# pdfroff - construct files in Portable Document Format using groff - man(1) - [phpMan] [_pdfroff_(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/pdfroff/1/markdown) General Commands Manual [_pdfroff_(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/pdfroff/1/markdown) ## Name pdfroff - construct files in Portable Document Format using _groff_ ## Synopsis **pdfroff **[_groff-option_] [**--emit-ps**] [**--no-toc-relocation**] [**--no-kill-null-pages**] [**--stylesheet=_**name_] [**--no-pdf-output**] [**--pdf-output=_**name_] [**--no-reference-dictionary**] [**--reference-dictionary=_**name_] [**--report-progress**] [**--keep-temporary-files**] [_file_ ...] ### pdfroff -h ### pdfroff --help **pdfroff -v **[_groff-option_ ...] **pdfroff --version **[_groff-option_ ...] _groff-option_ is any short option supported by [_groff_(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/groff/1/markdown) except for **-h**, **-T**, and **-v**; see section “Usage” below. ## Description _pdfroff_ is a wrapper program for the GNU text processing system, _groff_. It transparently handles the mechanics of multiple pass _groff_ processing, when applied to suitably marked up _groff_ source files, such that tables of contents and body text are formatted separately, and are subsequently combined in the correct order, for final publication as a single PDF docu‐ ment. A further optional “style sheet” capability is provided; this allows for the defini‐ tion of content which is required to precede the table of contents, in the published docu‐ ment. For each invocation of _pdfroff_, the ultimate _groff_ output stream is post-processed by the Ghostscript [_gs_(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/gs/1/markdown) interpreter to produce a finished PDF document. _pdfroff_ makes no assumptions about, and imposes no restrictions on, the use of any _groff_ macro packages which the user may choose to employ, in order to achieve a desired document format; however, it _does_ include specific built in support for the _pdfmark_ macro package, should the user choose to employ it. Specifically, if the _pdfhref_ macro, defined in the _pdfmark.tmac_ package, is used to define public reference marks, or dynamic links to such ref‐ erence marks, then _pdfroff_ performs as many preformatting _groff_ passes as required, up to a maximum limit of _four_, in order to compile a document reference dictionary, to resolve refer‐ ences, and to expand the dynamically defined content of links. ## Usage The command line is parsed in accordance with normal GNU conventions, but with one exception— when specifying any short form option (i.e., a single character option introduced by a single hyphen), and if that option expects an argument, then it _must_ be specified independently (i.e., it may _not_ be appended to any group of other single character short form options). Long form option names (i.e., those introduced by a double hyphen) may be abbreviated to their minimum length unambiguous initial substring. Otherwise, _pdfroff_ usage closely mirrors that of _groff_ itself. Indeed, with the exception of the **-h**, **-v**, and **-T _**dev_ short form options, and all long form options, which are parsed inter‐ nally by _pdfroff_, all options and file name arguments specified on the command line are passed on to _groff_, to control the formatting of the PDF document. Consequently, _pdfroff_ ac‐ cepts all options and arguments, as specified in [_groff_(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/groff/1/markdown), which may also be considered as the definitive reference for all standard _pdfroff_ options and argument usage. ## Options _pdfroff_ accepts all of the short form options (i.e., those introduced by a single hyphen), which are available with _groff_ itself. In most cases, these are simply passed transparently to _groff_; the following, however, are handled specially by _pdfroff_. ### -h --help ### -i parently to _groff_, but, if grouped with other options, it _must_ be the first in the group. Hiding it within a group breaks standard input processing, in the multiple- pass _groff_ processing context of _pdfroff_. ### -T _ -T ps _pdfroff_ to abort. ### -v --version See [_groff_(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/groff/1/markdown) for a description of all other short form options, which are transparently passed through _pdfroff_ to _groff_. All long form options (i.e., those introduced by a double hyphen) are interpreted locally by _pdfroff_; they are _not_ passed on to _groff_, unless otherwise stated below. **--help **Causes _pdfroff_ to display a summary of the its usage syntax, and supported options, and then exit. ### --emit-ps Suppresses the final output conversion step, causing _pdfroff_ to emit PostScript output instead of PDF. This may be useful to capture intermediate PostScript output when us‐ ing a specialised postprocessor, such as _gpresent_ for example, in place of the default Ghostscript PDF writer. ### --keep-temporary-files Suppresses the deletion of temporary files, which normally occurs after _pdfroff_ has completed PDF document formatting; this may be useful when debugging formatting prob‐ lems. See section “Files” below for a description of the temporary files used by _pdfroff_. ### --no-pdf-output May be used with the **--reference-dictionary=_**name_ option (described below) to eliminate the overhead of PDF formatting when running _pdfroff_ to create a reference dictionary for use in a different document. ### --no-reference-dictionary May be used to eliminate the overhead of creating a reference dictionary, when it is known that the target PDF document contains no public references, created by the **pdfhref **macro. ### --no-toc-relocation May be used to eliminate the extra _groff_ processing pass, which is required to gener‐ ate a table of contents, and relocate it to the start of the PDF document, when pro‐ cessing any document which lacks an automatically generated table of contents. ### --no-kill-null-pages While preparing for simulation of the manual collation step, which is traditionally required to relocate a _table_ _of_ _contents_ to the start of a document, _pdfroff_ accumu‐ lates a number of empty page descriptions into the intermediate PostScript output stream. During the final collation step, these empty pages are normally discarded from the finished document; this option forces _pdfroff_ to leave them in place. **--pdf-output=_**name_ Specifies the name to be used for the resultant PDF document; if unspecified, the PDF output is written to standard output. A future version of _pdfroff_ may use this op‐ tion, to encode the document name in a generated reference dictionary. **--reference-dictionary=_**name_ Specifies the name to be used for the generated reference dictionary file; if unspeci‐ fied, the reference dictionary is created in a temporary file, which is deleted when _pdfroff_ completes processing of the current document. This option _must_ be specified, if it is desired to save the reference dictionary, for use in references placed in other PDF documents. ### --report-progress Causes _pdfroff_ to display an informational message on standard error, at the start of each _groff_ processing pass. **--stylesheet=_**name_ Specifies the name of an _input_ _file_, to be used as a style sheet for formatting of content, which is to be placed _before_ the table of contents, in the formatted PDF doc‐ ument. ### --version Causes _pdfroff_ to display a version identification message. The entire command line is then passed transparently to _groff_, in a _one_ pass operation _only_, in order to dis‐ play the associated _groff_ version information, before exiting. ## Environment The following environment variables may be set, and exported, to modify the behaviour of _pdfroff_. _PDFROFF_COLLATE_ Specifies the program to be used for collation of the finished PDF document. This collation step may be required to move _tables_ _of_ _contents_ to the start of the finished PDF document, when formatting with traditional macro packages, which print them at the end. However, users should not normally need to specify _PDFROFF_COLLATE_, (and indeed, are not encouraged to do so). If unspecified, _pdfroff_ uses [_sed_(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/sed/1/markdown) by de‐ fault, which normally suffices. If _PDFROFF_COLLATE_ _is_ specified, then it must act as a filter, accepting a list of file name arguments, and write its output to the standard output stream, whence it is piped to the _PDFROFF_POSTPROCESSOR_COMMAND_, to produce the finished PDF output. When specifying _PDFROFF_COLLATE_, it is normally necessary to also specify _PDFROFF_KILL_NULL_PAGES_. _PDFROFF_COLLATE_ is ignored, if _pdfroff_ is invoked with the **--no-kill-null-pages **op‐ tion. _PDFROFF_KILL_NULL_PAGES_ Specifies options to be passed to the _PDFROFF_COLLATE_ program. It should not normally be necessary to specify _PDFROFF_KILL_NULL_PAGES_. The internal default is a [_sed_(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/sed/1/markdown) script, which is intended to remove completely blank pages from the collated output stream, and which should be appropriate in most applications of _pdfroff_. However, if any alternative to [_sed_(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/sed/1/markdown) is specified for _PDFROFF_COLLATE_, then it is likely that a corresponding alternative specification for _PDFROFF_KILL_NULL_PAGES_ is required. As in the case of _PDFROFF_COLLATE_, _PDFROFF_KILL_NULL_PAGES_ is ignored, if _pdfroff_ is invoked with the **--no-kill-null-pages **option. _PDFROFF_POSTPROCESSOR_COMMAND_ Specifies the command to be used for the final document conversion from PostScript in‐ termediate output to PDF. It must behave as a filter, writing its output to the stan‐ dard output stream, and must accept an arbitrary number of _files_ _..._ arguments, with the special case of “**-**” representing the standard input stream. If unspecified, _PDFROFF_POSTPROCESSOR_COMMAND_ defaults to gs -dBATCH -dQUIET -dNOPAUSE -dSAFER -sDEVICE=pdfwrite \ -sOutputFile=- _GROFF_TMPDIR_ Identifies the directory in which _pdfroff_ should create temporary files. If _GROFF_TMPDIR_ is _not_ specified, then the variables _TMPDIR_, _TMP_ and _TEMP_ are considered in turn as possible temporary file repositories. If none of these are set, then tem‐ porary files are created in the current directory. _GROFF_GHOSTSCRIPT_INTERPRETER_ Specifies the program to be invoked when _pdfroff_ converts _groff_ PostScript output to PDF. If _PDFROFF_POSTPROCESSOR_COMMAND_ is specified, then the command name it speci‐ fies is _implicitly_ assigned to _GROFF_GHOSTSCRIPT_INTERPRETER_, overriding any explicit setting specified in the environment. If _GROFF_GHOSTSCRIPT_INTERPRETER_ is not speci‐ fied, then _pdfroff_ searches the process _PATH_, looking for a program with any of the well known names for the Ghostscript interpreter; if no Ghostscript interpreter can be found, _pdfroff_ aborts. _GROFF_AWK_INTERPRETER_ Specifies the program to be invoked when _pdfroff_ is extracting reference dictionary entries from a _groff_ intermediate message stream. If _GROFF_AWK_INTERPRETER_ is not specified, then _pdfroff_ searches the process _PATH_, looking for any of the preferred programs, _gawk_, _mawk_, _nawk_, and _awk_, in that order; if none of these are found, _pdfroff_ issues a warning message, and continue processing; however, in this case, no reference dictionary is created. _OSTYPE_ Typically defined automatically by the operating system, _OSTYPE_ is used on Microsoft Win32/MS-DOS platforms _only_, to infer the default _PATH_SEPARATOR_ character, which is used when parsing the process _PATH_ to search for external helper programs. _PATH_SEPARATOR_ If set, _PATH_SEPARATOR_ overrides the default separator character, (‘:’ on POSIX/Unix systems, inferred from _OSTYPE_ on Microsoft Win32/MS-DOS), which is used when parsing the process _PATH_ to search for external helper programs. _SHOW_PROGRESS_ If this is set to a non-empty value, then _pdfroff_ always behaves as if the **--report-progress **option is specified on the command line. ## Files Input and output files for _pdfroff_ may be named according to any convention of the user's choice. Typically, input files may be named according to the choice of the principal normat‐ ting macro package, e.g., file_.ms_ might be an input file for formatting using the _ms_ macros (_s.tmac_); normally, the final output file should be named file_.pdf_. Temporary files created by _pdfroff_ are placed in the file system hierarchy, in or below the directory specified by environment variables (see section “Environment” above). If [_mktemp_(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/mktemp/1/markdown) is available, it is invoked to create a private subdirectory of the nominated temporary files directory, (with subdirectory name derived from the template _pdfroff-XXXXXXXXXX_); if this subdirectory is successfully created, the temporary files will be placed within it, otherwise they will be placed directly in the directory nominated in the environment. All temporary files themselves are named according to the convention _pdf_$$_._*, where _$$_ is the standard shell variable representing the process identifier of the _pdfroff_ process itself, and _*_ represents any of the extensions used by _pdfroff_ to identify the following temporary and intermediate files. _pdf_$$_.tmp_ A scratch pad file, used to capture reference data emitted by _groff_, during the _refer‐_ _ence_ _dictionary_ compilation phase. _pdf_$$_.ref_ The _reference_ _dictionary_, as compiled in the last but one pass of the _reference_ _dic‐_ _tionary_ compilation phase; (at the start of the first pass, this file is created empty; in successive passes, it contains the _reference_ _dictionary_ entries, as col‐ lected in the preceding pass). If the **--reference-dictionary**=_name_ option is specified, this intermediate file becomes permanent, and is named _name_, rather than _pdf_$$_.ref_. _pdf_$$_.cmp_ Used to collect _reference_ _dictionary_ entries during the active pass of the _reference_ _dictionary_ compilation phase. At the end of any pass, when the content of _pdf_$$_.cmp_ compares as identical to _pdf_$$_.ref_, (or the corresponding file named by the **--reference-dictionary**=_name_ option), then _reference_ _dictionary_ compilation is termi‐ nated, and the _document_ _reference_ _map_ is appended to this intermediate file, for in‐ clusion in the final formatting passes. _pdf_$$_.tc_ An intermediate _PostScript_ file, in which “Table of Contents” entries are collected, to facilitate relocation before the body text, on ultimate output to the _Ghostscript_ postprocessor. _pdf_$$_.ps_ An intermediate _PostScript_ file, in which the body text is collected prior to ultimate output to the _Ghostscript_ postprocessor, in the proper sequence, _after_ _pdf_$$_.tc_. ## Authors _pdfroff_ was written by [Keith Marshall](mailto:), who maintains it at [his _groff-pdfmark_ OSDN site](). _groff_'s version may be withdrawn in a future release. **See also** _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”. Since _pdfroff_ provides a superset of all _groff_ capabilities, the above manual, or its terser reference page, [_groff_(7)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/groff/7/markdown) may also be considered definitive references to all _standard_ capa‐ bilities of _pdfroff_, with this document providing the reference to _pdfroff_'s extended fea‐ tures. While _pdfroff_ imposes neither any restriction on, nor any requirement for, the use of any specific _groff_ macro package, a number of supplied macro packages, and in particular those associated with the package _pdfmark.tmac_, are best suited for use with _pdfroff_ as the pre‐ ferred formatter. _/usr/share/doc/groff-base/pdf/pdfmark.pdf.gz_ “Portable Document Format Publishing with GNU _Troff_”, by Keith Marshall, offers de‐ tailed documentation on the use of these packages. This file, together with its source, _pdfmark.ms_, is part of the _groff_ distribution. groff 1.23.0 31 March 2024 [_pdfroff_(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/pdfroff/1/markdown)