deroff(1)

deroff -- remove nroff/troff, tbl, and eqn constructs

Synopsis

deroff [-w] [-mm | -ms | -ml] [-i] [file] . . .

Description

deroff reads each of the files in sequence and removes all troff(1bsd) requests, macro calls, backslash constructs, eqn(1bsd) constructs (between .EQ and .EN lines, and between delimiters), and tbl(1bsd) descriptions, perhaps replacing them with white space (blanks and blank lines), and writes the remainder of the file on the standard output. deroff follows chains of included files (.so and .nx troff commands); if a file has already been included, a .so naming that file is ignored and a .nx naming that file terminates execution. If no input file is given, deroff reads the standard input.

Options

-w: Output a word list, one word per line, with all other characters deleted. Otherwise, the output follows the original, with the deletions mentioned above. In text, a word is any string that contains at least two letters and is composed of letters, digits, ampersands (&), and apostrophes (<'>). In a macro call, however, a word is a string that begins with at least two letters and contains a total of at least three letters. Delimiters are any characters other than letters, digits, apostrophes, and ampersands. Trailing apostrophes and ampersands are removed from words.
-mm: Interpret macros as mm macros.
-ms: Interpret macros as ms macros.
-ml: Interpret macros as mm macros and delete lists.
-i: Ignore the troff requests .so and .nx.

References

eqn(1bsd), nroff(1bsd), tbl(1bsd), troff(1bsd)

Notices

deroff is not a complete troff interpreter, so it can be confused by subtle constructs. Most such errors result in too much rather than too little output.

The -ml option does not handle nested lists correctly.