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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  pre-
       processors and postprocessors in the appropriate order and with the ap-
       propriate options.

OPTIONS
       Whitespace is permitted between a command-line option and its argument.

       -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 re-
              quests.

       -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 af-
              fect  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  di-
              rectories.

       -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 current
              directory be read before other directories, add -I. at  the  ap-
              propriate 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/
              lib/groff/site-tmac, /usr/share/groff/site-tmac, and /usr/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 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  sec-
              tion  "Warnings"  below.   To enable most useful warnings use -w
              all.  To enable absolutely all warnings use -w w instead.   Mul-
              tiple -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 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  de-
                           fault.

       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  unrecog-
                           nized  escape  sequence  is encountered, the escape
                           character is ignored.

       file      1048576   Indicates a missing file for the mso request.   En-
                           abled by default.

       font       131072   Non-existent fonts.  This is enabled by default.

       ig         262144   Invalid  escapes  in  text  ignored with the ig re-
                           quest.  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  unde-
                           fined number register is used, that register is au-
                           tomatically 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 unde-
                           fined name longer than two  characters  is  encoun-
                           tered,  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  de-
                           fault.   This  warning will never occur in compati-
                           bility 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 pack-
              ages.

       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, /usr/lib/groff/site-tmac, /usr/
              share/groff/site-tmac,    /usr/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/share/
              groff/site-font,  /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/font,   /usr/lib/font)
              after these.

FILES
       /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/troffrc
              Initialization file (called before any other macro package).

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/troffrc-end
              Initialization file (called after any other macro package).

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/name.tmac
       /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/tmac.name
              Macro files

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/font/devname/DESC
              Device description file for device name.

       /usr/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 cur-
       rent 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.

AUTHORS
       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>.

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  com-
              plete  reference  of all predefined requests, registers, and es-
              capes 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  point-
              ers 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".

groff 1.22.4                     21 March 2020                        TROFF(1)

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | WARNINGS | ENVIRONMENT | FILES | AUTHORS | SEE ALSO