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Name | Synopsis | Description | Options | Warnings | Environment | Files | Authors | See Also | COLOPHON |
troff(1) General Commands Manual troff(1)
troff - the troff processor of the groff text formatting system
troff [-abcivzCERU] [-d cs] [-f fam] [-F dir] [-I dir] [-m name]
[-M dir] [-n num] [-o list] [-r cn] [-T name] [-w name]
[-W name] [file ...]
This manual page describes the GNU version of troff. It is part of
the groff document formatting system. It is functionally compatible
with Unix troff, but has many extensions, see groff_diff(7). Usually
it should be invoked using the groff(1) command which will also run
preprocessors and postprocessors in the appropriate order and with
the appropriate options.
Whitespace is permitted between a command-line option and its
argument.
-a Generate an ASCII (Unicode basic Latin) approximation of the
typeset output. The read-only register .A is set to 1. On a
system using the man-db manual page formatter and that
installs man pages compressed with gzip(1), one might use the
shell command
zcat $(man -w troff) | groff -a -t -man -Tdvi | less
to observe how lines are broken for the DVI device.
-b Print a backtrace with each warning or error message. This
backtrace should help track down the cause of the error. The
line numbers given in the backtrace may not always be correct,
for troff's idea of line numbers gets confused by as or am
requests.
-c Disable color output (always disabled in compatibility mode).
-C Enable compatibility mode.
-dcs
-dname=s
Define c or name to be a string s; c must be a one letter
name.
-E Inhibit all error messages of troff. Note that this doesn't
affect messages output to standard error by macro packages
using the tm or tm1 requests.
-ffam Use fam as the default font family.
-Fdir Search in directory (or directory path) dir for subdirectories
devname (name is the name of the device) and there for the
DESC file and font files. dir is scanned before all other
font directories.
-i Read the standard input after all the named input files have
been processed.
-Idir This option may be used to add a directory to the search path
for files (both those on the command line and those named in
.psbb requests). The search path is initialized with the cur‐
rent directory. This option may be specified more than once;
the directories are then searched in the order specified (but
before the current directory). If you want to make the cur‐
rent directory be read before other directories, add -I. at
the appropriate place.
No directory search is performed for files with an absolute
file name.
-mname Read in the file name.tmac. If it isn't found, try tmac.name
instead. It will be first searched for in directories given
with the -M command-line option, then in directories given in
the GROFF_TMAC_PATH environment variable, then in the current
directory (only if in unsafe mode), the home directory, /usr/
local/lib/groff/site-tmac, /usr/local/share/groff/site-tmac,
and /usr/local/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac.
-Mdir Search directory (or directory path) dir for macro files.
This is scanned before all other macro directories.
-nnum Number the first page num.
-olist Output only pages in list, which is a comma-separated list of
page ranges; n means print page n, m-n means print every page
between m and n, -n means print every page up to n, n- means
print every page from n. troff will exit after printing the
last page in the list.
-rcn
-rname=n
Set number register c or name to n; c must be a one character
name; n can be any troff numeric expression.
-R Don't load troffrc and troffrc-end.
-Tname Prepare output for device name, rather than the default ps;
see groff(1) for a more detailed description.
-U Unsafe mode. This will enable the following requests: open,
opena, pso, sy, and pi. For security reasons, these poten‐
tially dangerous requests are disabled otherwise. It will
also add the current directory to the macro search path.
-v Print the version number.
-wname Enable warning name. Available warnings are described in sec‐
tion “Warnings” below. To enable most useful warnings use -w
all. To enable absolutely all warnings use -w w instead.
Multiple -w options are allowed.
-Wname Inhibit warning name. Multiple -W options are allowed.
-z Suppress formatted output.
The warnings that can be given by troff are divided into the
following categories. The name associated with each warning is used
by the -w and -W options; the number is used by the warn request, and
by the .warn register; it is always a power of 2 to allow bitwise
composition.
┌─────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
│Bit Code Warning │ Bit Code Warning │
├─────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│ 0 1 char │ 10 1024 reg │
│ 1 2 number │ 11 2048 tab │
│ 2 4 break │ 12 4096 right-brace │
│ 3 8 delim │ 13 8192 missing │
│ 4 16 el │ 14 16384 input │
│ 5 32 scale │ 15 32768 escape │
│ 6 64 range │ 16 65536 space │
│ 7 128 syntax │ 17 131072 font │
│ 8 256 di │ 18 262144 ig │
│ 9 512 mac │ 19 524288 color │
│ │ 20 1048576 file │
└─────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
break 4 In fill mode, lines which could not be broken so
that their length was less than the line length.
This is enabled by default.
char 1 Non-existent characters. This is enabled by
default.
color 524288 Color-related warnings.
delim 8 Missing or mismatched closing delimiters.
di 256 Use of di or da without an argument when there is
no current diversion.
el 16 Use of the el request with no matching ie
request.
escape 32768 Unrecognized escape sequences. When an
unrecognized escape sequence is encountered, the
escape character is ignored.
file 1048576 Indicates a missing file for the mso request.
Enabled by default.
font 131072 Non-existent fonts. This is enabled by default.
ig 262144 Invalid escapes in text ignored with the ig
request. These are conditions that are errors
when they do not occur in ignored text.
input 16384 Invalid input characters.
mac 512 Use of undefined strings, macros and diversions.
When an undefined string, macro or diversion is
used, that string is automatically defined as
empty. So, in most cases, at most one warning
will be given for each name.
missing 8192 Requests that are missing non-optional arguments.
number 2 Invalid numeric expressions. This is enabled by
default.
range 64 Out of range arguments.
reg 1024 Use of undefined number registers. When an
undefined number register is used, that register
is automatically defined to have a value of 0.
So, in most cases, at most one warning will be
given for use of a particular name.
right-brace 4096 Use of \} where a number was expected.
scale 32 Meaningless scaling indicators.
space 65536 Missing space between a request or macro and its
argument. This warning will be given when an
undefined name longer than two characters is
encountered, and the first two characters of the
name make a defined name. The request or macro
will not be invoked. When this warning is given,
no macro is automatically defined. This is
enabled by default. This warning will never
occur in compatibility mode.
syntax 128 Dubious syntax in numeric expressions.
tab 2048 Inappropriate use of a tab character. Either use
of a tab character where a number was expected,
or use of tab character in an unquoted macro
argument.
There are also names that can be used to refer to groups of warnings:
all All warnings except di, mac, and reg. It is intended that
this covers all warnings that are useful with traditional
macro packages.
w All warnings.
GROFF_TMAC_PATH
A colon separated list of directories in which to search for
macro files. troff will scan directories given in the -M
option before these, and in standard directories (current
directory if in unsafe mode, home directory, /usr/local/lib/
groff/site-tmac, /usr/local/share/groff/site-tmac, /usr/local/
share/groff/1.22.4/tmac) after these.
GROFF_TYPESETTER
Default device.
GROFF_FONT_PATH
A colon separated list of directories in which to search for
the devname directory. troff will scan directories given in
the -F option before these, and in standard directories (/usr/
local/share/groff/site-font, /usr/local/share/groff/1.22.4/
font, /usr/lib/font) after these.
/usr/local/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/troffrc
Initialization file (called before any other macro package).
/usr/local/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/troffrc-end
Initialization file (called after any other macro package).
/usr/local/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/name.tmac
/usr/local/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/tmac.name
Macro files
/usr/local/share/groff/1.22.4/font/devname/DESC
Device description file for device name.
/usr/local/share/groff/1.22.4/font/devname/F
Font file for font F of device name.
Note that troffrc and troffrc-end are searched for neither in the
current nor the home directory by default for security reasons (even
if the -U option is given). Use the -M command-line option or the
GROFF_TMAC_PATH environment variable to add these directories to the
search path if necessary.
The GNU version of troff was originally written by James Clark; he
also wrote the original version of this document, which was modified
by Werner Lemberg ⟨wl@gnu.org⟩ and Bernd Warken
⟨groff-bernd.warken-72@web.de⟩.
groff(1)
The main program of the groff system, a wrapper around troff.
groff(7)
A description of the groff language, including a short but
complete reference of all predefined requests, registers, and
escapes of plain groff. From the command line, this is called
by
man 7 groff
groff_diff(7)
The differences of the groff language and the classical troff
language. Currently, this is the most actual document of the
groff system.
roff(7)
An overview over groff and other roff systems, including
pointers to further related documentation.
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”.
This page is part of the groff (GNU troff) project. Information
about the project can be found at
⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/groff/⟩. If you have a bug report for
this manual page, see ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/groff/⟩. This
page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/groff.git⟩ on 2020-08-13. (At that
time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in the repos‐
itory was 2020-08-12.) If you discover any rendering problems in
this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is a better or
more up-to-date source for the page, or you have corrections or
improvements to the information in this COLOPHON (which is not part
of the original manual page), send a mail to man-pages@man7.org
groff 1.22.4.234-3ba6 14 June 2020 troff(1)
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