NAME
groff_man - groff ‘man’ macros to support generation of man pages
SYNOPSIS
[options ...] [files ...] [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).
-rcR=1 This option (the default if in nroff mode) creates a single,
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,
number the pages continuously, rather than starting each at 1.
-rD1 Double-sided printing. Footers for even and odd pages are
formatted differently.
-rFT=dist
Set distance of the footer relative to the bottom of the page if
negative or relative to the top if positive. The default is
-0.5i.
-rHY=flags
Set hyphenation flags. Possible values are 1 to hyphenate
without restrictions, 2 to not hyphenate the last word on a
page, 4 to not hyphenate the last two characters of a word, and
8 to not hyphenate the first two characters of a word. These
values are additive; the default is 14.
-rIN=width
Set body text indentation to width. The default is 7n for
nroff, 7.2n for troff. For nroff, this value should always be
an integer multiple of unit ‘n’ to get consistent indentation.
-rLL=line-length
Set line length. If this option is not given, the line length
is set to respect any value set by a prior ‘.ll’ request, (which
must be in effect when the ‘.TH’ macro is invoked), if this
differs from the built-in default for the formatter; otherwise
it defaults to 78n in nroff mode and 6.5i in troff mode.
Note that the use of a ‘.ll’ request to initialize the line
length is supported for backward compatibility with some
versions of the man program; direct initialization of the ‘LL’
register should always be preferred to the use of such a
request. In particular, note that a ‘.ll 65n’ request does not
preserve the normal nroff default line length, (the man default
initialization to 78n prevails), whereas, the ‘-rLL=65n’ option,
or an equivalent ‘.nr LL 65n’ request preceding the use of the
‘TH’ macro, does set a line length of 65n.
-rLT=title-length
Set title length. If this option is not given, the title length
defaults to the line length.
-rPnnn Enumeration of pages 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.
-rSN=width
Set sub-subheading indentation to width. The default is 3n.
-rXnnn After page nnn, number pages as nnna, nnnb, nnnc, etc. For
example, the option ‘-rX2’ produces the following page numbers:
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 is loaded immediately after the man package.
.TH title section [extra1] [extra2] [extra3]
Set the title of the man page to title and the section to
section, which must take on a value between 1 and 8. The value
section may also have a string appended, e.g. ‘.pm’, to indicate
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 is
positioned in the middle of the footer line. extra2 is
positioned at the left in the footer line (or at the left on
even pages and at the right on odd pages if double-sided
printing is active). extra3 is centered in the header line.
For HTML output, headers and footers are completely suppressed.
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]
Set up an unnumbered section heading sticking out to the left.
Prints out all the text following SH up to the end of the line
(or the text in the next input line if there is no argument to
SH) in bold face (or the font specified by the string HF), one
size larger than the base document size. Additionally, the left
margin and the indentation for the following text is reset to
the default values.
.SS [text for a heading]
Set up a secondary, unnumbered section heading. Prints out all
the text following SS up to the end of the line (or the text in
the next input line if there is no argument to SS) in bold face
(or the font specified by the string HF), at the same size as
the base document size. Additionally, the left margin and the
indentation for the following text is reset to the default
values.
.TP [nnn]
Set 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 previous indentation value
specified with TP, IP, or HP (or to the default value if none of
them have been used yet).
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 the paragraph starts at the same line
(but indented), continuing on the following lines. If the label
is wider than the indentation the descriptive part of the
paragraph begins on the line following 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 has default font settings.
The TP macro is the macro used for the explanations you are just
reading.
.TQ The TQ macro sets up header continuation for a .TP macro. With
it, you can stack up any number of labels (such as in a
glossary, or list of commands) before beginning the indented
paragraph. For an example, look just past the next paragraph.
This macro is not defined on legacy Unix systems running classic
troff. To be certain your page will be portable to those
systems, copy its definition from the an-ext.tmac file of a
groff installation.
.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 (normally 10pt
Roman). Finally, the current left margin and the indentation
are restored.
.IP [designator] [nnn]
Set up an indented paragraph, using designator as a tag to mark
its beginning. The indentation is set to nnn if that argument
is supplied (the default unit is ‘n’ if omitted), otherwise it
is set to the previous indentation value specified with TP, IP,
or HP (or to the default value if none of them have been used
yet). 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 doublequotes) as the second
argument.
For example, the following paragraphs were all set up with
bullets as the designator, using ‘.IP \(bu 4’. The whole block
has been enclosed with ‘.RS’ and ‘.RE’ to set the left margin
temporarily to the current indentation value.
· 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]
Set up a paragraph with hanging left indentation. The
indentation is set to nnn if that argument is supplied (the
default unit is ‘n’ if omitted), otherwise it is set to the
previous indentation value specified with TP, IP, or HP (or to
the default value if none of them have been used yet). 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 (enclosed by .RS and .RE to set the left
margin temporarily to the current indentation):
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.
Use of this presentation-level macro is deprecated. While it is
universally portable to legacy Unix systems, a hanging
indentation cannot be expressed naturally under HTML, and many
HTML-based manual viewers simply interpret it as a starter for a
normal paragraph. Thus, any information or distinction you
tried to express with the indentation may be lost.
.RS [nnn]
This macro moves the left margin to the right by the value nnn
if specified (default unit is ‘n’); otherwise it is set to the
previous indentation value specified with TP, IP, or HP (or to
the default value if none of them have been used yet). The
indentation value is then set to the default.
Calls to the RS macro can be nested.
.RE [nnn]
This macro moves the left margin back to level nnn, restoring
the previous left margin. If no argument 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.
.EX .EE Example/End Example. After EX, filling is disabled and the
font is set to constant-width. This is useful for formatting
code, command, and configuration-file examples. The EE macro
restores the previous font.
These macros are defined on many (but not all) legacy Unix
systems running classic troff. To be certain your page will be
portable to those systems, copy their definitions from the
an-ext.tmac file of a groff installation.
To summarize, the following macros cause a line break with the
insertion of vertical space (which amount can be changed with the PD
macro): SH, SS, TP, TQ, LP (PP, P), IP, and HP. The macros RS, RE, EX,
and EE also cause a break but no insertion of vertical space.
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 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 the text of the next input line
appears in italic.
MACROS TO DESCRIBE HYPERLINKS AND EMAIL ADDRESSES
The following macros are not defined on legacy Unix systems running
classic troff. To be certain your page will be portable to those
systems, copy their definitions from the an-ext.tmac file of a groff
installation.
Using these macros helps ensure that you get hyperlinks when your
manual page is rendered in a browser or other program that is Web-
enabled.
.UR URL
.UE [punctuation] Wrap a World Wide Web hyperlink. The argument
to UR is the URL; thereafter, lines until UE are collected and
used as the link text. Any argument to the UE macro is pasted
to the end of the text. On a device that is not a browser,
this is a link to .UR http://\:randomsite.org/\:fubar
some random site .UE , given as an example
usually displays like this: “this is a link to some random site
<http://randomsite.org/fubar>, given as an example”.
The use of \: to insert hyphenless breakpoints is a groff
extension and can be omitted.
.MT address
.ME [punctuation] Wrap an email address. The argument of MT is
the address; text following, until ME, is a name to be
associated with the address. Any argument to the ME macro is
pasted to the end of the link text. On a device that is not a
browser,
contact .UR fred.foonly@\:fubar.net Fred Foonly .UE for
more information
usually displays like this: “contact Fred Foonly <fred.foonly@
fubar.net> for more information”.
The use of \: to insert hyphenless breakpoints is a groff
extension and can be omitted.
MACROS TO DESCRIBE COMMAND SYNOPSES
The following macros are not defined on legacy Unix systems running
classic troff. To be certain your page will be portable to those
systems, copy their definitions from the an-ext.tmac file of a groff
installation.
These macros are a convenience for authors. They also assist automated
translation tools and help browsers in recognizing command synopses and
treating them differently from running text.
.SY command
Begin synopsis. Takes a single argument, the name of a command.
Text following, until closed by YS, is set with a hanging
indentation with the width of command plus a space. This
produces the traditional look of a Unix command synopsis.
.OP key value
Describe an optional command argument. The arguments of this
macro are set surrounded by option braces in the default Roman
font; the first argument is printed with a bold face, while the
second argument is typeset as italic.
.YS This macro restores normal indentation at the end of a command
synopsis.
Here is a real example:
.SY groff .OP \-abcegiklpstzCEGNRSUVXZ .OP \-d cs .OP \-f fam
.OP \-F dir .OP \-I dir .OP \-K arg .OP \-L arg .OP \-m name .OP
\-M dir .OP \-n num .OP \-o list .OP \-P arg .OP \-r cn .OP \-T
dev .OP \-w name .OP \-W name .RI [ file .IR .\|.\|. ] .YS
produces the following output:
[file ...]
If necessary, you might use br requests to control line breaking. You
can insert plain text as well; this looks like the traditional
(unornamented) syntax for a required command argument or filename.
MISCELLANEOUS
The default indentation is 7.2n in troff mode and 7n in nroff mode
except for grohtml which ignores indentation.
.DT Set 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.
Use of this presentation-level macro is deprecated. It
translates poorly to HTML, under which exact whitespace control
and tabbing are not readily available. Thus, information or
distinctions that you use DT to express are likely to be lost.
If you feel tempted to use it, you should probably be composing
a table using tbl(@MAN1DIR@) markup instead.
.PD [nnn]
Adjust the empty space before a new paragraph or section. The
optional argument gives the amount of space (default unit is
‘v’); without parameter, the value is reset to its default value
(1 line in nroff mode, 0.4v otherwise). This affects the macros
SH, SS, TP, LP (resp. PP and P), IP, and HP.
Use of this presentation-level macro is deprecated. It
translates poorly to HTML, under which exact control of inter-
paragraph spacing is not readily available. Thus, information
or distinctions that you use PD to express are likely to be
lost.
.AT [system [release]]
Alter the footer for use with AT&T man pages. This command
exists only for compatibility; don’t use it. See the groff info
manual for more.
.UC [version]
Alter the footer for use with BSD man pages. This command
exists only for compatibility; don’t use it. See the groff info
manual for more.
.PT Print the header string. Redefine this macro to get control of
the header.
.BT Print the footer string. Redefine this macro to get control of
the footer.
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.
\*(HF The typeface used to print headings and subheadings. The
default is ‘B’.
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).
PORTABILITY AND TROFF REQUESTS
Since the man macros consist of groups of groff requests, one can, in
principle, supplement the functionality of the man macros with
individual groff requests where necessary. See the groff info pages
for a complete reference of all requests.
Note, however, that using raw troff requests is likely to make your
page render poorly on the (increasingly common) class of viewers that
render it to HTML. Troff requests make implicit assumptions about
things like character and page sizes that may break in an HTML
environment; also, many of these viewers don’t interpret the full troff
vocabulary, a problem which can lead to portions of your text being
silently dropped.
For portability to modern viewers, it is best to write your page
entirely in the requests described on this page. Further, it is best
to completely avoid those we have described as ‘presentation-level’
(HP, PD, and DT).
The macros we have described as extensions (.EX/.EE, .SY/.OP/.YS,
.UR/.UE, and .MT/.ME) should be used with caution, as they may not yet
be built in to some viewer that is important to your audience. If in
doubt, copy the implementation onto your page.
FILES
man.tmac
an.tmac These are wrapper files to call andoc.tmac.
andoc.tmac
Use this file in case you don’t know whether the man macros or
the mdoc package should be used. Multiple man pages (in either
format) can be handled.
an-old.tmac
Most man macros are contained in this file.
an-ext.tmac
The extension macro definitions for .SY, .OP, .YS, .TQ, .EX/.EE,
.UR/.UE, and .MT/.ME are contained in this file. It is written
in classic troff, and released for free re-use, and not
copylefted; manual page authors concerned about portability to
legacy Unix systems are encouraged to copy these definitions
into their pages, and maintainers of troff or its workalikes are
encouraged to re-use them.
man.local
Local changes and customizations should be put into this file.
SEE ALSO
tbl(1), eqn(1), refer(1), man(1), man(7), groff_mdoc(7)
AUTHORS
This manual page was originally written for the Debian GNU/Linux system
by Susan G. Kleinmann It was corrected and updated by Werner Lemberg
The extension macros were documented (and partly designed) by Eric S.
Raymond he also wrote the portability advice.