family
of printers.
tfmtodit(1)
creates font description files for the TeX DVI device.
xtotroff(1)
creates font description files for X Window System core
fonts.
A trio of tools transform material constructed using roff
preprocessor languages into graphical image files.
eqn2graph(1)
converts an eqn equation into a cropped image.
grap2graph(1)
converts a grap diagram into a cropped image.
pic2graph(1)
converts a pic diagram into a cropped image.
Another set of programs works with the bibliographic data files
used by the refer(1) preprocessor.
indxbib(1)
makes inverted indices for bibliographic databases,
speeding lookup operations on them.
lkbib(1)
searches the databases.
lookbib(1)
interactively searches the databases.
groff exits successfully (with status 0) if either of the options
-h or --help is specified, status 2 if the program cannot
interpret its command-line arguments, and status 1 if it
encounters an error during operation. Otherwise, groff runs a
pipeline to process its input; if all commands within the pipeline
exit successfully, groff does likewise. If not, groff's exit
status encodes a summary of problems encountered, setting bit 2 if
a command exited with a failure status, bit 3 if a command was
terminated with a signal, and bit 4 if a command could not be
executed. (Thus, if all three misfortunes befall one's pipeline,
groff exits with status 2^2 + 2^3 + 2^4 = 4+8+16 = 28.) To
troubleshoot pipeline problems, re-run the groff command with the
-V option and break the reported pipeline down into separate
stages, inspecting the exit status of, and diagnostic messages
emitted by, each command.
Environment variables in the host system affect the behavior of
programs supplied by groff as follows. Normally, the path
separator in environment variables ending with PATH is the colon;
this may vary depending on the operating system. For example,
Windows uses a semicolon instead.
GROFF_BIN_PATH
Locate groff commands in these directories, followed by
those in PATH. If not set, the installation directory of
GNU roff executables, /usr/local/bin, is searched before
PATH.
GROFF_COMMAND_PREFIX
Apply a prefix to certain GNU roff commands. groff can be
configured at compile time to apply a prefix to the names
of programs it provides that had counterparts in AT&T
troff, so that name collisions are avoided at run time.
The default prefix is empty.
When used, this prefix is conventionally the letter “g”.
For example, GNU troff would be installed as gtroff.
Besides troff, the prefix applies to the formatter wrapper
nroff; the preprocessors eqn, grn, pic, refer, tbl, and
soelim; and the utilities indxbib and lookbib.
GROFF_ENCODING
Specify the assumed character encoding of the input. groff
passes its value as an argument to preconv(1)
preprocessor's -e option. This variable's existence
implies the groff option -k. If set but empty, groff runs
preconv without an -e option. groff's -K option overrides
GROFF_ENCODING.
GROFF_FONT_PATH
Seek the selected output device's directory of device and
font description files in this list of directories. See
troff(1) and groff_font(5).
GROFF_TMAC_PATH
Seek macro packages in this list of directories. See
troff(1) and groff_tmac(5).
GROFF_TMPDIR
Create temporary files in this directory. If not set, but
TMPDIR is, the latter is used instead. On Windows systems,
if neither of the foregoing are set, the environment
variables TMP and TEMP (in that order) are checked also.
Otherwise, temporary files are created in /tmp. The
refer(1), grohtml(1), and grops(1) commands use temporary
files.
GROFF_TYPESETTER
Set the default output device. If empty or not set, ps is
used. The -T option overrides GROFF_TYPESETTER.
SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH
Declare a time stamp (expressed as seconds since the Unix
epoch) to use as the output creation time stamp in place of
the current time. The time is converted to human-readable
form using gmtime(3) and asctime(3) when the formatter
starts up and stored in registers usable by documents and
macro packages.
TZ Declare the time zone to use when converting the current
time to human-readable form; see tzset(3). If
SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH is used, it is always converted to human-
readable form using UTC.
roff systems are best known for formatting man pages. A man(1)
librarian program, having located a page, might render it with a
groff command.
groff -t -man -Tutf8 /usr/share/man/man1/groff.1
The librarian will also pipe the output through a pager, which
might not interpret terminal escape sequences groff emits for
boldface, underlining, italics, or hyperlinking; see section
“Limitations” below.
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
Shorten this pipeline to an equivalent command using groff.
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)
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 commands
groff -X -P -title -P 'trial run' mydoc.t
and
groff -X -Z mydoc.t | gxditview -title 'trial run' -
are equivalent.
When paging output for the ascii, latin1, and utf8 devices,
programs like more(1) and less(1) may require command-line options
to correctly handle some terminal escape sequences; see grotty(1).
GNU roff installs files in varying locations depending on its
compile-time configuration. On this installation, the following
locations are used.
/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.
[1mgroff[24m macro directory
Most macro files supplied with GNU roff are stored in /usr/local/
share/groff/1.23.0/tmac for the installation corresponding to this
document. As a rule, multiple directories are searched for macro
files; see troff(1). For a catalog of macro files GNU roff
provides, see groff_tmac(5).
[1mgroff[24m device and font description directory
Device and font description files supplied with GNU roff are
stored in /usr/local/share/groff/1.23.0/font for the installation
corresponding to this document. As a rule, multiple directories
are searched for device and font description files; see troff(1).
For the formats of these files, see groff_font(5).
Obtain links to groff releases for download, its source
repository, discussion mailing lists, a support ticket tracker,
and further information from the groff page of the GNU website
⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/groff⟩.
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/⟩. groff
supports only this grap.
groff (both the front-end command and the overall system) was
primarily written by James Clark ⟨jjc@jclark.com⟩. Contributors
to this document include Clark, Trent A. Fisher, Werner Lemberg
⟨wl@gnu.org⟩, Bernd Warken ⟨groff-bernd.warken-72@web.de⟩, and G.
Branden Robinson ⟨g.branden.robinson@gmail.com⟩.
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”.
A list of all groff man pages follows. A few (grohtml, gropdf,
gxditview, and xtotroff) will be unavailable if their
corresponding programs were disabled during compilation.
Introduction, history, and further reading:
roff(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 package-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), groff_ms(7), groff_rfc1345(7),
groff_trace(7), groff_www(7)
Bibliographic database management tools:
indxbib(1), lkbib(1), lookbib(1)
Language, conventions, and GNU extensions:
groff(7), groff_char(7), groff_diff(7), groff_font(5),
groff_tmac(5)
Device-independent page description language:
groff_out(5)
Formatter program:
troff(1)
Formatter wrappers:
nroff(1), pdfmom(1)
Postprocessors for output devices:
grodvi(1), grohtml(1), grolbp(1), grolj4(1), 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 2025-08-11. (At
that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
the repository was 2025-08-09.) 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 1.23.0.3821-a8b3f 2025-08-09 groff(1)
Pages that refer to this page: man(1), mansect(1), pdfman(1), zsoelim(1), suffixes(7)
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