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
       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 cor-
                 rect, 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  subdirecto-
                 ries  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
                 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,
                 /usr/lib/groff/site-tmac,   /usr/share/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.

       -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 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 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 unrecog-
                           nized 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 unde-
                           fined 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 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
                           default.  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/1.22.2/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
              (/usr/share/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
              Macro files

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.2/font/devname/DESC
              Device description file for device name.

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.2/font/devname/F
              Font file for font F of device name.

       Note that troffrc and troffrc-end are neither searched in  the  current
       nor  in 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.

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 Docu-
       mentation 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
       <wl@gnu.org> and Bernd Warken <groff-bernd.warken-72@web.de>.

       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  com-
              plete  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 point-
              ers to further related documentation.

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



Groff Version 1.22.2           04 September 2014                      TROFF(1)
