tblcvt examines troff input for tables that would
normally be processed by the tbl program, i.e., for lines
bracketed by the .TS table start and .TE table
end requests. tblcvt parses table specifications and data
and converts it to a form that troffcvt can more easily
handle. This is useful for document processing commands that use
troffcvt, since troffcvt has knowledge only of
the troff input language, and knows nothing of the
tbl input language.
tblcvt is a direct replacement for tbl. Suppose
you would normally process a document using tbl and
troff (or groff, etc.) like this:
Diagnostic messages are written in this format:
tblcvt - A troffcvt Preprocessor
For the most part, tblcvt assumes your tables make sense,
i.e., are legal according to the tbl input language.
tblcvt may complain about malformed table constructs (if it
detects them), but it may also get confused by them and generate
garbage output.
tblcvt generates troff output that uses long request
names, so you can't use compatibility mode -C ( option)
with troffcvt or a troffcvt front end.
tblcvt doesn't support vertically-spanned lines. It prints
a warning when it detects one, but the table output won't be correct.