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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 files that include formatting commands to produce output in
PostScript, PDF, HTML, DVI, 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 the typesetter from AT&T Unix,
groff is present on most POSIX systems owing to its long
association with Unix manuals (including man pages). It and its
predecessor are notable for their production of several best-
selling software engineering texts. groff is capable of producing
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 Set fallback input encoding used by preconv(1) to enc;
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. It is passed to soelim(1) and the output driver,
and grn is passed an -M option with dir as its argument.
-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 program. 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 program.
-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 refer because 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.
For security reasons, safer mode is enabled by default.
-t Run tbl(1) preprocessor.
-T dev Direct troff to format the input for the output device dev.
groff then calls an output driver to convert troff's output
to a form appropriate for dev; see subsection “Output
devices” below.
-U Operate in unsafe mode: pass the -U option to pic and
troff.
-v
--version
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, but do not execute it. If given more than
once, groff both writes and runs the pipeline.
-X Use gxditview(1) instead of the usual postprocessor to
(pre)view a document on an X11 display. Combining this
option with -Tps uses the font metrics of the PostScript
device, whereas the -TX75 and -TX100 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 cs
-d name=string
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 name
Process name.tmac before input files.
-M dir Search directory dir for macro files.
-n num Number the first page num.
-o list
Output only pages in list.
-r cnumeric-expression
-r register=numeric-expression
Define register.
-w name
-W name
Enable (-w) or inhibit (-W) emission of warnings in
category name.
-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”), a suite of
utilities, and the formatter troff 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 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.html
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
In GNU roff, the page dimensions for the formatter troff and for
output devices are handled separately. In the formatter, requests
are used to set the page length (.pl), page offset (or left
margin, .po), and line length (.ll). The right margin is not
explicitly configured; the combination of page offset and line
length provides the information necessary to derive it. The
papersize macro package, automatically loaded by troff, provides
an interface for configuring page dimensions by convenient names,
like “letter” or “A4”; see groff_tmac(5). The formatter's default
in this installation is “letter”.
It is up to each macro package to respect the page dimensions
configured in this way. Some offer alternative mechanisms.
For each output device, the size of the output medium can be set
in its DESC file. Most output drivers also recognize a command-
line option -p to override the default dimensions and an option -l
to use landscape orientation. See groff_font(5) for a description
of the papersize directive, which takes an argument of the same
form as -p. The output driver's man page, such as grops(1), may
also be helpful. groff uses the command-line option -P to pass
options to output devices; for example, use the following for
PostScript output on A4 paper in landscape orientation.
groff -Tps -dpaper=a4l -P-pa4 -P-l -ms foo.ms > foo.ps
Front end
The groff program is a wrapper around the troff(1) program. It
allows one to specify preprocessors via command-line options and
automatically runs the appropriate postprocessor for the selected
output device. Doing so, the manual construction of pipelines or
management of temporary files required of users of traditional
roff(7) systems can be avoided. Use the grog(1) program 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 a roff input file (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
program 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.
cp1047 for terminals using the IBM code page 1047 character set
and encoding.
dvi for TeX DVI format.
html
xhtml for HTML and XHTML output, respectively.
latin1 for terminals using the ISO Latin-1 (ISO 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, cp1047, 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 with a failure status if there was a problem parsing
its arguments and a successful status if either of the options -h
or --help was specified. 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 0 if a
command exited with a failure status, bit 1 if a command was
terminated with a signal, and bit 2 if a command could not be
executed. (Thus, if all three misfortunes befell one's pipeline,
groff would exit with status 2^0 + 2^1 + 2^2 = 1+2+4 = 7.) To
troubleshoot pipeline problems, you may wish to 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.
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
This search path, followed by PATH, is used to locate
commands executed by groff. If it is not set, the
installation directory of the GNU roff executables, /usr/
local/bin, is searched before PATH.
GROFF_COMMAND_PREFIX
GNU roff can be configured at compile time to apply a
prefix to the names of the programs it provides that had a
counterpart 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 nroff;
the preprocessors eqn, grn, pic, refer, tbl, and soelim;
and the utilities indxbib and lookbib.
GROFF_ENCODING
The value of this variable is passed to the preconv(1)
preprocessor's -e option to select the character encoding
of input files. This variable's existence implies the
groff option -k. If set but empty, groff calls 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 files in this list of directories. See troff(1)
and groff_tmac(5).
GROFF_TMPDIR
Create temporary files in this directory. If not set, but
the environment variable TMPDIR is set, temporary files are
created there 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
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 localtime(3) when the formatter starts up and stored
in registers usable by documents and macro packages.
TZ The time zone to use when converting the current time (or
value of SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH) to human-readable form; see
tzset(3).
roff systems are best known for formatting man pages. Once a
man(1) librarian program has located a man page, it may execute a
groff command much like the following.
groff -t -man -Tutf8 /usr/share/man/man1/groff.1
The librarian will also pipe the output through a pager, which
might not interpret the SGR terminal escape sequences groff emits
for boldface, underlining, or italics; 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
Using groff, this pipe can be shortened to an 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)
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, cp1047, 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).
On EBCDIC hosts such as OS/390 Unix, the output devices ascii and
latin1 aren't available. Conversely, the output device cp1047 is
not available on systems based on the ISO 646 or ISO 8859
character encoding standards.
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”.
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), pdfmom(1), 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)
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), 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 tarball groff-1.23.0.tar.gz fetched
from ⟨https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/groff/⟩ on 2026-01-16. 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 2 July 2023 groff(1)
Pages that refer to this page: man(1), mansect(1), pdfman(1), zsoelim(1), suffixes(7)
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