GROTTY(1) General Commands Manual GROTTY(1)
NAME
grotty - groff driver for typewriter-like devices
SYNOPSIS
grotty [-bBcdfhioruUv] [-F dir] [file ...]
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 be-
low).
(Debian-specific: The old behaviour is the default when using the man
and mdoc macro packages, because most pagers either fail to cope with
SGR escape sequences or need special options to do so. SGR output can
be re-enabled permanently by editing /etc/groff/man.local and
/etc/groff/mdoc.local, or temporarily by setting the GROFF_SGR environ-
ment variable to something non-empty.)
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 op-
tions, or modify the configuration file of man in a similar fashion.
Note that with some man(1) versions, you have to use the MANPAGER envi-
ronment 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
Whitespace is permitted between a command-line option and its argument.
-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. (Debian-specific: This option is enabled by de-
fault when using the man and mdoc macro packages. It can be
disabled by default permanently by editing /etc/groff/man.local
and /etc/groff/mdoc.local, or temporarily by setting the
GROFF_SGR environment variable to something non-empty.)
-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 en-
tirely 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. Ig-
nored 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’). Ig-
nored 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 se-
quence.
\X'tty: sgr n'
If n is non-zero or missing, enable SGR output (this is the de-
fault), otherwise use the old drawing scheme for bold and under-
line.
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/1.22.4/font/devascii/DESC
Device description file for the ascii device.
/usr/share/groff/1.22.4/font/devascii/F
Font description file for font F of the ascii device.
/usr/share/groff/1.22.4/font/devlatin1/DESC
Device description file for the latin1 device.
/usr/share/groff/1.22.4/font/devlatin1/F
Font description file for font F of the latin1 device.
/usr/share/groff/1.22.4/font/devutf8/DESC
Device description file for the utf8 device.
/usr/share/groff/1.22.4/font/devutf8/F
Font description file for font F of the utf8 device.
/usr/share/groff/1.22.4/font/devcp1047/DESC
Device description file for the cp1047 device.
/usr/share/groff/1.22.4/font/devcp1047/F
Font description file for font F of the cp1047 device.
/usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/tty.tmac
Macros for use with grotty.
/usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/tty-char.tmac
Additional character definitions for use with grotty.
Note that on EBCDIC hosts, only files for the cp1047 device is in-
stalled.
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 differs from 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 sub-
sequent 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 1.22.4 7 March 2023 GROTTY(1)
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