Manual: nroff

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 environ‐
       ment 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 imple‐
       mentation 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	pro‐
       grams 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, /usr/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
       /usr/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 automat‐
	      ically.

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					       2 December 2025						    nroff(1)