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 driver, 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 ignores 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 operating 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,
              /opt/homebrew/Cellar/groff/1.23.0_1/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
       /opt/homebrew/Cellar/groff/1.23.0_1/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/tty-char.tmac
              defines fallback definitions of roff special characters.  These
              definitions more poorly optically approximate typeset 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                      5 July 2023                         nroff(1)