Using troff

Troff formats text for printing or display. The troff language is not usually used directly but through some intermediary. Commonly this involves embedding the tags defined by the ms(6) macros into your text document.

For example,

troff -ms file

would output your text file with ms(6) macros as PostScript. Another commonly used set of macros are for typesetting man(6) pages. To view a typeset version of a manpage:

troff -man /sys/man/4/factotum | page


Various tools can be used in conjunction with troff to form a toolset for word-processing, publishing, or as the back-end of such an application.