Manual: colcrt
COLCRT(1) User Commands COLCRT(1)
NAME
colcrt - filter nroff output for CRT previewing
SYNOPSIS
colcrt [options] [file ...]
DESCRIPTION
colcrt provides virtual half-line and reverse line feed sequences for terminals without such capability, and on which
overstriking is destructive. Half-line characters and underlining (changed to dashing `-') are placed on new lines in
between the normal output lines.
OPTIONS
-, --no-underlining
Suppress all underlining. This option is especially useful for previewing allboxed tables from tbl(1).
-2, --half-lines
Causes all half-lines to be printed, effectively double spacing the output. Normally, a minimal space output
format is used which will suppress empty lines. The program never suppresses two consecutive empty lines,
however. The -2 option is useful for sending output to the line printer when the output contains superscripts and
subscripts which would otherwise be partially invisible.
-h, --help
Display help text and exit.
-V, --version
Display version and exit.
HISTORY
The colcrt command appeared in 3.0BSD.
BUGS
Should fold underlines onto blanks even with the - option so that a true underline character would show.
Canβt back up more than 102 lines.
General overstriking is lost; as a special case '|' overstruck with '-' or underline becomes '+'.
Lines are trimmed to 132 characters.
Some provision should be made for processing superscripts and subscripts in documents which are already
double-spaced.
EXAMPLES
A typical use of colcrt would be:
tbl exum2.n | nroff -ms | colcrt - | more
SEE ALSO
col(1), more(1), nroff(1), troff(1), ul(1)
REPORTING BUGS
For bug reports, use the issue tracker .
AVAILABILITY
The colcrt command is part of the util-linux package which can be downloaded from Linux Kernel Archive
.
util-linux 2.41.3 2025-12-15 COLCRT(1)