1GROTTY(1) General Commands Manual GROTTY(1)
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6 grotty - groff driver for typewriter-like devices
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9 grotty [-bBcdfhioruUv] [-F dir] [file ...]
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12 grotty translates the output of GNU troff into a form suitable for
13 typewriter-like devices. Normally grotty should be invoked by using
14 the groff command with a -Tascii, -Tlatin1 or -Tutf8 option on ASCII
15 based systems, and with -Tcp1047 and -Tutf8 on EBCDIC based hosts. If
16 no files are given, grotty reads the standard input. A filename of -
17 also causes grotty to read the standard input. Output is written to
18 the standard output.
19 By default, grotty emits SGR escape sequences (from ISO 6429, also
21 called ANSI color escapes) to change text attributes (bold, italic,
22 colors). This makes it possible to have eight different background and
23 foreground colors; additionally, bold and italic attributes can be used
24 at the same time (by using the BI font).
25 The following colors are defined in tty.tmac: black, white, red, green,
27 blue, yellow, magenta, cyan. Unknown colors are mapped to the default
28 color (which is dependent on the settings of the terminal; in most
29 cases, this is black for the foreground and white for the background).
30 Use the -c switch to revert to the old behaviour, printing a bold char‐
32 acter c with the sequence “c BACKSPACE c” and an italic character c by
33 the sequence “_ BACKSPACE c”. At the same time, color output is dis‐
34 abled. The same effect can be achieved by setting either the
35 GROFF_NO_SGR environment variable or using the ‘sgr’ X command (see be‐
36 low).
37 For SGR support, it is necessary to use the -R option of less(1) to
39 disable the interpretation of grotty's old output format. Conse‐
40 quently, all programs which use less as the pager program have to pass
41 this option to it. For man(1) in particular, either add -R to the
42 PAGER environment variable, e.g.
43 PAGER="/usr/bin/less -R"
45 export PAGER
46 or use the -P option of man to set the pager executable and its op‐
48 tions, or modify the configuration file of man in a similar fashion.
49 Note that with some man(1) versions, you have to use the MANPAGER envi‐
50 ronment variable instead.
51 grotty's old output format can be displayed on a terminal by piping
53 through ul(1). Pagers such as more(1) or less(1) are also able to dis‐
54 play these sequences. Use either -B or -U when piping into less(1);
55 use -b when piping into more(1). There is no need to filter the output
56 through col(1) since grotty never outputs reverse line feeds.
57 The font description file may contain a command
59 internalname n
61 where n is a decimal integer. If the 01 bit in n is set, then the font
63 is treated as an italic font; if the 02 bit is set, then it is treated
64 as a bold font. The code field in the font description field gives the
65 code which is used to output the character. This code can also be used
66 in the \N escape sequence in troff.
67 If the DESC file contains the keyword unicode, grotty emits Unicode
69 characters in UTF-8 encoding. Otherwise, it emits characters in a sin‐
70 gle-byte encoding depending on the data in the font description files.
71 See the groff_font(5) man page for more details.
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74 Whitespace is permitted between a command-line option and its argument.
75 -b Suppress the use of overstriking for bold characters. Ignored
77 if -c isn't used.
78 -B Use only overstriking for bold-italic characters. Ignored if -c
80 isn't used.
81 -c Use grotty's old output format (see above). This also disables
83 color output.
84 -d Ignore all \D commands. Without this grotty renders \D'l...'
86 commands that have at least one zero argument (and so are either
87 horizontal or vertical) using -, |, and + characters. In a sim‐
88 ilar way, grotty handles \D'p...' commands which consist en‐
89 tirely of horizontal and vertical lines.
90 -f Use form feeds in the output. A form feed is output at the end
92 of each page that has no output on its last line.
93 -Fdir Prepend directory dir/devname to the search path for font and
95 device description files; name is the name of the device, usu‐
96 ally ascii, latin1, utf8, or cp1047.
97 -h Use horizontal tabs in the output. Tabs are assumed to be set
99 every 8 columns.
100 -i Use escape sequences to set the italic text attribute instead of
102 the underline attribute for italic fonts (‘I’ and ‘BI’). Note
103 that most terminals (including xterm) don't support this. Ig‐
104 nored if -c is active.
105 -o Suppress overstriking (other than for bold or underlined charac‐
107 ters in case the old output format has been activated with -c).
108 -r Use escape sequences to set the reverse text attribute instead
110 of the underline attribute for italic fonts (‘I’ and ‘BI’). Ig‐
111 nored if -c is active.
112 -u Suppress the use of underlining for italic characters. Ignored
114 if -c isn't used.
115 -U Use only underlining for bold-italic characters. Ignored if -c
117 isn't used.
118 -v Print the version number.
120
122 grotty understands a single X command produced using the \X escape se‐
123 quence.
124 \X'tty: sgr n'
126 If n is non-zero or missing, enable SGR output (this is the de‐
127 fault), otherwise use the old drawing scheme for bold and under‐
128 line.
129
131 GROFF_NO_SGR
132 If set, the old drawing scheme for bold and underline (using the
133 backspace character) is active. Colors are disabled.
134 GROFF_FONT_PATH
136 A list of directories in which to search for the devname direc‐
137 tory in addition to the default ones. See troff(1) and
138 groff_font(5) for more details.
139
141 /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/font/devascii/DESC
142 Device description file for the ascii device.
143 /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/font/devascii/F
145 Font description file for font F of the ascii device.
146 /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/font/devlatin1/DESC
148 Device description file for the latin1 device.
149 /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/font/devlatin1/F
151 Font description file for font F of the latin1 device.
152 /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/font/devutf8/DESC
154 Device description file for the utf8 device.
155 /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/font/devutf8/F
157 Font description file for font F of the utf8 device.
158 /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/font/devcp1047/DESC
160 Device description file for the cp1047 device.
161 /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/font/devcp1047/F
163 Font description file for font F of the cp1047 device.
164 /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/tty.tmac
166 Macros for use with grotty.
167 /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/tty-char.tmac
169 Additional character definitions for use with grotty.
170 Note that on EBCDIC hosts, only files for the cp1047 device is in‐
172 stalled.
173
175 grotty is intended only for simple documents.
176 There is no support for fractional horizontal or vertical motions.
178 There is no support for \D commands other than horizontal and vertical
180 lines.
181 Characters above the first line (i.e. with a vertical position of 0)
183 cannot be printed.
184 Color handling differs from grops(1). \M doesn't set the fill color
186 for closed graphic objects (which grotty doesn't support anyway) but
187 changes the background color of the character cell, affecting all sub‐
188 sequent operations.
189
191 groff(1), troff(1), groff_out(5), groff_font(5), groff_char(7), ul(1),
192 more(1), man(1), less(1)
193groff 1.22.4 20 January 2022 GROTTY(1)