Paper Format (The GNU Troff Manual)

### 2.5 Paper Format

In `groff`, the page dimensions for the formatter GNU `troff` and for output devices are handled separately. See Page Layout, for vertical manipulation of the page size, and See Line Layout, for horizontal changes. The `papersize` macro package, normally loaded by `troffrc` at startup, provides an interface for configuring page dimensions by convenient names, like ‘`letter`’ or ‘`a4`’; see groff_tmac(5). The default used by the formatter depends on its build configuration, but is usually one of the foregoing, as geographically appropriate.

It is up to each macro package to respect the page dimensions configured in this way.

For each output device, the size of the output medium can be set in its `DESC` file. Most output drivers also recognize a command-line option `-p` to override the default dimensions and an option `-l` to use landscape orientation. See `DESC` File Format, for a description of the `papersize` keyword, which takes an argument of the same form as `-p`. The output driver’s man page, such as grops(1), may also be helpful.

`groff` uses the command-line option `-P` to pass options to postprocessors; for example, use the following for PostScript output on A4 paper in landscape orientation.

    groff -Tps -dpaper=a4l -P-pa4 -P-l -ms foo.ms > foo.ps