# textproc/groff needed for man pages?



## Mayhem30 (Feb 1, 2019)

Since when is textproc/groff needed to view the man pages?

```
$ man screen
This manpage needs groff(1) to be rendered
First install groff(1):
pkg install groff
```


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## VladiBG (Feb 1, 2019)

What is the output of `env` command?
(i'm looking for MANPAGER or PAGER)


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## Mayhem30 (Feb 1, 2019)

Neither of those exist.


```
SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash
LSCOLORS=ExGxFxdxCxDxDxhbadExEx
EDITOR=/usr/local/bin/nano
PWD=/home/<username>
LOGNAME=<username>
HOME=/home/<username>
SSH_CONNECTION=xx.xx.xx.xx
TERM=xterm
USER=<username>
SHLVL=1
SSH_CLIENT=xx.xx.xx.xx
PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/home/<username>/bin
BLOCKSIZE=K
MAIL=Mail queue is empty
SSH_TTY=/dev/pts/0
_=/usr/bin/env
```


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## VladiBG (Feb 1, 2019)

can you try
`man -P more screen`
this will set the PAGER to MORE to display the `screen` manual.


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## Mayhem30 (Feb 1, 2019)

```
$ man -P more screen
This manpage needs groff(1) to be rendered
First install groff(1):
pkg install groff
```

This only started to happen after upgrading to FreeBSD 12.


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## VladiBG (Feb 1, 2019)

It's not because you upgraded to FreeBSD 12.
do you have /usr/bin/groff


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## Mayhem30 (Feb 1, 2019)

No, that file does not exist on the system.


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## yuripv (Feb 2, 2019)

There are two things happening:

groff was removed from base system in 12.0
man uses mandoc(1) for rendering now, and before displaying the page, it checks that there are no reported by mandoc, and if errors are reported, man fallbacks to using groff (from ports for 12.0)


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