Ubuntu Manpage: grotty - groff driver for typewriter-like devices

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 parameter.

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 character c with the sequence `c
BACKSPACE c' and an italic character c by the sequence `_ BACKSPACE c'. At the same time, color output
is disabled. 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. Consequently, 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 display 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 single-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 similar
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, usually 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 characters 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 directory in addition to the default
              ones.  See troff(1) and groff_font(5) for more details.

FILES

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.3/font/devascii/DESC
              Device description file for ascii device.

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.3/font/devascii/F
              Font description file for font F of ascii device.

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.3/font/devlatin1/DESC
              Device description file for latin1 device.

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.3/font/devlatin1/F
              Font description file for font F of latin1 device.

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.3/font/devutf8/DESC
              Device description file for utf8 device.

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.3/font/devutf8/F
              Font description file for font F of utf8 device.

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.3/font/devcp1047/DESC
              Device description file for cp1047 device.

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.3/font/devcp1047/F
              Font description file for font F of cp1047 device.

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.3/tmac/tty.tmac
              Macros for use with grotty.

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.3/tmac/tty-char.tmac
              Additional kludgy 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 (i.e. with a vertical position of 0) cannot 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,
       affecting all subsequent operations.

COPYING

       Copyright © 1989-2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

       Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual provided the copyright notice
       and this permission notice are preserved on all copies.

       Permission  is  granted  to copy and distribute modified versions of this manual under the conditions for
       verbatim copying, provided that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under  the  terms  of  a
       permission notice identical to this one.

       Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this manual into another language, under the
       above conditions  for  modified  versions,  except  that  this  permission  notice  may  be  included  in
       translations approved by the Free Software Foundation instead of in the original English.