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GROFFER(1)                                                                                        GROFFER(1)



NAME
       groffer - display groff files and man pages on X and tty

SYNOPSIS
       groffer [option...]  [--] [filespec...]
       groffer -h|--help
       groffer -v|--version

DESCRIPTION
       The  groffer  program is the easiest way to use groff(1).  It can display arbitrary documents written
       in the groff language, see groff(7), or other roff languages, see roff(7), that are compatible to the
       original troff language.  The groffer program also includes many of the features for finding and dis-playing displaying
       playing the Unix manual pages (man pages), such that it can be used as a  replacement  for  a  man(1)
       program.   Moreover, compressed files that can be handled by gzip(1) or bzip2(1) are decompressed on-the-fly. onthe-fly.
       the-fly.

       The normal usage is quite simple by supplying a file name or name of a man page without  further  op-tions. options.
       tions.   But  the option handling has many possibilities for creating special behaviors.  This can be
       done either in configuration files, with the shell environment variable $GROFFER_OPT, or on the  com-mand command
       mand line.

       The  output can be generated and viewed in several different ways available for groff.  This includes
       the groff native X Window viewer gxditview(1), each Postcript, pdf, or dvi  display  program,  a  web
       browser by generating html in www mode, or several text modes in text terminals.

       Most  of  the options that must be named when running groff directly are determined automatically for
       groffer, due to the internal usage of the grog(1) program.  But all parts can also be controlled man-ually manually
       ually by arguments.

       Several  file names can be specified on the command line arguments.  They are transformed into a sin-gle single
       gle document in the normal way of groff.

       Option handling is done in GNU style.  Options and file names can be mixed freely.  The  option  `--'
       closes  the  option handling, all following arguments are treated as file names.  Long options can be
       abbreviated.

OPTION OVERVIEW
       breaking options

              [-h|--help] [-v|--version]

       groffer mode options

              [--auto]  [--default]   [--default-modes   mode1,mode2,...]    [--dvi]   [--dvi-viewer   prog]
              [--dvi-viewer-tty  prog]  [--groff]  [--html]  [--html-viewer  prog]  [--html-viewer-tty prog]
              [--mode display_mode] [--pdf] [--pdf-viewer prog] [--pdf-viewer-tty prog] [--ps]  [--ps-viewer
              prog]  [--ps-viewer-tty  prog]  [--text]  [--tty]  [--tty-viewer prog] [--tty-viewer-tty prog]
              [--www]  [--www-viewer  prog]  [--www-viewer-  prog]  [--x|--X]  [--x-viewer|--X-viewer  prog]
              [--x-viewer-tty|--X-viewer-tty prog]

       development options

              [--debug] [--do-nothing] [--shell prog] [-Q|--source] [-V]

       options related to groff

              [-T|--device device] [-Z|--intermediate-output|--ditroff]

              All further groff short options are accepted.

       options for man pages
              [--apropos] [--apropos-data] [--apropos-devel] [--apropos-progs] [--whatis] [--man] [--no-man]
              [--no-special]

       long options taken over from GNU man

              [--all]  [--ascii]  [--ditroff]  [--extension  suffix]  [--locale   language]   [--local-file]
              [--manpath   dir1:dir2:...]    [--pager   program]   [--sections   sec1:sec2:...]   [--systems
              sys1,sys2,...]  [--troff-device device]

              Further long options of GNU man are accepted as well.

       X Window Toolkit options

              [--bd pixels] [--bg|--background color] [--bw pixels] [--display X-display] [--fg|--foreground
              color]  [--ft|--font  font_name]  [--geometry  size_pos]  [--resolution value] [--rv] [--title
              string] [--xrm X-resource]

       filespec arguments

              No filespec parameters means standard input.

              -         stands for standard input (can occur several times).

              filename  the path name of an existing file.

              man:name(section)
              name(section)
                        search the man page name in man section section.

              man:name.s
              name.s    if s is a character in [1-9on], search for a man page name in man section s.

              man:name  man page in the lowest man section that has name.

              s name    if s is a character in [1-9on], search for a man page name in man section s.

              name      if name is not an existing file search for the man page name in the lowest man  sec-tion. section.
                        tion.

OPTION DETAILS
       The  groffer program can usually be run with very few options.  But for special purposes, it supports
       many options.  These can be classified in 5 option classes.

       All short options of groffer are compatible with the short options of groff(1).  All long options  of
       groffer are compatible with the long options of man(1).

   groffer breaking Options
       As soon as one of these options is found on the command line it is executed, printed to standard out-put, output,
       put, and the running groffer is terminated thereafter.  All other arguments are ignored.

       -h | --help
              Print a helping information with a short explanation of option sto standard output.

       -v | --version
              Print version information to standard output.

   groffer Mode Options
       The display mode and the viewer programs are determined by these options.  If none of these mode  and
       viewer options is specified groffer tries to find a suitable display mode automatically.  The default
       modes are mode x with gxditview in X Window and mode tty with device latin1 under less on a terminal.

       There  are  two  kinds of options for viewers.  --mode-viewer chooses the normal viewer programs that
       run on their own in X Window, while --mode-viewer-tty chooses programs that run on the  terminal  (on
       tty).  Most graphical viewers are programs running in X Window, so there aren't many opportunities to
       call the  tty  viewers.   But  they  give  the  chance  to  view  the  output  source;  for  example,
       --ps-viewer-tty=less shows the content of the Postscript output with the pager less.

       The  X Window viewers are not critical, you can use both --*-viewer and --*-viewer-tty for them; with
       --*-viewer-tty the viewer program will not become independently, it just stays coupled with  groffer.
       But  the  program  will not run if you specify a terminal program with --*-viewer because this viewer
       will stay in background without a chance to reach it.  So you really need --*-viewer-tty for  viewers
       that run on tty.

       --auto Equivalent to --mode=auto.

       --default
              Reset  all configuration from previously processed command line options to the default values.
              This is useful to wipe out all former options  of  the  configuration,  in  $GROFFER_OPT,  and
              restart option processing using only the rest of the command line.

       --default-modes mode1,mode2,...
              Set  the  sequence  of  modes for auto mode to the comma separated list given in the argument.
              See --mode for details on modes.  Display in the default manner; actually, this means  to  try
              the modes x, ps, and tty in this sequence.

       --dvi  Equivalent to --mode=dvi.

       --dvi-viewer prog
              Choose  an  X  Window viewer program for dvi mode.  This can be a file name or a program to be
              searched in $PATH.  Known X Window dvi viewers include xdvi(1) and dvilx(1) In each case,  ar-guments arguments
              guments can be provided additionally.

       --dvi-viewer-tty prog
              Choose  a  program  running on the terminal for viewing the output of dvi mode.  This can be a
              file name or a program to be searched in $PATH; arguments can be provided additionally.

       --groff
              Equivalent to --mode=groff.

       --html Equivalent to --mode=html.

       --html-viewer
              Choose an X Window web browser program for viewing in html mode .  It can be the path name  of
              an executable file or a program in $PATH.  In each case, arguments can be provided additional-ly. additionally.
              ly.

       --html-viewer-tty
              Choose a terminal program for viewing the output of html mode .  It can be the path name of an
              executable file or a program in $PATH; arguments can be provided additionally.

       --mode value
              Set the display mode.  The following mode values are recognized:

              auto   Select the automatic determination of the display mode.  The sequence of modes that are
                     tried  can  be  set  with  the  --default-modes  option.   Useful  for  restoring   the
                     default mode when a different mode was specified before.

              dvi    Display  formatted  input  in a dvi viewer program.  By default, the formatted input is
                     displayed with the xdvi(1) program.  --dvi.

              groff  After the file determination, switch groffer to process the input like  groff(1)  would
                     do.  This disables the groffer viewing features.

              html   Translate  the  input into html format and display the result in a web browser program.
                     By default, the existence of a sequence of standard web browsers  is  tested,  starting
                     with konqueror(1) and mozilla(1).  The text html viewer is lynx(1).

              pdf    Display  formatted  input  in  a PDF (Portable Document Format) viewer program.  By de-fault, default,
                     fault, the input is formatted by groff using the Postscript device, then it  is  trans-formed transformed
                     formed  into  the  PDF  file  format using gs(1), and finally displayed either with the
                     xpdf(1) or the acroread(1) program.  PDF has a big advantage because the text  is  dis-played displayed
                     played  graphically  and is searchable as well.  But as the transformation takes a con-siderable considerable
                     siderable amount of time, this mode is  not  suitable  as  a  default  device  for  the
                     auto mode .

              ps     Display  formatted input in a Postscript viewer program.  By default, the formatted in-put input
                     put is displayed with the ghostview(1) program.

              text   Format in a groff text mode and write the result to standard output without a pager  or
                     viewer program.  The text device, latin1 by default, can be chosen with option -T.

              tty    Format  in a groff text mode and write the result to standard output using a text pager
                     program, even when in X Window.

              www    Equivalent to --mode=html.

              x      Display the formatted input in a native roff viewer.  By default, the  formatted  input
                     is  displayed with the gxditview(1) program being distributed together with groff.  But
                     the standard X Window tool xditview(1) can also be chosen with the  option  --x-viewer.
                     The default resolution is 75 dpi, but 100 dpi are also possible.  The default groff de-vice device
                     vice for the resolution of 75 dpi is X75-12, for 100 dpi it is X100.  The corresponding
                     groff  intermediate  output  for  the actual device is generated and the result is dis-played. displayed.
                     played.  For a resolution of 100 dpi, the default width of the geometry of the  display
                     program is chosen to 850 dpi.

              X      Equivalent to --mode=x.

              The  following  modes  do not use the groffer viewing features.  They are only interesting for
              advanced applications.

              groff  Generate device output with plain groff without using the special viewing  features  of
                     groffer.  If no device was specified by option -T the groff default ps is assumed.

              source Display the source code of the input without formatting; equivalent to -Q.

       --pdf  Equivalent to --mode=pdf.

       --pdf-viewer prog
              Choose  an  X  Window viewer program for pdf mode.  This can be a file name or a program to be
              searched in $PATH; arguments can be provided additionally.

       --pdf-viewer-tty prog
              Choose a terminal viewer program for pdf mode.  This can be a file name or  a  program  to  be
              searched in $PATH; arguments can be provided additionally.

       --ps   Equivalent to --mode=ps.

       --ps-viewer prog
              Choose  an  X  Window  viewer program for ps mode.  This can be a file name or a program to be
              searched in $PATH.  Common Postscript viewers inlude gv(1), ghostview(1), and gs(1),  In  each
              case, arguments can be provided additionally.

       --ps-viewer-tty prog
              Choose  a  terminal  viewer  program  for ps mode.  This can be a file name or a program to be
              searched in $PATH; arguments can be provided additionally.

       --text Equivalent to --mode=text.

       --tty  Equivalent to --mode=tty.

       --tty-viewer prog
              Choose a text pager for mode tty.  The standard pager is less(1).  This option is eqivalent to
              man  option  --pager=prog.  The option argument can be a file name or a program to be searched
              in $PATH; arguments can be provided additionally.

       --tty-viewer-tty prog
              This is equivalent to --tty-viewer because the programs for tty mode run on a terminal anyway.

       --www  Equivalent to --mode=html.

       --www-viewer prog
              Equivalent to --html-viewer.

       --www-viewer-tty prog
              Equivalent to --html-viewer-tty.

       --X | --x
              Equivalent to --mode=x.

       --X-viewer | --x-viewer prog
              Choose an X Window viewer program for x mode.  Suitable viewer programs are gxditview(1) which
              is the default and xditview(1).  The argument can be any  executable  file  or  a  program  in
              $PATH; arguments can be provided additionally.

       --X-viewer-tty | --x-viewer-tty prog
              Choose  a  terminal  viewer  program for x mode.  The argument can be any executable file or a
              program in $PATH; arguments can be provided additionally.

       --     Signals the end of option processing; all remaining arguments are interpreted as filespec  pa-rameters. parameters.
              rameters.

       Besides  these,  groffer  accepts  all  short  options  that are valid for the groff(1) program.  All
       non-groffer options are sent unmodified via grog to groff.  So postprocessors, macro  packages,  com-patibility compatibility
       patibility with classical troff, and much more can be manually specified.

Options for Development
       --debug
              Enable five debugging informations.  The temporary files are kept and not deleted, the name of
              the temporary directory and the shell name for groffer2.sh are  printed,  the  parameters  are
              printed  at  several  steps  of  development, and a function stack is output with function er-ror_user() error_user()
              ror_user() as well.  Neither the function call stack that is printed at each opening and clos-ing closing
              ing  of  a function call nor the landmark information that is printed to determine how far the
              program is running are used.  This seems to be the most useful among all debugging options.

       --debug-all
              Enable all seven debugging informations including the function call stack and the landmark in-formation. information.
              formation.

       --debug-keep
              Enable  two debugging information, the printing of the name of the temporary directory and the
              keeping of the temporary files.

       --debug-lm
              Enable one debugging information, the landmark information.

       --debug-params
              Enable one debugging information, the parameters at several steps.

       --debug-shell
              Enable one debugging information, the shell name for groffer2.sh.

       --debug-stacks
              Enable one debugging information, the function call stack.

       --debug-tmpdir
              Enable one debugging information, the name of the temporary directory.

       --debug-user
              Enable one debugging information, the function stack with error_user().

       --do-nothing
              This is like --version, but without the output; no viewer is started.  This makes  only  sense
              in development.

       --print=text
              Just print the argument to standard error.  This is good for parameter check.

       --shell shell_program
              Specify  the  shell  under which the groffer2.sh script should be run.  This option overwrites
              the automatic shell determination of the program.  If the argument shell_program  is  empty  a
              former  shell  option and the automatic shell determination is cancelled and the default shell
              is restored.  Some shells run considerably faster than the standard shell.

       -Q | --source
              Output the roff source code of the input files without further processing.  This is the equiv-alent equivalent
              alent --mode=source.

       -V     This  is  an advanced option for debugging only.  Instead of displaying the formatted input, a
              lot of groffer specific information is printed to standard output:

               the output file name in the temporary directory,

               the display mode of the actual groffer run,

               the display program for viewing the output with its arguments,

               the active parameters from the config files, the arguments in $GROFFER_OPT,  and  the  argu-ments arguments
                ments of the command line,

               the pipeline that would be run by the groff program, but without executing it.

       Other useful debugging options are the groff option -Z and --mode=groff.

Options related to groff
       All  short  options  of  groffer are compatible with the short options of groff(1).  The following of
       groff options have either an additional special meaning within groffer or make sense for  normal  us-age. usage.
       age.

       Because of the special outputting behavior of the groff option -Z groffer was designed to be switched
       into groff mode ; the groffer viewing features are disabled there.  The other groff  options  do  not
       switch the mode, but allow to customize the formatting process.

       -a     This  generates  an  ascii approximation of output in the text modes.  That could be important
              when the text pager has problems with control sequences in tty mode.

       -m file
              Add file as a groff macro file.  This is useful in case it cannot be recognized automatically.

       -P opt_or_arg
              Send  the  argument opt_or_arg as an option or option argument to the actual groff postproces-sor. postprocessor.
              sor.

       -T | --device devname
              This option determines groff's output device.  The most important devices are the text  output
              devices  for  referring to the different character sets, such as ascii, utf8, latin1, and oth-ers. others.
              ers.  Each of these arguments switches groffer into a text mode using this device, to mode tty
              if the actual mode is not a text mode.  The following devname arguments are mapped to the cor-responding corresponding
              responding groffer --mode=devname option: dvi, html, and ps.  All X* arguments are  mapped  to
              mode x.  Each other devname argument switches to mode groff using this device.

       -X     is  equivalent to groff -X.  It displays the groff intermediate output with gxditview.  As the
              quality is relatively bad this option is deprecated; use --X instead because the x  mode  uses
              an X* device for a better display.

       -Z | --intermediate-output | --ditroff
              Switch  into  groff mode and format the input with the groff intermediate output without post-processing; postprocessing;
              processing; see groff_out(5).  This is equivalent to option --ditroff of  man,  which  can  be
              used as well.

       All  other  groff  options  are  supported by groffer, but they are just transparently transferred to
       groff without any intervention.  The options that are not explicitly handled by groffer are transpar-ently transparently
       ently passed to groff.  Therefore these transparent options are not documented here, but in groff(1).
       Due to the automatism in groffer, none of these groff options should be needed, except  for  advanced
       usage.

   Options for man pages
       --apropos
              Start the apropos(1) command or facility of man(1) for searching the filespec arguments within
              all man page descriptions.  Each filespec argument is taken for search as it is; section  spe-cific specific
              cific parts are not handled, such that 7 groff searches for the two arguments 7 and groff with
              a large result; for the filespec groff.7 nothing will be found.  The display differs from  the
              apropos program by the following concepts:

               construct a groff frame to the output of apropos,

               each filespec argument is searched on its own.

               the restriction by --sections is handled as well,

               wildcard characters are allowed and handled without a further option.

       --apropos-data
              Show only the apropos descriptions for data documents, these are the man(7) sections 4, 5, and
              7.  Direct section declarations are ignored, wildcards are accepted.

       --apropos-devel
              Show only the apropos descriptions for development documents, these are the man(7) sections 2,
              3, and 9.  Direct section declarations are ignored, wildcards are accepted.

       --apropos-progs
              Show only the apropos descriptions for documents on programs, these are the man(7) sections 1,
              6, and 8.  Direct section declarations are ignored, wildcards are accepted.

       --whatis
              For each filespec argument search all man pages and display their description -- or  say  that
              it is not a man page.  This differs from man's whatis output by the following concepts

               each retrieved file name is added,

               local files are handled as well,

               the display is framed by a groff output format,

               wildcard characters are allowed without a further option.

       The  following two options were added to groffer for choosing whether the file name arguments are in-terpreted interpreted
       terpreted as names for local files or as a search pattern for man pages.  The default is  looking  up
       for local files.

       --man  Check the non-option command line arguments (filespecs) first on being man pages, then whether
              they represent an existing file.  By default, a filespec is first tested whether it is an  ex-isting existing
              isting file.

       --no-man | --local-file
              Do not check for man pages.  --local-file is the corresponding man option.

       --no-special
              Disable former calls of --all, --apropos*, and --whatis.

   Long options taken over from GNU man
       The  long options of groffer were synchronized with the long options of GNU man.  All long options of
       GNU man are recognized, but not all of these options are important to groffer, so most  of  them  are
       just ignored.

       In the following, the man options that have a special meaning for groffer are documented.

       The full set of long and short options of the GNU man program can be passed via the environment vari-able variable
       able $MANOPT; see man(1) if your system has GNU man installed.

       --all  In searching man pages, retrieve all suitable documents instead of only one.

       -7 | --ascii
              In text modes, display ASCII translation of special characters for critical environment.  This
              is equivalent to groff -mtty_char; see groff_tmac(5).

       --ditroff
              Eqivalent to groffer -Z.

       --extension suffix
              Restrict  man  page  search  to file names that have suffix appended to their section element.
              For example, in the file name /usr/share/man/man3/terminfo.3ncurses.gz the man page  extension
              is ncurses.

       --locale language
              Set the language for man pages.  This has the same effect, but overwrites $LANG

       --location
              Print the location of the retrieved files to standard error.

       --no-location
              Do not display the location of retrieved files; this resets a former call to --location.  This
              was added by groffer.

       --manpath 'dir1:dir2:...'
              Use the specified search path for retrieving man pages instead of the  program  defaults.   If
              the argument is set to the empty string "" the search for man page is disabled.

       --pager
              Set the pager program in tty mode; default is less.  This is equivalent to --tty-viewer.

       --sections 'sec1:sec2:...'
              Restrict searching for man pages to the given sections, a colon-separated list.

       --systems 'sys1,sys2,...'
              Search for man pages for the given operating systems; the argument systems is a comma-separat-ed comma-separated
              ed list.

       --where
              Eqivalent to --location.

   X Window Toolkit Options
       The following long options were adapted from the corresponding X  Window  Toolkit  options.   groffer
       will  pass  them  to the actual viewer program if it is an X Window program.  Otherwise these options
       are ignored.

       Unfortunately these options use the old style of a single minus for long options.  For  groffer  that
       was changed to the standard with using a double minus for long options, for example, groffer uses the
       option --font for the X Window option -font.

       See X(1), X(7), and the documentation on the X Window Toolkit options for more details on  these  op-tions options
       tions and their arguments.

       --background color
              Set the background color of the viewer window.

       --bd pixels
              Specifies the color of the border surrounding the viewer window.

       --bg color
              This is equivalent to --background.

       --bw pixels
              Specifies the width in pixels of the border surrounding the viewer window.

       --display X-display
              Set  the X Window display on which the viewer program shall be started, see the X Window docu-mentation documentation
              mentation for the syntax of the argument.

       --foreground color
              Set the foreground color of the viewer window.

       --fg color
              This is equivalent to -foreground.

       --font font_name
              Set the font used by the viewer window.  The argument is an X Window font name.

       --ft font_name
              This is equivalent to --ft.

       --geometry size_pos
              Set the geometry of the display window, that means its size and its  starting  position.   See
              X(7) for the syntax of the argument.

       --resolution value
              Set  X  Window  resolution in dpi (dots per inch) in some viewer programs.  The only supported
              dpi values are 75 and 100.  Actually, the default resolution for groffer is  set  to  75  dpi.
              The resolution also sets the default device in mode x.

       --rv   Reverse foreground and background color of the viewer window.

       --title 'some text'
              Set the title for the viewer window.

       --xrm 'resource'
              Set X Window resource.

   Filespec Arguments
       A  filespec  parameter  is  an  argument that is not an option or option argument.  It means an input
       source.  In groffer, filespec parameters are a file name or  a  template  for  searching  man  pages.
       These input sources are collected and composed into a single output file such as groff does.

       The  strange  POSIX behavior to regard all arguments behind the first non-option argument as filespec
       arguments is ignored.  The GNU behavior to recognize options even when mixed with filespec  arguments
       is  used  througout.  But, as usual, the double minus argument -- ends the option handling and inter-prets interprets
       prets all following arguments as filespec arguments; so the POSIX behavior can be easily adopted.

       For the following, it is necessary to know that on each system the man pages are sorted according  to
       their content into several sections.  The classical man sections have a single-character name, either
       a digit from 1 to 9 or one of the characters n or o.  In the following,  a  stand-alone  character  s
       stands  for a classical man section.  The internal precedence of man for searching man pages with the
       same name within several sections goes according to the classical single-character sequence.  On some
       systems,  this  single  character  can  be  extended  by a following string.  But the special groffer
       man page facility is based on the classical single character sections.

       Each filespec parameter can have one of the following forms in decreasing sequence.

        No filespec parameters means that groffer waits for standard input.  The minus option - stands  for
         standard input, too; it can occur several times.

        Next a filespec is tested whether it is the path name of an existing file.  Otherwise it is assumed
         to be a searching pattern for a man page.

        man:name(section) and name(section) search the man page name in man section section, where  section
         can be any string, but it must exist in the man system.

        Next  some  patterns based on the classical man sections are checked.  man:name.s and name.s search
         for a man page name in man section s if s is a classical man section mentioned above.  Otherwise  a
         man page named name.s is searched in the lowest man section .

        Now man:name searches for a man page in the lowest man section that has a document called name.

        The  pattern s name originates from a strange argument parsing of the man program.  If s is a clas-sical classical
         sical man section interpret it as a search for a man page called name in man section  s,  otherwise
         interpret both s and name as two independent filespec arguments.

        We  are  left  with  the  argument  name  which  is not an existing file.  So this searches for the
         man page called name in the lowest man section that has a document for this name.

       Wildcards in filespec arguments are only accepted for --apropos* and --whatis;  for  normal  display,
       they are interpreted as characters.

       Several  file  name arguments can be supplied.  They are mixed by groff into a single document.  Note
       that the set of option arguments must fit to all of these file arguments.  So  they  should  have  at
       least the same style of the groff language.

OUTPUT MODES
       By default, the groffer program collects all input into a single file, formats it with the groff pro-gram program
       gram for a certain device, and then chooses a suitable viewer program.  The device and viewer process
       in  groffer is called a mode.  The mode and viewer of a running groffer program is selected automati-cally, automatically,
       cally, but the user can also choose it with options.  The modes are selected by option the  arguments
       of  --mode=anymode.   Additionally,  each  of this argument can be specified as an option of its own,
       such as --anymode.  Most of these modes have a viewer program, which can be chosen by an option  that
       is constructed like --anymode-viewer.

       Several  different  modes  are  offered,  graphical  modes  for X Window, text modes, and some direct
       groff modes for debugging and development.

       By default, groffer first tries whether x mode is possible, then ps mode, and finally tty mode.  This
       mode testing sequence for auto mode can be changed by specifying a comma separated list of modes with
       the option --default-modes.

       The searching for man pages and the decompression of the input are active in every mode.

   Graphical Display Modes
       The graphical display modes work mostly in the X Window environment (or similar implementations with-in within
       in  other  windowing  environments).   The environment variable $DISPLAY and the option --display are
       used for specifying the X Window display to be used.  If this environment variable is  empty  groffer
       assumes that no X Window is running and changes to a text mode.  You can change this automatic behav-ior behavior
       ior by the option --default-modes.

       Known viewers for the graphical display modes and their standard X Window viewer progams are

        X Window roff viewers such as gxditview(1) or xditview(1) (in x mode),

        in a Postscript viewer (ps mode),

        in a dvi viewer program (dvi mode),

        in a PDF viewer (pdf mode),

        in a web browser (html or www mode).

       The pdf mode has a major advantage -- it is the only graphical diplay mode that allows to search  for
       text within the viewer; this can be a really important feature.  Unfortunately, it takes some time to
       transform the input into the PDF format, so it was not chosen as the major mode.

       These graphical viewers can be customized by options of the X Window Toolkit.  But  the  groffer  op-tions options
       tions use a leading double minus instead of the single minus used by the X Window Toolkit.

   Text modes
       There  are  two  modes for text output, mode text for plain output without a pager and mode tty for a
       text output on a text terminal using some pager program.

       If the variable $DISPLAY is not set or empty, groffer assumes that it should use tty mode.

       In the actual implementation, the groff output device latin1 is chosen for text modes.  This  can  be
       changed by specifying option -T or --device.

       The pager to be used can be specified by one of the options --pager and --tty-viewer, or by the envi-ronment environment
       ronment variable $PAGER.  If all of this is not used the less(1) program with the option -r for  cor-rectly correctly
       rectly displaying control sequences is used as the default pager.

   Special Modes for Debugging and Development
       These modes use the groffer file determination and decompression.  This is combined into a single in-put input
       put file that is fed directly into groff with different strategy without the groffer viewing  facili-ties. facilities.
       ties.   These modes are regarded as advanced, they are useful for debugging and development purposes.

       The source mode with option -Q and --source just displays the decompressed input.

       The groff mode passes the input to groff using only some suitable options provided to groffer.   This
       enables the user to save the generated output into a file or pipe it into another program.

       In  groff mode, the option -Z disables post-processing, thus producing the groff intermediate output.
       In this mode, the input is formatted, but not postprocessed; see groff_out(5) for details.

       All groff short options are supported by groffer.

MAN PAGE SEARCHING
       The default behavior of groffer is to first test whether a file parameter represents a local file; if
       it  is not an existing file name, it is assumed to represent a name of a man page.  This behavior can
       be modified by the following options.

       --man  forces to interpret all file parameters as filespecs for searching man pages.

       --no-man
       --local-file
              disable the man searching; so only local files are displayed.

       If neither a local file nor a man page was retrieved for some file parameter a warning is  issued  on
       standard error, but processing is continued.

       The  groffer  program  provides  a  search facility for man pages.  All long options, all environment
       variables, and most of the functionality of the GNU man(1) program were  implemented.   This  inludes
       the  extended  file  names  of  man pages, for example, the man page of groff in man section 7 may be
       stored under /usr/share/man/man7/groff.7.gz, where /usr/share/man/ is part of the man path, the  sub-directory subdirectory
       directory man7 and the file extension .7 refer to the man section 7; .gz shows the compression of the
       file.

       The cat pages (preformatted man pages) are intentionally excluded from the search because groffer  is
       a roff program that wants to format by its own.  With the excellent performance of the actual comput-ers, computers,
       ers, the preformatted man pages aren't necessary any longer.

       The algorithm for retrieving I man pages uses five search methods.  They are successively tried until
       a method works.

        The  search  path  can be manually specified by using the option --manpath.  An empty argument dis-ables disables
         ables the man page searching.  This overwrites the other methods.

        If this is not available the environment variable $MANPATH is searched.

        If this is empty, the program tries to read it from the environment variable $MANOPT.

        If this does not work a reasonable default path from $PATH is searched for man pages.

        If this does not work, the manpath(1) program for determining a path of man directories is tried.

       After this, the path elements for the language (locale) and operating system specific man  pages  are
       added   to   the   man   path;  their  sequence  is  determined  automatically.   For  example,  both
       /usr/share/man/linux/fr and /usr/share/man/fr/linux for french linux man pages are found.   The  lan-guage language
       guage  and operating system names are determined from both environment variables and command line op-tions. options.
       tions.

       The locale (language) is determined like in GNU man, that is from highest to lowest precedence:

        --locale

        $GROFFER_OPT

        $MANOPT

        $LCALL

        $LC_MESSAGES

        $LANG.

       The language locale is usually specified in the POSIX 1003.1 based format:

       <language>[_<territory>[.<character-set>[,<version>]]],

       but the two-letter code in <language> is sufficient for most purposes.

       If no man pages for a complicated locale are found the country part consisting of the first two char-acters characters
       acters (without the `_', `.', and `,' parts) of the locale is searched as well.

       If  still  not  found  the corresponding man page in the default language is used instead.  As usual,
       this default can be specified by one of C or POSIX.  The man pages in the default language are usual-ly usually
       ly in English.

       Several  operating systems can be given by appending their names, separated by a comma.  This is then
       specified by the environment variable $SYSTEM or by the command line option  --systems.   The  prece-dence precedence
       dence is similar to the locale case above from highest to lowest precedence: Topic --systems

        $GROFFER_OPT

        $MANOPT

        $SYSTEM.

       When  searching for man pages this man path with the additional language and system specific directo-ries directories
       ries is used.

       The search can further be restricted by limiting it to certain sections.  A  single  section  can  be
       specified  within  each filespec argument, several sections as a colon-separated list in command line
       option --sections or environment variable $MANSECT.  When no section was specified a set of  standard
       sections is searched until a suitable man page was found.

       Finally,  the  search can be restricted to a so-called extension.  This is a postfix that acts like a
       subsection.  It can be specified by --extension or environment variable $EXTENSION.

       For further details on man page searching, see man(1).

DECOMPRESSION
       The program has a decompression facility.  If standard input or a file that was  retrieved  from  the
       command  line  parameters is compressed with a format that is supported by either gzip(1) or bzip2(1)
       it is decompressed on-the-fly.  This includes the GNU .gz, .bz2, and the traditional .Z  compression.
       The  program  displays the concatenation of all decompressed input in the sequence that was specified
       on the command line.

ENVIRONMENT
       The groffer program supports many system variables, most of them by courtesy of other programs.   All
       environment variables of groff(1) and GNU man(1) and some standard system variables are honored.

   Native groffer Variables
       $GROFFER_OPT
              Store  options for a run of groffer.  The options specified in this variable are overridden by
              the options given on the command line.  The content of this variable is run through the  shell
              builtin  `eval';  so  arguments  containing  white-space or special shell characters should be
              quoted.  Do not forget to export this variable, otherwise it does not exist during the run  of
              groffer.

   System Variables
       The  groffer program is a shell script that is run through /bin/sh, which can be internally linked to
       programs like bash(1).  The corresponding system environment is automatically effective.  The follow-ing following
       ing variables have a special meaning for groffer.

       $DISPLAY
              If  this  variable  is  set  this indicates that the X Window system is running.  Testing this
              variable decides on whether graphical or text output is generated.  This variable  should  not
              be  changed by the user carelessly, but it can be used to start the graphical groffer on a re-mote remote
              mote X Window terminal.  For example, depending on your system, groffer can be started on  the
              second monitor by the command
              sh# DISPLAY=:0.1 groffer what.ever&

       $LC_ALL
       $LC_MESSAGES
       $LANG  If  one  of  these variables is set (in the above sequence), its content is interpreted as the
              locale, the language to be used, especially when retrieving IR man pages .  A locale  name  is
              typically  of the form language[_territory[.codeset[@modifier]]], where language is an ISO 639
              language code, territory is an ISO 3166 country code, and codeset is a character set or encod-ing encoding
              ing  identifier  like  ISO-8859-1  or  UTF-8; see setlocale(3).  The locale values C and POSIX
              stand for the default, i.e. the man page directories without a language prefix.  This  is  the
              same behavior as when all 3 variables are unset.

       $PAGER This  variable  can  be used to set the pager for the tty output.  For example, to disable the
              use of a pager completely set this variable to the cat(1) program
              sh# PAGER=cat groffer anything

       $PATH  All programs within the groffer shell script are called without a fixed path.  Thus this envi-ronment environment
              ronment variable determines the set of programs used within the run of groffer.

   Groff Variables
       The  groffer  program internally calls groff, so all environment variables documented in groff(1) are
       internally used within groffer as well.  The following variable has a direct meaning for the  groffer
       program.

       $GROFF_TMPDIR
              If  the value of this variable is an existing, writable directory, groffer uses it for storing
              its temporary files, just as groff does.

   Man Variables
       Parts of the functionality of the man program were implemented in groffer; support for  all  environ-ment environment
       ment  variables  documented in man(1) was added to groffer, but the meaning was slightly modified due
       to the different approach in groffer; but the user interface is the same.  The man environment  vari-ables variables
       ables  can  be overwritten by options provided with $MANOPT, which in turn is overwritten by the com-mand command
       mand line.

       $EXTENSION
              Restrict the search for man pages to files having this extension.  This is overridden  by  op-tion option
              tion --extension; see there for details.

       $MANOPT
              This  variable  contains options as a preset for man(1).  As not all of these are relevant for
              groffer only the essential parts of its value are extracted.  The options  specified  in  this
              variable  overwrite  the  values  of the other environment variables that are specific to man.
              All options specified in this variable are overridden by the  options  given  on  the  command
              line.

       $MANPATH
              If  set,  this variable contains the directories in which the man page trees are stored.  This
              is overridden by option --manpath.

       $MANSECT
              If this is a colon separated list of section names, the search for man pages is restricted  to
              those manual sections in that order.  This is overridden by option --sections.

       $SYSTEM
              If  this is set to a comma separated list of names these are interpreted as man page trees for
              different operating systems.  This variable can be overwritten by option --systems; see  there
              for details.

       The  environment  variable  $MANROFFSEQ is ignored by groffer because the necessary preprocessors are
       determined automatically.

CONFIGURATION FILES
       The groffer program can be preconfigured by two configuration files.

       /etc/groff/groffer.conf
              System-wide configuration file for groffer.

       $HOME/.groff/groffer.conf
              User-specific configuration file for groffer, where $HOME denotes the user's  home  directory.
              This file is called after the system-wide configuration file to enable overriding by the user.

       The precedence of option delivery is given in the following.  The configuration file in /etc has  the
       lowest precedence; it is overwritten by the configuration file in the home directory; both configura-tion configuration
       tion files are overwritten by the environment variable $GROFFER_OPT; everything is overwritten by the
       command line.

       In the configuration files, arbitrary spaces are allowed at the beginning of each line, they are just
       ignored.  Apart from that, the lines of the configuration lines either start with a minus  character,
       all other lines are interpreted as shell commands.

       The  lines  with  the  beginning minus are interpreted as groffer options.  This easily allows to set
       general groffer options that should be used with any call of groffer.  Each line can represent a sin-gle single
       gle  short  option, a short option cluster, or a long option with two minus signs, eventually with an
       argument.  The argument can be appended either after a space character or an equal sign `='.  The ar-gument argument
       gument can be surrounded by quotes, but this is not necessary.  The options from these lines are col-lected collected
       lected and prepended to the existing value of $GROFFER_OPT at the end of each configuration file.

       After the transformation of the minus lines, the configuration files have  been  transferred  into  a
       shell script that is called within groffer using the `. filename' shell syntax.

       It makes sense to use these configuration files for the following tasks:

        Preset  command  line  options,  such as choosing a mode or a viewer.  These are written into lines
         starting with a single or double minus sign, followed by the option name.

        Preset environment variables recognized by groffer; but do not forget to export them.

        You can also write a shell function for calling, for example a viewer program for some mode.   Such
         a function can be fed into a corresponding --mode-viewer option.

        Enter  --shell to specify a shell for the run of groffer2.sh.  Some shells run much faster than the
         standard shell.

       As an example, consider the following configuration file in ~/.groff/groffer.conf, say.

       # groffer configuration file
       #
       # groffer options that are used in each call of groffer
       --shell=ksh
       --foreground=DarkBlue
       --resolution=100
       --x-viewer='gxditview -geometry 900x1200'
       #
       # some shell commands
       if test "$DISPLAY" = ""; then
         export DISPLAY='localhost:0.0'
       fi
       date >>~/mygroffer.log

       The lines starting with # are command lines.  This configuration sets four groffer options (the lines
       starting  with `-') and runs two shell commands (the rest of the script).  This has the following ef-fects: effects:
       fects:

        Use ksh as the shell to run the groffer script; if it works it should be faster than the usual  sh.

        Use a text color of DarkBlue in all viewers that support this, such as gxditview.

        Use  a resolution of 100 dpi in all viewers that support this, such as gxditview.  By this, the de-fault default
         fault device in x mode is set to X100.

        Force gxditview(1) as the x-mode viewer using the geometry option for setting the width to 900  dpi
         and the height to 1200 dpi.  This geometry is suitable for a resolution of 100 dpi.

        If  the  environment  variable  $DISPLAY  is  empty  set it to localhost:0.0.  That allows to start
         groffer in the standard X Window display, even when the program is called from a text console.

        Just for fun, the date of each groffer start is written to the file mygroffer.log in the  home  di-rectory. directory.
         rectory.

EXAMPLES
       The  usage  of  groffer  is very easy.  Usually, it is just called with a file name or man page.  The
       following examples, however, show that groffer has much more fancy capabilities.

       sh# groffer /usr/local/share/doc/groff/meintro.ms.gz
              Decompress,  format  and  display  the  compressed  file  meintro.ms.gz   in   the   directory
              /usr/local/share/doc/groff,  using  the  standard viewer gxditview as graphical viewer when in
              X Window, or the less(1) pager program when not in X Window.

       sh# groffer groff
              If the file ./groff exists use it as input.  Otherwise interpret the argument as a search  for
              the man page named groff in the smallest possible man section, being section 1 in this case.

       sh# groffer man:groff
              search for the man page of groff even when the file ./groff exists.

       sh# groffer groff.7
       sh# groffer 7 groff
              search  the man page of groff in man section 7.  This section search works only for a digit or
              a single character from a small set.

       sh# groffer fb.modes
              If the file ./fb.modes does not exist interpret this as a search for the man page of fb.modes.
              As  the  extension  modes is not a single character in classical section style the argument is
              not split to a search for fb.

       sh# groffer groff 'troff(1)' man:roff
              The arguments that are not existing files are looked-up as the following man pages: groff (au-tomatic (automatic
              tomatic search, should be found in man section 1), troff (in section 1), and roff (in the sec-tion section
              tion with the lowest number, being 7 in this case).  The quotes around 'troff(1)'  are  neces-sary necessary
              sary  because  the  paranthesis  are  special shell characters; escaping them with a backslash
              character \( and \) would be possible, too.  The formatted files  are  concatenated  and  dis-played displayed
              played in one piece.

       sh# LANG=de groffer --man --www --www-viever=galeon ls
              Retrieve  the  German  man  page (language de) for the ls program, decompress it, format it to
              html format (www mode) and view the result in the web browser galeon.  The option --man  guar-antees guarantees
              antees that the man page is retrieved, even when a local file ls exists in the actual directo-ry. directory.
              ry.

       sh# groffer --source 'man:roff(7)'
              Get the man page called roff in man section 7, decompress it, and print its  unformatted  con-tent, content,
              tent, its source code.

       sh# cat file.gz | groffer -Z -mfoo
              Decompress  the  standard input, send this to groff intermediate output mode without post-pro-cessing post-processing
              cessing (groff option -Z), using macro package by foo (groff option -m)

       sh# echo '\f[CB]WOW!' |
       >   groffer --x --bg red --fg yellow --geometry 200x100 -Display 200x100Display
              Display the word WOW! in a small window in constant-width bold font, using color yellow on red
              background.

COMPATIBILITY
       The groffer program consists of two shell scripts.

       The  starting  script is the file groffer that is installed in a bin directory.  It is generated from
       the source file groffer.sh.  It is just a short starting script without any functions  such  that  it
       can run on very poor shells.

       The  main  part of the groffer program is the file groffer2.sh that is installed in the groff library
       directory.  This script can be run under a different shell by using the groffer option --shell.

       Both  scripts  are  compatible  with  both  GNU   and   POSIX.    POSIX   compatibility   refers   to
       IEEE P1003.2/D11.2 of September 1991, a very early version of the POSIX standard that is still freely
       available in the internet at POSIX P1003.2 draft 11.2 <http://www.funet.fi/pub/doc/posix/p1003.2/
       d11.2/all.

       Only  a restricted set of shell language elements and shell builtins is used to achieve even compati-bility compatibility
       bility with some Bourne shells that are not fully POSIX compatible.  The groffer shell  scripts  were
       tested  on  many  shells,  including  the  following Bourne shells: ash(1), bash(1), dash(1), ksh(1),
       pdksh(1), posh(1), and zsh(1).  So it should work on most actual free and commercial  operating  sys-tems. systems.
       tems.

       The  shell  for the run of groffer2.sh can be chosen by the option --shell on the command line or the
       environment variable $GROFF_OPT.  If you want to add it to one of the groffer configuration files you
       must write a line starting with --shell.

       The  groffer  program  provides  its own parser for command line arguments that is compatible to both
       POSIX getopts(1) and GNU getopt(1).  It can handle option arguments and file names  containing  white
       space  and a large set of special characters.  The following standard types of options are supported.

        The option consisiting of a single minus - refers to standard input.

        A single minus followed by characters refers to a single character option or a combination thereof;
         for example, the groffer short option combination -Qmfoo is equivalent to -Q -m foo.

        Long options are options with names longer than one character; they are always preceded by a double
         minus.  An option argument can either go to the next command line argument or be appended  with  an
         equal sign to the argument; for example, --long=arg is equivalent to --long arg .

        An  argument  of  --  ends  option  parsing;  all further command line arguments are interpreted as
         filespec parameters, i.e. file names or constructs for searching man pages).

        All command line arguments that are  neither  options  nor  option  arguments  are  interpreted  as
         filespec parameters and stored until option parsing has finished.  For example, the command line
         sh# groffer file1 -a -o arg file2
         is equivalent to
         sh# groffer -a -o arg -- file1 file2

       The  free mixing of options and filespec parameters follows the GNU principle.  That does not fulfill
       the strange option behavior of POSIX that ends option processing as soon as the first non-option  ar-gument argument
       gument has been reached.  The end of option processing can be forced by the option `--' anyway.

BUGS
       Report bugs to the

       bug-groff mailing list <bug-groff@gnu.org>.  Include a complete, self-contained example that will al-low allow
       low the bug to be reproduced, and say which version of groffer you are using.

       You can also use the

       groff mailing list <groff@gnu.org>, but you must first subscribe to this list.  You can  do  that  by
       visiting the groff mailing list web page <http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/groff.

       See groff(1) for information on availability.

SEE ALSO
       groff(1), troff(1)
              Details  on  the options and environment variables available in groff; all of them can be used
              with groffer.

       groff(7)
              Documentation of the groff language.

       grog(1)
              Internally, groffer tries to guess the groff command line options from the  input  using  this
              program.

       groff_out(5)
              Documentation on the groff intermediate output (ditroff output).

       groff_tmac(5)
              Documentation on the groff macro files.

       man(1) The  standard program to display man pages.  The information there is only useful if it is the
              man page for GNU man.  Then it documents the options and environment variables that  are  sup-ported supported
              ported by groffer.

       ash(1), bash(1), dash(1), ksh(1), pdksh(1), posh(1), sh(1), zsh(1)
              Bourne shells that were tested with groffer.

       gxditview(1), xditview(1x)
              Viewers for groffer's x mode.

       kghostview(1), ggv(1), gv(1), ghostview(1), gs(1)
              Viewers for groffer's ps mode.

       kghostview(1), ggv(1), xpdf(1), acroread(1), kpdf(1)
              Viewers for groffer's pdf mode.

       kdvi(1), xdvi(1), dvilx(1)
              Viewers for groffer's dvi mode.

       konqueror(1), mozilla(1), lynx(1)
              Web-browsers for groffer's html or www mode.

       less(1)
              Standard pager program for the tty mode .

       gzip(1), bzip2(1)
              The decompression programs supported by groffer.

AUTHOR
       This file was written by Bernd Warken.

COPYING
       Copyright (C) 2001,2002,2004,2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

       This  file is part of groffer, which is part of groff, a free software project.  You can redistribute
       it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General  Public  License  as  published  by  the  Free
       Software Foundation, either version 2, or (at your option) any later version.

       You  should  have  received  a copy of the GNU General Public License along with groff, see the files
       COPYING and LICENSE in the top directory of the groff source package.  Or read the man  page  gpl(1).
       You  can  also  write  to  the  Free  Software  Foundation,  51 Franklin St - Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
       02110-1301, USA.



Groff Version 1.19.2                           22 August 2005                                     GROFFER(1)

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