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TROFF(1)                                       General Commands Manual                                       TROFF(1)



NAME
       troff - the troff processor of the groff text formatting system

SYNOPSIS
       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 ...]

DESCRIPTION
       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.

OPTIONS
       It is possible to have whitespace between a command line option and its parameter.

       -a        Generate an ASCII approximation of the typeset output.

       -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 directo‐
                 ries.

       -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 current directory.
                 This option may be specified more than once; the directories are then searched in the  order  speci‐
                 fied  (but  before the current directory).  If you want to make the current 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, /etc/groff/site-tmac, /etc/groff/site-tmac, and /usr/share/groff/1.22.2/tmac.

       -Mdir     Search  directory  (or  directory path) dir for macro files.  This is scanned before all other macro
                 directories.


       -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 potentially 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 the section WARNINGS below.  For  example,
                 to enable all warnings, use -w all.  Multiple -w options are allowed.

       -Wname    Inhibit warning name.  Multiple -W options are allowed.

       -z        Suppress formatted output.

WARNINGS
       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 regis‐
       ter; 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.


       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 regis‐
                           ter 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 char‐
                           acters 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.

ENVIRONMENT
       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, /etc/groff/site-tmac, /etc/groff/site-tmac, /usr/share/groff/1.22.2/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 (/etc/groff/site-font,
              /usr/share/groff/1.22.2/font, /usr/lib/font) after these.

FILES
       /usr/share/groff/1.22.2/tmac/troffrc
              Initialization file (called before any other macro package).

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.2/tmac/troffrc-end
              Initialization file (called after any other macro package).

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.2/tmac/name.tmac
       /usr/share/groff/1.22.2/tmac/tmac.name

AUTHOR
       Copyright (C) 1989, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2007, 2008, 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

       This document is distributed under the terms of the FDL (GNU Free Documentation License) version 1.3 or later.
       You  should  have  received a copy of the FDL on your system, it is also available on-line at the GNU copyleft
       site ⟨http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html⟩.  This document was written by  James  Clark,  with  modifications
       from Werner Lemberg ⟨[email protected]⟩ and Bernd Warken ⟨[email protected]⟩.

       This document is part of groff, the GNU roff distribution.

SEE ALSO
       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.

       The groff info file, cf. info(1), presents all groff documentation within a single document.



Groff Version 1.22.2                               7 February 2013                                           TROFF(1)