nroff(1)                                             General Commands Manual                                             nroff(1)

Name
       nroff - format documents with groff for TTY (terminal) devices

Synopsis
       nroff [-bcCEhikpRStUVz] [-d ctext] [-d string=text] [-K fallback-encoding] [-m macro-package] [-M macro-directory]
             [-n page-number] [-o page-list] [-P postprocessor-argument] [-r cnumeric-expression] [-r register=numeric-
             expression] [-T output-device] [-w warning-category] [-W warning-category] [file ...]

       nroff --help

       nroff -v
       nroff --version

Description
       nroff  formats  documents  written  in  the groff(7) language for typewriter-like devices such as terminal emulators.  GNU
       nroff emulates the AT&T nroff command using groff(1).  nroff generates output via grotty(1), groff's terminal output  dri‐
       ver,  which  needs to know the character encoding scheme used by the device.  Consequently, acceptable arguments to the -T
       option are ascii, latin1, utf8, and cp1047; any others are ignored.  If neither the GROFF_TYPESETTER environment  variable
       nor  the  -T command-line option (which overrides the environment variable) specifies a (valid) device, nroff consults the
       locale to select an appropriate output device.  It first tries the locale(1) program, then checks  several  locale-related
       environment variables; see section “Environment” below.  If all of the foregoing fail, -Tascii is implied.

       The -b, -c, -C, -d, -E, -i, -m, -M, -n, -o, -r, -U, -w, -W, and -z options have the effects described in troff(1).  -c and
       -h  imply “-P-c” and “-P-h”, respectively; -c is also interpreted directly by troff.  In addition, this implementation ig‐
       nores the AT&T nroff options -e, -q, and -s (which are not implemented in groff).  The options -k, -K, -p, -P, -R, -t, and
       -S are documented in groff(1).  -V causes nroff to display the constructed groff command on the  standard  output  stream,
       but  does  not  execute  it.  -v and --version show version information about nroff and the programs it runs, while --help
       displays a usage message; all exit afterward.

Exit status
       nroff exits with error status 2 if there was a problem parsing its arguments, with status 0 if any of the options -V,  -v,
       --version, or --help were specified, and with the status of groff otherwise.

Environment
       Normally,  the path separator in environment variables ending with PATH is the colon; this may vary depending on the oper‐
       ating system.  For example, Windows uses a semicolon instead.

       GROFF_BIN_PATH
              is a colon-separated list of directories in which to search for the groff executable before searching in PATH.   If
              unset, /usr/bin is used.

       GROFF_TYPESETTER
              specifies the default output device for groff.

       LC_ALL
       LC_CTYPE
       LANG
       LESSCHARSET
              are  pattern-matched  in  this  order  for contents matching standard character encodings supported by groff in the
              event no -T option is given and GROFF_TYPESETTER is unset, or the values specified are invalid.

Files
       /usr/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/tty-char.tmac
              defines fallback definitions of roff special characters.  These definitions more poorly optically approximate type‐
              set output than those of tty.tmac in favor of communicating semantic information.  nroff loads it automatically.

Notes
       Pager programs like more(1) and less(1) may require command-line options to correctly handle some  output  sequences;  see
       grotty(1).

See also
       groff(1), troff(1), grotty(1), locale(1), roff(7)

groff 1.23.0                                              31 March 2024                                                  nroff(1)