by Trent A. Fisher and Werner Lemberg - The GNU Operating System

Chapter 2: Invoking groff 7
2 Invoking groff
This section focuses on how to invoke the groff front end. This front end
takes care of the details of constructing the pipeline among the preprocessors,
gtroff and the postprocessor.
It has become a tradition that GNU programs get the prefix ‘g’ to distinguish
it from its original counterparts provided by the host (see Section 2.2
[Environment], page 12, for more details). Thus, for example, geqn is GNU
eqn. On operating systems like GNU/Linux or the Hurd, which don’t contain
proprietary versions of troff, and on MS-DOS/MS-Windows, where
troff and associated programs are not available at all, this prefix is omitted
since GNU troff is the only used incarnation of troff. Exception:
‘groff’ is never replaced by ‘roff’.
In this document, we consequently say ‘gtroff’ when talking about the
GNU troff program. All other implementations of troff are called AT&T
troff which is the common origin of all troff derivates (with more or less
compatible changes). Similarly, we say ‘gpic’, ‘geqn’, etc.
2.1 Options
groff normally runs the gtroff program and a postprocessor appropriate
for the selected device. The default device is ‘ps’ (but it can be changed
when groff is configured and built). It can optionally preprocess with any
of gpic, geqn, gtbl, ggrn, grap, grefer, gsoelim, or preconv.
This section only documents options to the groff front end. Many
of the arguments to groff are passed on to gtroff, therefore those
are also included. Arguments to pre- or postprocessors can be found
in Section 6.3.1 [Invoking gpic], page 187, Section 6.1.1 [Invoking geqn],
page 187, Section 6.2.1 [Invoking gtbl], page 187, Section 6.4.1 [Invoking
ggrn], page 187, Section 6.6.1 [Invoking grefer], page 187, Section 6.7.1
[Invoking gsoelim], page 187, Section 6.8.1 [Invoking preconv], page 187,
Section 7.2.1 [Invoking grotty], page 189, Section 7.3.1 [Invoking grops],
page 189, Section 7.7.1 [Invoking grohtml], page 190, Section 7.4.1 [Invoking
grodvi], page 189, Section 7.5.1 [Invoking grolj4], page 189, Section 7.6.1
[Invoking grolbp], page 189, and Section 7.8.1 [Invoking gxditview], page 190.
The command line format for groff is:
groff [ -abceghiklpstvzCEGNRSUVXZ ] [ -dcs ] [ -Darg ]
[ -ffam ] [ -Fdir ] [ -Idir ] [ -Karg ]
[ -Larg ] [ -mname ] [ -Mdir ] [ -nnum ]
[ -olist ] [ -Parg ] [ -rcn ] [ -Tdef ]
[ -wname ] [ -Wname ] [ files... ]
The command line format for gtroff is as follows.