groff_man
GROFF_MAN(7) GROFF_MAN(7)
NAME
groff_man - groff ‘man’ macros to support generation of man pages
SYNOPSIS
groff -man [ options... ] [ files... ]
groff -m man [ options... ] [ files... ]
DESCRIPTION
The man macros used to generate man pages with groff were written by
James Clark. This document provides a brief summary of the use of
each macro in that package.
OPTIONS
The man macros understand the following command line options (which
define various registers).
-rLL=line-length
Set line length. If this option is not given, the line length
defaults to 78n in nroff mode and 6.5i in troff mode.
-rLT=title-length
Set title length. If this option is not given, the title
length defaults to 78n in nroff mode and 6.5i in troff mode.
-rcR=1 This option (the default if in nroff mode) will create a sin-
gle, very long page instead of multiple pages. Say -rcR=0 to
disable it.
-rC1 If more than one manual page is given on the command line, num-
ber the pages continuously, rather than starting each at 1.
-rD1 Double-sided printing. Footers for even and odd pages are for-
matted differently.
-rPnnn Enumeration of pages will start with nnn rather than with 1.
-rSxx Base document font size is xx points (xx can be 10, 11, or 12)
rather than 10 points.
-rXnnn After page nnn, number pages as nnna, nnnb, nnnc, etc. For
example, the option ‘-rX2’ will produce the following page num-
bers: 1, 2, 2a, 2b, 2c, etc.
USAGE
This section describes the available macros for manual pages. For
further customization, put additional macros and requests into the
file man.local which will be loaded immediately after the man package.
.TH title section [extra1] [extra2] [extra3]
Sets the title of the man page to title and the section to sec-
tion, which must take on a value between 1 and 8. The value
section may also have a string appended, e.g. ‘.pm’, to indi-
cate a specific subsection of the man pages. Both title and
section are positioned at the left and right in the header line
(with section in parentheses immediately appended to title.
extra1 will be positioned in the middle of the footer line.
extra2 will be positioned at the left in the footer line (resp.
at the left on even pages and at the right on odd pages if dou-
ble-sided printing is active). extra3 is centered in the
header line.
For HTML output, headers and footers are completely supressed.
Additionally, this macro starts a new page; the new line number
is 1 again (except if the ‘-rC1’ option is given on the command
line) -- this feature is intended only for formatting multiple
man pages; a single man page should contain exactly one TH
macro at the beginning of the file.
.SH [text for a heading]
Sets up an unnumbered section heading sticking out to the left.
Prints out all the text following SH up to the end of the line
(resp. the text in the next input line if there is no argument
to SH) in bold face, one size larger than the base document
size. Additionally, the left margin for the following text is
reset to its default value.
.SS [text for a heading]
Sets up an secondary, unnumbered section heading. Prints out
all the text following SS up to the end of the line (resp. the
text in the next input line if there is no argument to SS) in
bold face, at the same size as the base document size. Addi-
tionally, the left margin for the following text is reset to
its default value.
.TP [nnn]
Sets up an indented paragraph with label. The indentation is
set to nnn if that argument is supplied (the default unit is
‘n’ if omitted), otherwise it is set to the default indentation
value. The first input line of text following this macro is
interpreted as a string to be printed flush-left, as it is
appropriate for a label. It is not interpreted as part of a
paragraph, so there is no attempt to fill the first line with
text from the following input lines. Nevertheless, if the
label is not as wide as the indentation, then the paragraph
starts at the same line (but indented), continuing on the fol-
lowing lines. If the label is wider than the indentation, then
the descriptive part of the paragraph begins on the line fol-
lowing the label, entirely indented. Note that neither font
shape nor font size of the label is set to a default value; on
the other hand, the rest of the text will have default font
settings. The TP macro is the macro used for the explanations
you are just reading.
.LP
.PP
.P These macros are mutual aliases. Any of them causes a line
break at the current position, followed by a vertical space
downwards by the amount specified by the PD macro. The font
size and shape are reset to the default value (10pt resp.
Roman). Finally, the current left margin is restored.
.IP [designator] [nnn]
Sets up an indented paragraph, using designator as a tag to
mark its beginning. The indentation is set to nnn if that
argument is supplied (default unit is ‘n’), otherwise the
default indentation value is used. Font size and face of the
paragraph (but not the designator) are reset to its default
values. To start an indented paragraph with a particular
indentation but without a designator, use ‘""’ (two double-
quotes) as the second argument.
For example, the following paragraphs were all set up with bul-
lets as the designator, using ‘.IP \(bu 4’:
· IP is one of the three macros used in the man package to
format lists.
· HP is another. This macro produces a paragraph with a left
hanging indentation.
· TP is another. This macro produces an unindented label
followed by an indented paragraph.
.HP [nnn]
Sets up a paragraph with hanging left indentation. The inden-
tation is set to nnn if that argument is supplied (default unit
is ‘n’), otherwise the default indentation value is used. Font
size and face are reset to its default values. The following
paragraph illustrates the effect of this macro with hanging
indentation set to 4:
This is a paragraph following an invocation of the HP macro.
As you can see, it produces a paragraph where all lines but
the first are indented.
.RS [nnn]
This macro moves the left margin to the right by the value nnn
if specified (default unit is ‘n’); otherwise the default
indentation value is used. Calls to the RS macro can be
nested.
.RE [nnn]
This macro moves the left margin back to level nnn; if no argu-
ment is given, it moves one level back. The first level (i.e.,
no call to RS yet) has number 1, and each call to RS increases
the level by 1.
To summarize, the following macros cause a line break with the inser-
tion of vertical space (which amount can be changed with the PD
macro): SH, SS, TP, LP (PP, P), IP, and HP. The macros RS and RE also
cause a break but no insertion of vertical space. Finally, the macros
SH, SS, LP (PP, P), and RS reset the indentation to its default value.
MACROS TO SET FONTS
The standard font is Roman; the default text size is 10 point.
.SM [text]
Causes the text on the same line or the text on the next input
line to appear in a font that is one point size smaller than
the default font.
.SB [text]
Causes the text on the same line or the text on the next input
line to appear in boldface font, one point size smaller than
the default font.
.BI text
Causes text on the same line to appear alternately in bold face
and italic. The text must be on the same line as the macro
call. Thus
.BI this "word and" that
would cause ‘this’ and ‘that’ to appear in bold face, while
‘word and’ appears in italics.
.IB text
Causes text to appear alternately in italic and bold face. The
text must be on the same line as the macro call.
.RI text
Causes text on the same line to appear alternately in roman and
italic. The text must be on the same line as the macro call.
.IR text
Causes text on the same line to appear alternately in italic
and roman. The text must be on the same line as the macro
call.
.BR text
Causes text on the same line to appear alternately in bold face
and roman. The text must be on the same line as the macro
call.
.RB text
Causes text on the same line to appear alternately in roman and
bold face. The text must be on the same line as the macro
call.
.B [text]
Causes text to appear in bold face. If no text is present on
the line where the macro is called, then the text of the next
input line appears in bold face.
.I [text]
Causes text to appear in italic. If no text is present on the
line where the macro is called, then the text of the next input
line appears in italic.
MISCELLANEOUS
The default indentation is 7.2n for all output devices except for gro-
html which ignores indentation.
.DT Sets tabs every 0.5 inches. Since this macro is always called
during a TH request, it makes sense to call it only if the tab
positions have been changed.
.PD [nnn]
Adjusts the empty space before a new paragraph (resp. section).
The optional argument gives the amount of space (default units
are ‘v’); without parameter, the value is reset to its default
value (1 line for tty devices, 0.4v otherwise). This affects
the macros SH, SS, TP, LP (resp. PP and P), IP, and HP.
The following strings are defined:
\*S Switch back to the default font size.
\*R The ‘registered’ sign.
\*(Tm The ‘trademark’ sign.
\*(lq
\*(rq Left and right quote. This is equal to ‘\(lq’ and ‘\(rq’,
respectively.
If a preprocessor like tbl or eqn is needed, it has become usage to
make the first line of the man page look like this:
.\" word
Note the single space character after the double quote. word consists
of letters for the needed preprocessors: ‘e’ for eqn, ‘r’ for refer,
and ‘t’ for tbl. Modern implementations of the man program read this
first line and automatically call the right preprocessor(s).
FILES
man.tmac
an.tmac
These are wrapper files to call andoc.tmac.
andoc.tmac
This file checks whether the man macros or the mdoc package
should be used.
an-old.tmac
All man macros are contained in this file.
man.local
Local changes and customizations should be put into this file.
SEE ALSO
Since the man macros consist of groups of groff requests, one can, in
principle, supplement the functionality of the man macros with indi-
vidual groff requests where necessary. A complete list of these
requests is available on the WWW at
http://www.cs.pdx.edu/~trent/gnu/groff/groff_toc.html
tbl(1), eqn(1), refer(1), man(1)
AUTHOR
This manual page was originally written for the Debian GNU/Linux sys-
tem by Susan G. Kleinmann <sgk@debian.org>, corrected and updated by
Werner Lemberg <wl@gnu.org>, and is now part of the GNU troff distri-
bution.
Groff Version 1.18.1.1 05 September 2002 GROFF_MAN(7)
