PROOF(1)

πŸ“¦
version 0_git20260208 Β· 2 versions
, in alpine 3.24, arch rolling, nixos 26.05, nixpkgs unstable

πŸŽ€ PROOF(1) β€” proof, the troff output interpreter πŸŽ€

okay bestie, welcome to PROOF(1) from the General Commands Manual β€” aka proof, the troff output interpreter, and yes she’s iconic πŸ’…

✨ NAME ✨

proof β€” troff output interpreter

πŸ¦‹ SYNOPSIS πŸ¦‹

proof [ -mmag ] [ -/nview ] [ -F dir ] [ -d ] [ file ]

πŸ’– DESCRIPTION πŸ’–

proof reads troff(1) intermediate language from file or standard input and simulates the resulting pages on the screen. no cap, it’s literally giving β€œpreview but make it Unix” ✨

After a page of text is displayed, proof pauses for a command from the keyboard. The typed commands are:

  • newline β€” Go on to next page of text.
  • - β€” Go back to the previous page.
  • q β€” Quit.
  • pn β€” Print page n. An out-of-bounds page number means the end nearer to that number; a missing number means the current page; a signed number means an offset to the current page.
  • n β€” Same as pn.
  • c β€” Clear the screen, then wait for another command.
  • mmag β€” Change the magnification at which the output is printed. Normally it is printed with magnification .9; mag=.5 shrinks it to half size; mag=2 doubles the size.
  • xval β€” Move everything val screen pixels to the right (left, if val is negative).
  • yval β€” Move everything val screen pixels down (up, if val is negative).
  • /nview β€” Split the window into nview pieces. The current page goes into the rightmost, bottommost piece, and previous pages are shown in the other pieces.
  • -F dir β€” Use dir for fonts instead of /lib/font/bit.
  • d β€” Toggle the debug flag.

These commands are also available, under slightly different form, from a menu on button 3. The pan menu item allows arbitrary positioning of the page: after selecting pan, press the mouse button again and hold it down while moving the page to the desired location. The page will be redisplayed in its entirety when the button is released. Mouse button 1 also pans, without the need for selecting from a menu.

The m, x, y, F, /, and d commands are also available as command line options.

🌸 FILES 🌸

  • /font/* β€” fonts
  • /font/MAP β€” how to convert troff output fonts and character names into screen fonts and character numbers

🌈 SOURCE 🌈

/src/cmd/proof

🫢 SEE ALSO 🫢


okay that’s the whole thing, bestie β€” the footer is literally just PROOF(1) (no extra date/version printed, so I’m not inventing one πŸ’…), and the source is /src/cmd/proof. mwah πŸ«ΆπŸ’–