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

SYNOPSIS
    groffer [viewing_options] [man_options] [groff_options] [--] [file-
     spec...]
    groffer -h|--help
    groffer -v|--version

    viewing_options
    These options determine and configure the  display mode.  They
    were synchronized with the options of both groff(1) and GNU
    man(1). As groff uses almost any letter in its option set, only
    long option names are available for most features. If none of
    these options is used groffer tries to find a suitable display
    mode automatically.

    [-Q|--source]   [-T|--device device]  [--auto-modes
    mode1,mode2,...] [--debug] [--default] [--dvi]  [--dvi-viewer
    prog]  [--groff]  [--location] [--mode display_mode] [--pager
    program] [--pdf] [--pdf-viewer prog] [--ps] [--ps-viewer prog]
    [--shell]  [--tty] [--www] [--www-viewer prog] [--x] [--x-viewer
    prog]

    The following long options were adapted from the corresponding X
    Toolkit options with a single leading minus; see X(1).

    [--bd] [--bg|--background] [--bw] [--display] [--fg|--foreground
    ] [--ft|--font] [--geometry size_pos] [--resolution value] [--rv
    ] [--title string] [--xrm X_resource]

    groff_options
    Any combination of (short) options from the groff(1) program is
    accepted; the options that are not explicitly handled by groffer
    are transparently passed to groff. Due to the automatism in
    groffer, none of these groff options should be necessary, except
    for advanced usage.

    Because of the special outputting behavior of the groff options
    -V, -X, and -Z, groffer was designed to be switched into  groff
    mode by each of these options; in this mode, the groffer viewing
    features are disabled.

    The other groff options do not switch the  mode, but allow to
    customize  the formatting process. Useful groff formatting op-
    tions include -m (to add macro files that cannot be recognized
    by grog), and -T (to specify an alternative device for the modes
    tty and x).

    man_options
    These options regulate whether and how man pages are searched.
    They are  compatible with the long options of the GNU man pro-
    gram.

    [--all] [--ascii] [--apropos] [--ditroff] [--extension suffix]
    [--locale language]   [--local-file]  [--man]  [--manpath
    dir1:dir2:...]  [--no-location]  [--no-man]   [--sections
    sec1:sec2:...]  [--systems sys1,sys2,...]   [--troff-device
    device] [--whatis]

    The GNU man long options that are not mentioned are recognized,
    but they  are just ignored because of alternative implementa-
    tions. The full set of long and short options of  the GNU man
    program can be passed via the environment variable $MANOPT; see
    man(1) if your system has GNU man installed.

    filespec
    is a sequence of file  names or templates for  searching
    man pages, see man(1). A filespec can have one of the following
    forms.

    filename the path name of an existing file.

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

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

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

    man:name search the man page name in the lowest available sec-
   tion.

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

    name.section
   search the man page name in section section.

    standard_section
   if this is `1', ..., `9', `o', or `n' try to retrieve
   the next argument as a man page in this section.

    name search for the man page name in the lowest available
   section.

    No filespec parameters means standard input.

    For details on the options, see section OPTIONS.

DESCRIPTION
    The groffer program is part of groff(7).  It can be used to display ar-
    bitrary documents written in the roff(7) formatting language in several
    different ways,  in an X window viewer program or in a text terminal.
    The viewer programs can be chosen as the groff native viewer
    gxditview(1), a Postcript or dvi display program, or a web browser.

    A search facility for manual pages ( man pages) is provided. Almost
    the whole functionality of the GNU man program was provided or suitably
    adapted.  This makes the groffer program a valuable tool on systems
    with a poor man system.

    The program always concatenates all input specified by the non-option
    parameters of the calling command line or standard input. Compressed
    standard input or files are decompressed on-the-fly.

    Normally, the input is run through the groff(1) text processor before
    being displayed. By using the option -Q, the roff source code is dis-
    played without formatting.

    The formatting process can be regulated by all options that are avail-
    able groff. By using the -T option, groffer can be switched to behave
    exactly like groff without using its viewer facilities, but additional-
    ly with the search and decompression features.

    All necessary options can be determined automatically. For example,
    the groffer program internally uses the grog(1) program  to determine
    from the unformatted document  which preprocessors should be run and
    which macro files should be included. But all parts of the program can
    be controlled manually by suitable options.

OPTIONS
    The groffer program provides its own parser for command line options
    that is compatible to both POSIX getopts(1) and  GNU getopt(1).  The
    command line behaves as usually. For completeness, the details are
    provided here.

 Option Parsing
    The following types of options are supported, equally on all systems
    that are able to run the groffer program:

    o single  character options are always preceded by a single minus char-
  acter, for example, -c.

    o the argument for a single character option is the next  command line
  argument, for  example, -o arg, or can be appended to the option
  character within the same argument -o arg.

    o clusters of such single character options without an argument,  even-
  tually  terminated by a single character option with an argument; for
  example, -abo arg is equivalent to -a -b -o arg .

    o Long options, that means option with names longer than one character
  are always prededed 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.

    o An argument of -- ends option parsing; all further command line argu-
  ments are interpreted as filespec arguments.

    o By default, 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 file 2
  is, by default, equivalent to
  sh# groffer -a -o arg -- file1 file 2

    o This behavior  can be changed by setting the environment variable
  $POSIXLY_CORRECT to a non-empty value; in this case, option process-
  ing is stopped as soon as the first non-option argument is found.
  For example, in posixly correct mode, the command line
  sh# groffer file1 -a -o arg file 2
  is equivalent to
  sh# groffer -- file1 -a -o arg file 2
  As this leads to unwanted behavior in most cases, most people do not
  want to set $POSIXLY_CORRECT.

 Compatibility with Options from other Programs
    All short options of groffer are compatible with the short options of
    groff(1). Some of the groff options were given a special meaning with-
    in groffer. All other groff options are supported by groffer, but they
    are just transparently transferred to groff without any  intervention.
    Therefore these  transparent options are not documented here, but in
    groff(1).

    All long options of groffer are compatible with the long options of
    man(1).  Most of the man long options were implemented as native op-
    tions into groffer. These options are documented in the following; the
    other man options are recognized, but ignored.

 Native groffer Options
    -h   Print usage message to standard error and exit.

    -Q   Output the roff  source  code of the input files unprocessed.
    This is the equivalent --mode source.

    -T devname
    Switch to --mode device, thus disabling the groffer viewing.
    Instead, the input is formatted and postprocessed using plain
    groff with devname as the output device.  The allowed device
    names are listed in groff(1). Note that this forces all device
    names that begin  with the letter X to be displayed with
    gxditview(1); all other  device  names generate output for the
    specified device; this is printed onto standard output without a
    pager.

    -v   Print version information onto standard error.

    -V   Switch into groff mode and format the input with groff option -V
    ; this produces the groff calling pipe without formatting the
    input.  This an advanced option from groff(1), only useful for
    debugging.

    -X   Switch into groff mode and format the input with groff option -X
    ;  actually, this formats the input and displays it with
    gxditview(1). This differs from groffer's mode x because  grof-
    fer's viewer options are not used, but the viewer is configured
    like in groff with the groff option -P.  This option is in-
    hereted from groff(1).

    -Z   Switch into groff mode and format the input with groff option -Z
    ; this produces the groff intermediate output without postpro-
    cessing;  see groff_out(1).  This an advanced option from
    groff(1), useful for debugging.

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

    --apropos
    Instead of displaying, start the `apropos' command for searching
    within man page descriptions; only kept for compatibility with
    `man'.

    --auto-modes mode1,mode2,...
    Set the sequence of modes for default mode to the comma separat-
    ed list given in the argument.

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

    --bd pixels
    Specifies the color of the border surrounding the viewer window.
    This is an adaption of the X Toolkit option -bd. The argument
    is an X color name, see (1) for details.

    --bg color
    Set the background color of the viewer window. This is an adap-
    tion of the X Toolkit option -bg. The argument is an X color
    name, see (1) for details.

    --bw pixels
    Specifies the width in pixels of  the border surrounding the
    viewer window (not available for all viewers). This is an adap-
    tion of the X Toolkit option -bw.

    --debug
    Print debugging information. Actually, a function call stack is
    printed if an error occurs.

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

    --device
    Eqivalent to -T.

    --display X-display
    Set the X display on which the viewer program shall be started,
    see X(1) for the syntax of the argument.

    --ditroff
    Eqivalent to -Z. This is kept for compatibiliy with GNU man(1).

    --dvi Choose dvi mode; the formatted input is displayed  with the by
    default, the formatted input is displayed with the xdvi(1) pro-
    gram.

    --dvi-viewer prog
    Set the viewer program for dvi mode. This can be a file name or
    a program to be searched in $PATH. Known dvi viewers inlude xd-
    vi(1) and dvilx(1) In each case, arguments can be provided addi-
    tionally.

    --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. Originates from GNU man.

    --foreground color
    This is equivalent to -fg.

    --fg color
    Set the foreground color of the viewer window. This is an adap-
    tion of the X Toolkit option -bg. The argument is an X color
    name, see (1) for details.

    --font font_name
    This is equivalent to -ft.

    --ft font_name
    Set the font used by the viewer window. This is an adaption of
    the X Toolkit option -ft. The argument is an X font name, see
    (1) for details.

    --geometry size_pos
    Set the geometry of the display window, that means its size and
    its starting position.  See X(1) for details on the syntax of
    the argument. If the actual display mode is not X then this op-
    tion is ignored.

    --groff
    Set groff mode.  Switch groffer to process the input like
    groff(1).  This disables the groffer viewing features, all grof-
    fer viewing options are ignored.

    --help Eqivalent to -h.

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

    --locale language
    Set the language for man pages. This option originates from GNU
    man(1).

    --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 if it is an existing
    file.

    --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.

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

    auto  Display in the default manner; this actually means to try
     the modes  ps, x, and tty in this sequence. Useful for
     restoring default mode when a different mode was speci-
     fied with $GROFFER_OPT.

    dvi  Display formatted input in a dvi viewer program; equiva-
     lent to --dvi.

    pdf  Display formatted input in a PDF (Portable Document For-
     mat) viewer program; equivalent to --pdf.

    ps   Display formatted  input in a Postscript viewer program;
     equivalent to --ps.

    tty  Display formatted input in a text terminal; equivalent to
     --tty.

    www  Display formatted  input in a internet browser program;
     equivalent to --www.

    x    Display formatted input in a native roff viewer such as
     gxditview(1);equivalentto --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 source code; same as -Q.

    --no-location
    Do not display the location of retireved files; this resets a
    former call to --location.

    --no-man
    Do not check for man pages.

    --pager
    Set the pager program in tty mode; default is less.

    --pdf Choose pdf mode (Portable Document Format). By default, the in-
    put is formatted by groff using the Postscript device, then it
    is transformed into the PDF file format using gs(1) (this is
    quite slow), and finally displayed either with the xpdf(1) or
    the acroread(1) program; this can be configured with option
    --viewer-pdf. PDF has a big advantage because the text is dis-
    played graphically and is searchable nevertheless; but as
    thtransformation into pdf takes a considerable amount of  time,
    the pdf mode is not suitable as a default device for the auto
    mode. The only device that is compatible to this  mode is ps,
    which is also the default when no device is specified.

    --pdf-viewer prog
    Set the viewer program for pdf mode. This can be a file name or
    a program to be searched in $PATH. In each case, arguments can
    be provided additionally.

    --ps  Choose ps mode (Postscript). By default, the formatted input is
    displayed with the ghostview(1) program; this can be configured
    with option --viewer-ps.  The only device that is compatible to
    this mode is ps, which is also the default when no device is
    specified.

    --ps-viewer prog
    Set the 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.

    --resolution value
    Set X resolution in dpi (dots per inch) in some viewer programs.
    The only supported dpi values are 75 and 100. This is an adap-
    tion of the X Toolkit option -resolution.

    --rv  Reverse foreground and background color of the viewer window.
    This is an adaption of the X Toolkit option -rv. This feature
    is not available in all viewer programs.

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

    --shell shell_program
    Specify the shell under which the groffer script should be run.
    The script first tests whether this option is set (either within
    $GROFF_OPT or as a command line option); if so, the script is
    rerun under the shell program specified with the  option  argu-
    ment.

    --source
    Equivalent to -Q.

    --systems
    Search for man pages for the given operating systems; the argu-
    ment systems is a comma-separated list.

    --title 'some text'
    Set the title for the viewer window. This feature is not avail-
    able in all viewer programs.

    --to-postproc opt_or_arg
    Eqivalent to -P.

    --troff-device
    Eqivalent  to -T.  This  option is only kept for compatibility
    with GNU man(1).

    --tty Choose tty display mode, that means displaying in a text  pager
    even when in X; eqivalent to --mode tty.

    --version
    Eqivalent to -v.

    --whatis
    Instead of displaying the content, get the one-liner description