There are two types of predefined registers: read-only and read-write. These are all accessed via the \n escape sequence, even though some of them actually return string values.
| .$ | Number of arguments available at the current macro level.  | 
| $$ | Process ID of troff process (ditroff only). | 
| .A | Set to 1 in troff, if -a option used; always 1 in nroff.  | 
| .F | Name of the current input file (recent ditroff only).  | 
| .H | Available horizontal resolution in basic units. | 
| .L | Current line spacing (set by .ls) value (recent ditroff only).  | 
| .R | Number of unused number registers (recent ditroff only).  | 
| .T | Set to 1 in nroff, if -T option used; always 0 in oroff; in ditroff, the string \*(.T contains the value of -T.  | 
| .V | Available vertical resolution in basic units. | 
| .a | Post-line extra line space most recently utilized using \x'n'.  | 
| .b | Emboldening level (recent ditroff only).  | 
| .c | Number of lines read from current input file. | 
| .d | Current vertical place in current diversion; equal to register nl when there is no diversion.  | 
| .f | Current font as number (1 to 4 in otroff; 1 to 99 in ditroff).  | 
| .h | Text baseline high-water mark on current page or diversion. | 
| .i | Current indent. | 
| .j | Current adjustment mode. | 
| .k | Current output horizontal position.  | 
| .l | Current line length. | 
| .n | Length of text portion on previous output line. | 
| .o | Current page offset. | 
| .p | Current page length. | 
| .s | Current point size. | 
| .t | Distance to the next trap. | 
| .u | Equal to 1 in fill mode and 0 in no-fill mode. | 
| .v | Current vertical line spacing. | 
| .w | Width of previous character. | 
| .x | Reserved version-dependent register. | 
| .y | Reserved version-dependent register. | 
| .z | Name of current diversion. | 
| % | Current page number. | 
| ct | Character type (set by \w function).  | 
| dl | Width (maximum) of last completed diversion. | 
| dn | Height (vertical size) of last completed diversion. | 
| dw | Current day of the week (1 to 7). | 
| dy | Current day of the month (1 to 31). | 
| hp | Current horizontal place on input line.  | 
| ln | Output line number. | 
| mo | Current month (1 to 12). | 
| nl | Vertical position of last printed text baseline. | 
| sb | Depth of string below baseline (generated by \w function).  | 
| st | Height of string above baseline (generated by \w function).  | 
| yr | Years since 1900.[2] Yes, there's a potential Y2K problem here.  | 
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