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groff_out(5)               File Formats Manual              groff_out(5)

Name         top

       groff_out - GNU roff device-independent output format

Description         top

       The fundamental operation of the troff(1) formatter is the
       translation of the groff(7) input language into a series of
       instructions concerned primarily with placing glyphs or geometric
       objects at specific positions on a rectangular page.  In the
       following discussion, the term command refers to this device-
       independent output language, never to the groff(7) language
       intended for use by document authors.  Device-independent output
       commands comprise several categories: glyph output; font, color,
       and text size selection; motion of the printing position; page
       advancement; drawing of geometric primitives; and device control
       commands, a catch-all for other operations.  The last includes
       directives to start and stop output, identify the intended output
       device, and embed URL hyperlinks in supported output formats.

   Background
       As groff(1) is a wrapper program around GNU troff and
       automatically calls an output driver, users seldom encounter this
       format under normal circumstances.  groff offers the option -z to
       inhibit postprocessing such that GNU troff's output is sent to
       the standard output stream just as it is when running GNU troff
       directly.

       The purpose of device-independent output is to facilitate the
       development of postprocessors by providing a common programming
       interface for all devices.  It is a distinct, and much simpler,
       language from that of the formatter, troff.  The device-
       independent output can be thought of as a “page description
       language”.

       In the following discussion, the term troff output describes what
       is output by GNU troff, while device-independent output denotes
       the language accepted by the parser that interprets this output
       for the output drivers.  This parser handles whitespace more
       flexibly than AT&T troff's implementation, recognizes a GNU
       extension to the language, and supports an obsolete construct for
       compatibility; otherwise, both formats are the same.  (The parser
       for device-independent output can be found in the groff sources
       at src/libs/libdriver/input.cpp.)

       When Brian Kernighan designed AT&T troff's device-independent
       output format circa 1980, he had to balance readability and
       maintainability against severe constraints on file size and
       transmission speed to the output device.  A decade later, when
       James Clark wrote groff, these constraints were no longer as
       tight.  GNU troff therefore emits device-independent output that
       is more easily interpreted by humans than did AT&T troff.

   Separation
       Classical troff output had strange requirements on whitespace.
       The groff output parser, however, is smart about whitespace by
       making it maximally optional.  The whitespace characters, i.e.,
       the tab, space, and newline characters, always have a syntactical
       meaning.  They are never printable because spacing within the
       output is always done by positioning commands.

       Any sequence of space or tab characters is treated as a single
       syntactical space.  It separates commands and arguments, but is
       only required when there would occur a clashing between the
       command code and the arguments without the space.  Most often,
       this happens when variable length command names, arguments,
       argument lists, or command clusters meet.  Commands and arguments
       with a known, fixed length need not be separated by syntactical
       space.

       A line break is a syntactical element, too.  Every command
       argument can be followed by whitespace, a comment, or a newline
       character.  Thus a syntactical line break is defined to consist
       of optional syntactical space that is optionally followed by a
       comment, and a newline character.

       The normal commands, those for positioning and text, consist of a
       single letter taking a fixed number of arguments.  For historical
       reasons, the parser allows stacking of such commands on the same
       line, but fortunately, in groff intermediate output, every
       command with at least one argument is followed by a line break,
       thus providing excellent readability.

       The other commands — those for drawing and device controlling —
       have a more complicated structure; some recognize long command
       names, and some take a variable number of arguments.  So all D
       and x commands were designed to request a syntactical line break
       after their last argument.  Only one command, ‘x X’ has an
       argument that can stretch over several lines, all other commands
       must have all of their arguments on the same line as the command,
       i.e., the arguments may not be split by a line break.

       Lines containing only spaces and/or a comment are treated as
       empty and ignored.

   Argument units
       Some commands accept integer arguments that represent
       measurements, but the scaling units of the formatter's language
       are never used.  Most commands assume a scaling unit of “u”
       (basic units), and others use “z” (scaled points); These are
       defined by the parameters specified in the device's DESC file;
       see groff_font(5) and, for more on scaling units, groff(7) and
       Groff: The GNU Implementation of troff, the groff Texinfo manual.
       Color-related commands use dimensionless integers.

       Note that single characters can have the eighth bit set, as can
       the names of fonts and special characters (this is, glyphs).  The
       names of glyphs and fonts can be of arbitrary length.  A glyph
       that is to be printed will always be in the current font.

       A string argument is always terminated by the next whitespace
       character (space, tab, or newline); an embedded # character is
       regarded as part of the argument, not as the beginning of a
       comment command.  An integer argument is already terminated by
       the next non-digit character, which then is regarded as the first
       character of the next argument or command.

   Document parts
       A correct intermediate output document consists of two parts, the
       prologue and the body.

       The task of the prologue is to set the general device parameters
       using three exactly specified commands.  The groff prologue is
       guaranteed to consist of the following three lines (in that
       order):

              x T device
              x res n h v
              x init

       with the arguments set as outlined in subsection “Device Control
       Commands” below.  However, the parser for the intermediate output
       format is able to swallow additional whitespace and comments as
       well.

       The body is the main section for processing the document data.
       Syntactically, it is a sequence of any commands different from
       the ones used in the prologue.  Processing is terminated as soon
       as the first x stop command is encountered; the last line of any
       groff intermediate output always contains such a command.

       Semantically, the body is page oriented.  A new page is started
       by a p command.  Positioning, writing, and drawing commands are
       always done within the current page, so they cannot occur before
       the first p command.  Absolute positioning (by the H and
       V commands) is done relative to the current page, all other
       positioning is done relative to the current location within this
       page.

Command reference         top

       This section describes all intermediate output commands, the
       classical commands as well as the groff extensions.

   Comment command
       #anything⟨line-break⟩
              A comment.  Ignore any characters from the # character up
              to the next newline.  Each comment can be preceded by
              arbitrary syntactical space; every command can be
              terminated by a comment.

   Simple commands
       The commands in this subsection have a command code consisting of
       a single character, taking a fixed number of arguments.  Most of
       them are commands for positioning and text writing.  These
       commands are smart about whitespace.  Optionally, syntactical
       space can be inserted before, after, and between the command
       letter and its arguments.  All of these commands are stackable,
       i.e., they can be preceded by other simple commands or followed
       by arbitrary other commands on the same line.  A separating
       syntactical space is necessary only when two integer arguments
       would clash or if the preceding argument ends with a string
       argument.

       C id⟨white-space⟩
              Typeset the glyph of the special character id.  Trailing
              syntactical space is necessary to allow special character
              names of arbitrary length.  The drawing position is not
              advanced.

       c c    Typeset the glyph of the ordinary character c.  The
              drawing position is not advanced.

       f n    Select the font mounted at position n.  n cannot be
              negative.

       H n    Horizontally move the drawing position to n basic units
              from the left edge of the page.  n cannot be negative.

       h n    Move the drawing position right n basic units.  AT&T troff
              allowed negative n; GNU troff does not produce such
              values, but groff's output driver library handles them.

       m scheme [component ...]
              Select the stroke color using the components in the color
              space scheme.  Each component is an integer between 0 and
              65536.  The quantity of components and their meanings vary
              with each scheme.  This command is a groff extension.

              mc cyan magenta yellow
                     Use the CMY color scheme with components cyan,
                     magenta, and yellow.

              md     Use the default color (no components; black in most
                     cases).

              mg gray
                     Use a grayscale color scheme with a component
                     ranging between 0 (black) and 65536 (white).

              mk cyan magenta yellow black
                     Use the CMYK color scheme with components cyan,
                     magenta, yellow, and black.

              mr red green blue
                     Use the RGB color scheme with components red,
                     green, and blue.

       N n    Typeset the glyph with index n in the current font.  n is
              normally a non-negative integer.  The drawing position is
              not advanced.  The html and xhtml devices use this command
              with negative n to produce unbreakable space; the absolute
              value of n is taken and interpreted in basic units.

       n b a  Indicate a break.  No action is performed; the command is
              present to make the output more easily parsed.  The
              integers b and a describe the vertical space amounts
              before and after the break, respectively.  GNU troff
              issues this command but groff's output driver library
              ignores it.  See v and V.

       p n    Begin a new page, setting its number to n.  Each page is
              independent, even from those using the same number.  The
              vertical drawing position is set to 0.  All positioning,
              writing, and drawing commands are interpreted in the
              context of a page, so a p command must precede them.

       s n    Set type size to n scaled points (unit z in GNU troff).
              AT&T troff used unscaled points (p) instead; see section
              “Compatibility” below.

       t xyz...⟨white-space⟩
       t xyz... dummy-arg⟨white-space⟩
              Typeset word xyz; that is, set a sequence of ordinary
              glyphs named x, y, z, ..., terminated by a space or
              newline; an optional second integer argument is ignored
              (this allows the formatter to generate an even number of
              arguments).  Each glyph is set at the current drawing
              position, and the position is then advanced horizontally
              by the glyph's width.  A glyph's width is read from its
              metrics in the font description file, scaled to the
              current type size, and rounded to a multiple of the
              horizontal motion quantum.  Use the C command to emplace
              glyphs of special characters.  The t command is a groff
              extension and is output only for devices whose DESC file
              contains the tcommand directive; see groff_font(5).

       u n xyz...
       u xyz... dummy-arg⟨white-space⟩
              Typeset word xyz with track kerning.  As t, but after
              placing each glyph, the drawing position is further
              advanced horizontally by n basic units.  The u command is
              a groff extension and is output only for devices whose
              DESC file contains the tcommand directive; see
              groff_font(5).

       V n    Vertically move the drawing position to n basic units from
              the top edge of the page.  n cannot be negative.

       v n    Move the drawing position down n basic units.  AT&T troff
              allowed negative n; GNU troff does not produce such
              values, but groff's output driver library handles them.

       w      Indicate an inter-word space.  No action is performed; the
              command is present to make the output more easily parsed.
              Only inter-word spaces on an output line (be they
              breakable or not) are thus described; those resulting from
              horizontal motion escape sequences are not.  GNU troff
              issues this command but groff's output driver library
              ignores it.  See h and H.

   Graphics commands
       Each graphics or drawing command in the intermediate output
       starts with the letter D followed by one or two characters that
       specify a subcommand; this is followed by a fixed or variable
       number of integer arguments that are separated by a single space
       character.  A D command may not be followed by another command on
       the same line (apart from a comment), so each D command is
       terminated by a syntactical line break.

       troff output follows the classical spacing rules (no space
       between command and subcommand, all arguments are preceded by a
       single space character), but the parser allows optional space
       between the command letters and makes the space before the first
       argument optional.  As usual, each space can be any sequence of
       tab and space characters.

       Some graphics commands can take a variable number of arguments.
       In this case, they are integers representing a size measured in
       basic units u.  The h arguments stand for horizontal distances
       where positive means right, negative left.  The v arguments stand
       for vertical distances where positive means down, negative up.
       All these distances are offsets relative to the current location.

       Unless indicated otherwise, each graphics command directly
       corresponds to a similar groff \D escape sequence; see groff(7).

       Unknown D commands are assumed to be device-specific.  Its
       arguments are parsed as strings; the whole information is then
       sent to the postprocessor.

       In the following command reference, the syntax element ⟨line-
       break⟩ means a syntactical line break as defined in subsection
       “Separation” above.

       D~ h1 v1 h2 v2 ... hn vn⟨line-break⟩
              Draw B-spline from current position to offset (h1, v1),
              then to offset (h2, v2) if given, etc., up to (hn, vn).
              This command takes a variable number of argument pairs;
              the current position is moved to the terminal point of the
              drawn curve.

       Da h1 v1 h2 v2⟨line-break⟩
              Draw arc from current position to (h1, v1)+(h2, v2) with
              center at (h1, v1); then move the current position to the
              final point of the arc.

       DC d⟨line-break⟩
       DC d dummy-arg⟨line-break⟩
              Draw a solid circle using the current fill color with
              diameter d (integer in basic units u) with leftmost point
              at the current position; then move the current position to
              the rightmost point of the circle.  An optional second
              integer argument is ignored (this allows the formatter to
              generate an even number of arguments).  This command is a
              groff extension.

       Dc d⟨line-break⟩
              Draw circle line with diameter d (integer in basic
              units u) with leftmost point at the current position; then
              move the current position to the rightmost point of the
              circle.

       DE h v⟨line-break⟩
              Draw a solid ellipse in the current fill color with a
              horizontal diameter of h and a vertical diameter of v
              (both integers in basic units u) with the leftmost point
              at the current position; then move to the rightmost point
              of the ellipse.  This command is a groff extension.

       De h v⟨line-break⟩
              Draw an outlined ellipse with a horizontal diameter of h
              and a vertical diameter of v (both integers in basic
              units u) with the leftmost point at current position; then
              move to the rightmost point of the ellipse.

       DF color-scheme [component ...]⟨line-break⟩
              Set fill color for solid drawing objects using different
              color schemes; the analogous command for setting the color
              of text, line graphics, and the outline of graphic objects
              is m.  The color components are specified as integer
              arguments between 0 and 65536.  The number of color
              components and their meaning vary for the different color
              schemes.  These commands are generated by the groff escape
              sequences \D'F ...'  and \M (with no other corresponding
              graphics commands).  This command is a groff extension.

              DFc cyan magenta yellow⟨line-break⟩
                     Set fill color for solid drawing objects using the
                     CMY color scheme, having the 3 color components
                     cyan, magenta, and yellow.

              DFd ⟨line-break⟩
                     Set fill color for solid drawing objects to the
                     default fill color value (black in most cases).  No
                     component arguments.

              DFg gray⟨line-break⟩
                     Set fill color for solid drawing objects to the
                     shade of gray given by the argument, an integer
                     between 0 (black) and 65536 (white).

              DFk cyan magenta yellow black⟨line-break⟩
                     Set fill color for solid drawing objects using the
                     CMYK color scheme, having the 4 color components
                     cyan, magenta, yellow, and black.

              DFr red green blue⟨line-break⟩
                     Set fill color for solid drawing objects using the
                     RGB color scheme, having the 3 color components
                     red, green, and blue.

       Df n⟨line-break⟩
              The argument n must be an integer in the range -32767 to
              32767.

              0≤n≤1000
                     Set the color for filling solid drawing objects to
                     a shade of gray, where 0 corresponds to solid
                     white, 1000 (the default) to solid black, and
                     values in between to intermediate shades of gray;
                     this is obsoleted by command DFg.

              n<0 or n>1000
                     Set the filling color to the color that is
                     currently being used for the text and the outline,
                     see command m.  For example, the command sequence

                            mg 0 0 65536
                            Df -1

                     sets all colors to blue.

              This command is a groff extension.

       Dl h v⟨line-break⟩
              Draw line from current position to offset (h, v) (integers
              in basic units u); then set current position to the end of
              the drawn line.

       Dp h1 v1 h2 v2 ... hn vn⟨line-break⟩
              Draw a polygon line from current position to offset
              (h1, v1), from there to offset (h2, v2), etc., up to
              offset (hn, vn), and from there back to the starting
              position.  For historical reasons, the position is changed
              by adding the sum of all arguments with odd index to the
              current horizontal position and the even ones to the
              vertical position.  Although this doesn't make sense it is
              kept for compatibility.  This command is a groff
              extension.

       DP h1 v1 h2 v2 ... hn vn⟨line-break⟩
              The same macro as the corresponding Dp command with the
              same arguments, but draws a solid polygon in the current
              fill color rather than an outlined polygon.  The position
              is changed in the same way as with Dp.  This command is a
              groff extension.

       Dt n⟨line-break⟩
              Set the current line thickness to n (an integer in basic
              units u) if n>0; if n=0 select the smallest available line
              thickness; otherwise, the line thickness is made
              proportional to the type size, which is the default.  For
              historical reasons, the horizontal position is changed by
              adding the argument to the current horizontal position,
              while the vertical position is not changed.  Although this
              doesn't make sense, it is kept for compatibility.  This
              command is a groff extension.

   Device control commands
       Each device control command starts with the letter x followed by
       a space character (optional or arbitrary space/tab in groff) and
       a subcommand letter or word; each argument (if any) must be
       preceded by a syntactical space.  All x commands are terminated
       by a syntactical line break; no device control command can be
       followed by another command on the same line (except a comment).

       The subcommand is basically a single letter, but to increase
       readability, it can be written as a word, i.e., an arbitrary
       sequence of characters terminated by the next tab, space, or
       newline character.  All characters of the subcommand word but the
       first are simply ignored.  For example, troff outputs the
       initialization command x i as x init and the resolution command
       x r as x res.  But writings like x i_like_groff and
       x roff_is_groff are accepted as well to mean the same commands.

       In the following, the syntax element ⟨line-break⟩ means a
       syntactical line break as defined in subsection “Separation”
       above.

       xF name⟨line-break⟩
              (Filename control command)
              Use name as the intended name for the current file in
              error reports.  This is useful for remembering the
              original file name when groff uses an internal piping
              mechanism.  The input file is not changed by this command.
              This command is a groff extension.

       xf n s⟨line-break⟩
              (font control command)
              Mount font position n (a non-negative integer) with font
              named s (a text word); see groff_font(5).

       xH n⟨line-break⟩
              (Height control command)
              Set character height to n (a positive integer in scaled
              points z).  Classical troff used the unit points (p)
              instead; see section “Compatibility” below.

       xi ⟨line-break⟩
              (init control command)
              Initialize device.  This is the third command of the
              prologue.

       xp ⟨line-break⟩
              (pause control command)
              Parsed but ignored.  The classical documentation reads
              pause device, can be restarted.

       xr n h v⟨line-break⟩
              (resolution control command)
              Resolution is n, while h is the minimal horizontal motion,
              and v the minimal vertical motion possible with this
              device; all arguments are positive integers in basic
              units u per inch.  This is the second command of the
              prologue.

       xS n⟨line-break⟩
              (Slant control command)
              Set slant to n degrees (an integer in basic units u).

       xs ⟨line-break⟩
              (stop control command)
              Terminates the processing of the current file; issued as
              the last command of any intermediate troff output.

       xt ⟨line-break⟩
              (trailer control command)
              Generate trailer information, if any.  In groff, this is
              currently ignored.

       xT xxx⟨line-break⟩
              (Typesetter control command)
              Set the name of the output driver to xxx, a sequence of
              non-whitespace characters terminated by whitespace.  The
              possible names correspond to those of groff's -T option.
              This is the first command of the prologue.

       xu n⟨line-break⟩
              (underline control command)
              Configure underlining of spaces.  If n is 1, start
              underlining of spaces; if n is 0, stop underlining of
              spaces.  This is needed for the cu request in nroff mode
              and is ignored otherwise.  This command is a groff
              extension.

       xX anything⟨line-break⟩
              (X-escape control command)
              Send string anything uninterpreted to the device.  If the
              line following this command starts with a + character this
              line is interpreted as a continuation line in the
              following sense.  The + is ignored, but a newline
              character is sent instead to the device, the rest of the
              line is sent uninterpreted.  The same applies to all
              following lines until the first character of a line is not
              a + character.  This command is generated by the groff
              escape sequence \X.  The line-continuing feature is a
              groff extension.

   Obsolete command
       In classical troff output, emitting a single glyph was mostly
       done by a very strange command that combined a horizontal move
       and the printing of a glyph.  It didn't have a command code, but
       is represented by a 3-character argument consisting of exactly
       2 digits and a character.

       ddc    Move right dd (exactly two decimal digits) basic units u,
              then print glyph with single-letter name c.

              In groff, arbitrary syntactical space around and within
              this command is allowed to be added.  Only when a
              preceding command on the same line ends with an argument
              of variable length a separating space is obligatory.  In
              classical troff, large clusters of these and other
              commands were used, mostly without spaces; this made such
              output almost unreadable.

       For modern high-resolution devices, this command does not make
       sense because the width of the glyphs can become much larger than
       two decimal digits.  In groff, it is used only for output to the
       X75, X75-12, X100, and X100-12 devices.  For others, the commands
       t and u provide greater functionality and superior
       troubleshooting capacity.

Postprocessing         top

       The roff postprocessors are programs that have the task to
       translate the intermediate output into actions that are sent to a
       device.  A device can be some piece of hardware such as a
       printer, or a software file format suitable for graphical or text
       processing.  The groff system provides powerful means that make
       the programming of such postprocessors an easy task.

       There is a library function that parses the intermediate output
       and sends the information obtained to the device via methods of a
       class with a common interface for each device.  So a groff
       postprocessor must only redefine the methods of this class.  For
       details, see the reference in section “Files” below.

Example         top

       This section presents the intermediate output generated from the
       same input for three different devices.  The input is the
       sentence hell world fed into groff on the command line.

       •  High-resolution device ps

          shell> echo "hell world" | groff -Z -T ps

          x T ps
          x res 72000 1 1
          x init
          p1
          x font 5 TR
          f5
          s10000
          V12000
          H72000
          thell
          wh2500
          tw
          H96620
          torld
          n12000 0
          x trailer
          V792000
          x stop

       This output can be fed into the postprocessor grops(1) to get its
       representation as a PostScript file, or gropdf(1) to output
       directly to PDF.

       •  Low-resolution device latin1

          This is similar to the high-resolution device except that the
          positioning is done at a minor scale.  Some comments (lines
          starting with #) were added for clarification; they were not
          generated by the formatter.

          shell> "hell world" | groff -Z -T latin1

          # prologue
          x T latin1
          x res 240 24 40
          x init
          # begin a new page
          p1
          # font setup
          x font 1 R
          f1
          s10
          # initial positioning on the page
          V40
          H0
          # write text 'hell'
          thell
          # inform about a space, and do it by a horizontal jump
          wh24
          # write text 'world'
          tworld
          # announce line break, but do nothing because ...
          n40 0
          # ... the end of the document has been reached
          x trailer
          V2640
          x stop

       This output can be fed into the postprocessor grotty(1) to get a
       formatted text document.

       •  Classical style output

          As a computer monitor has a very low resolution compared to
          modern printers the intermediate output for the X devices can
          use the jump-and-write command with its 2-digit displacements.

          shell> "hell world" | groff -Z -T X100

          x T X100
          x res 100 1 1
          x init
          p1
          x font 5 TR
          f5
          s10
          V16
          H100
          # write text with old-style jump-and-write command
          ch07e07l03lw06w11o07r05l03dh7
          n16 0
          x trailer
          V1100
          x stop

       This output can be fed into the postprocessor xditview(1x) or
       gxditview(1) for displaying in X.

       Due to the obsolete jump-and-write command, the text clusters in
       the classical output are almost unreadable.

Compatibility         top

       The intermediate output language of the classical troff was first
       documented in [CSTR #97].  The groff intermediate output format
       is compatible with this specification except for the following
       features.

       •  The classical quasi device independence is not yet
          implemented.

       •  The old hardware was very different from what we use today.
          So the groff devices are also fundamentally different from the
          ones in classical troff.  For example, the classical
          PostScript device was called post and had a resolution of 720
          units per inch, while groff's ps device has a resolution of
          72000 units per inch.  Maybe, by implementing some rescaling
          mechanism similar to the classical quasi device independence,
          these could be integrated into modern groff.

       •  The B-spline command D~ is correctly handled by the
          intermediate output parser, but the drawing routines aren't
          implemented in some of the postprocessor programs.

       •  The argument of the commands s and x H has the implicit unit
          scaled point z in groff, while classical troff had point (p).
          This isn't an incompatibility, but a compatible extension, for
          both units coincide for all devices without a sizescale
          parameter, including all classical and the groff text devices.
          The few groff devices with a sizescale parameter either did
          not exist, had a different name, or seem to have had a
          different resolution.  So conflicts with classical devices are
          very unlikely.

       •  The position changing after the commands Dp, DP, and Dt is
          illogical, but as old versions of groff used this feature it
          is kept for compatibility reasons.

       The differences between groff and classical troff are documented
       in groff_diff(7).

Files         top

       /usr/local/share/groff/1.23.0/font/devname/DESC
              describes the output device name.

Authors         top

       James Clark wrote an early version of this document, which
       described only the differences between AT&T device-independent
       troff's output format and that of GNU troff.  It has since been
       expanded and revised by Bernd Warken ⟨groff-bernd.warken-72@web
       .de⟩ and G. Branden Robinson ⟨[email protected]⟩.

See also         top

       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”.

       “Troff User's Manual” by Joseph F. Ossanna, 1976 (revised by
       Brian W. Kernighan, 1992), AT&T Bell Laboratories Computing
       Science Technical Report No. 54, widely called simply “CSTR #54”,
       documents the language, device and font description file formats,
       and device-independent output format referred to collectively in
       groff documentation as “AT&T troff”.

       “A Typesetter-independent TROFF” by Brian W. Kernighan, 1982,
       AT&T Bell Laboratories Computing Science Technical Report No. 97,
       (CSTR #97), provides additional insights into the device and font
       description file formats and device-independent output format.

       groff(1)
              documents the -Z option and contains pointers to further
              groff documentation.

       groff(7)
              describes the groff language, including its escape
              sequences and system of units.

       groff_font(5)
              details the device scaling parameters of device DESC
              files.

       troff(1)
              generates the language documented here.

       roff(7)
              presents historical aspects and the general structure of
              roff systems.

       groff_diff(7)
              enumerates differences between the output of AT&T troff
              and that of GNU troff.

       gxditview(1)
              is a viewer for device-independent troff output.

       Roff.jshttps://github.com/Alhadis/Roff.js/⟩ is a viewer for
              device-independent troff output written in JavaScript.

       grodvi(1), grohtml(1), grolbp(1), grolj4(1), gropdf(1), grops(1),
       and grotty(1) are groff postprocessors.

COLOPHON         top

       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 2024-06-14.  (At
       that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
       the repository was 2024-06-10.)  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
       [email protected]

groff 1.23.0.1273-9d53-dirty   6 June 2024                  groff_out(5)