GROTTY(1)                   General Commands Manual                  GROTTY(1)



NAME
       grotty - groff driver for typewriter-like devices

SYNOPSIS
       grotty [ -bBcdfhioruUv ] [ -Fdir ] [ files... ]

       It is possible to have whitespace between the -F option and its parame-
       ter.

DESCRIPTION
       grotty translates the output of GNU troff  into  a  form  suitable  for
       typewriter-like  devices.   Normally  grotty should be invoked by using
       the groff command with a -Tascii, -Tlatin1 or -Tutf8  option  on  ASCII
       based  systems, and with -Tcp1047 and -Tutf8 on EBCDIC based hosts.  If
       no files are given, grotty reads the standard input.  A filename  of  -
       also  causes  grotty  to read the standard input.  Output is written to
       the standard output.

       By default, grotty emits SGR escape  sequences  (from  ISO  6429,  also
       called  ANSI  color  escapes)  to change text attributes (bold, italic,
       colors).  This makes it possible to have eight different background and
       foreground colors; additionally, bold and italic attributes can be used
       at the same time (by using the BI font).

       The following colors are defined in tty.tmac: black, white, red, green,
       blue,  yellow, magenta, cyan.  Unknown colors are mapped to the default
       color (which is dependent on the settings  of  the  terminal;  in  most
       cases, this is black for the foreground and white for the background).

       Use the -c switch to revert to the old behaviour, printing a bold char-
       acter c with the sequence `c BACKSPACE c' and an italic character c  by
       the  sequence  `_ BACKSPACE c'.  At the same time, color output is dis-
       abled.   The  same  effect  can  be  achieved  by  setting  either  the
       GROFF_NO_SGR  environment  variable  or  using the `sgr' X command (see
       below).

       For SGR support, it is necessary to use the -R  option  of  less(1)  to
       disable  the  interpretation  of  grotty's  old  output format.  Conse-
       quently, all programs which use less as the pager program have to  pass
       this  option  to  it.   For  man(1) in particular, either add -R to the
       $PAGER environment variable, e.g.

              PAGER="/usr/bin/less -R"
              export PAGER

       or use the -P option of  man  to  set  the  pager  executable  and  its
       options,  or modify the configuration file of man in a similar fashion.
       Note that with some man(1) versions, you  have  to  use  the  $MANPAGER
       environment variable instead.

       grotty's  old  output  format  can be displayed on a terminal by piping
       through ul(1).  Pagers such as more(1) or less(1) are also able to dis-
       play  these  sequences.   Use either -B or -U when piping into less(1);
       use -b when piping into more(1).  There is no need to filter the output
       through col(1) since grotty never outputs reverse line feeds.

       The font description file may contain a command

              internalname n

       where n is a decimal integer.  If the 01 bit in n is set, then the font
       is treated as an italic font; if the 02 bit is set, then it is  treated
       as a bold font.  The code field in the font description field gives the
       code which is used to output the character.  This code can also be used
       in the \N escape sequence in troff.

       If  the  DESC  file  contains the keyword unicode, grotty emits Unicode
       characters in UTF-8 encoding.  Otherwise, it emits characters in a sin-
       gle-byte  encoding depending on the data in the font description files.
       See the groff_font(5) man page for more details.

OPTIONS
       -b     Suppress the use of overstriking for bold  characters.   Ignored
              if -c isn't used.

       -B     Use only overstriking for bold-italic characters.  Ignored if -c
              isn't used.

       -c     Use grotty's old output format (see above).  This also  disables
              color output.

       -d     Ignore  all  \D  commands.  Without this grotty renders \D'l...'
              commands that have at least one zero argument (and so are either
              horizontal or vertical) using -, |, and + characters.  In a sim-
              ilar  way,  grotty  handles  \D'p...'  commands  which   consist
              entirely of horizontal and vertical lines.

       -f     Use  form feeds in the output.  A form feed is output at the end
              of each page that has no output on its last line.

       -Fdir  Prepend directory dir/devname to the search path  for  font  and
              device  description  files; name is the name of the device, usu-
              ally ascii, latin1, utf8, or cp1047.

       -h     Use horizontal tabs in the output.  Tabs are assumed to  be  set
              every 8 columns.

       -i     Use escape sequences to set the italic text attribute instead of
              the underline attribute for italic fonts (`I' and  `BI').   Note
              that  most  terminals  (including  xterm)  don't  support  this.
              Ignored if -c is active.

       -o     Suppress overstriking (other than for bold or underlined charac-
              ters in case the old output format has been activated with -c).

       -r     Use  escape  sequences to set the reverse text attribute instead
              of the underline attribute for  italic  fonts  (`I'  and  `BI').
              Ignored if -c is active.

       -u     Suppress  the use of underlining for italic characters.  Ignored
              if -c isn't used.

       -U     Use only underlining for bold-italic characters.  Ignored if  -c
              isn't used.

       -v     Print the version number.

USAGE
       grotty  understands  a  single  X  command produced using the \X escape
       sequence.

       \X'tty: sgr n'
              If n is non-zero or missing, enable  SGR  output  (this  is  the
              default),  otherwise  use  the  old  drawing scheme for bold and
              underline.

ENVIRONMENT
       GROFF_NO_SGR
              If set, the old drawing scheme for bold and underline (using the
              backspace character) is active.  Colors are disabled.

       GROFF_FONT_PATH
              A  list of directories in which to search for the devname direc-
              tory  in  addition  to  the  default  ones.   See  troff(1)  and
              groff_font(5) for more details.

FILES
       /usr/share/groff/1.22.2/font/devascii/DESC
              Device description file for ascii device.

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.2/font/devascii/F
              Font description file for font F of ascii device.

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.2/font/devlatin1/DESC
              Device description file for latin1 device.

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.2/font/devlatin1/F
              Font description file for font F of latin1 device.

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.2/font/devutf8/DESC
              Device description file for utf8 device.

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.2/font/devutf8/F
              Font description file for font F of utf8 device.

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.2/font/devcp1047/DESC
              Device description file for cp1047 device.

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.2/font/devcp1047/F
              Font description file for font F of cp1047 device.

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.2/tmac/tty.tmac
              Macros for use with grotty.

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.2/tmac/tty-char.tmac
              Additional klugdey character definitions for use with grotty.

       Note  that  on  EBCDIC  hosts,  only  files  for  the  cp1047 device is
       installed.

BUGS
       grotty is intended only for simple documents.

       There is no support for fractional horizontal or vertical motions.

       There is no support for \D commands other than horizontal and  vertical
       lines.

       Characters above the first line (ie with a vertical position of 0) can-
       not be printed.

       Color handling is different compared to grops(1).  \M doesn't  set  the
       fill  color  for  closed  graphic objects (which grotty doesn't support
       anyway) but changes the background color of the character cell, affect-
       ing all subsequent operations.

SEE ALSO
       groff(1),  troff(1), groff_out(5), groff_font(5), groff_char(7), ul(1),
       more(1), man(1), less(1)



Groff Version 1.22.2           07 February 2013                      GROTTY(1)
