1GROFF_MAN(7) Miscellaneous Information Manual GROFF_MAN(7)
2
6 groff_man - groff man macros to support generation of man pages
7
9 groff -man [options ...] [files ...]
10 groff -m man [options ...] [files ...]
11
13 The man macros used to generate man pages with groff were written by
14 James Clark. This document provides a brief summary of the use of each
15 macro in that package.
16
18 The man macros understand the following command line options (which
19 define various registers).
20 -rcR=1 This option (the default if in nroff mode) creates a single,
22 very long page instead of multiple pages. Say -rcR=0 to disable
23 it.
24 -rC1 If more than one manual page is given on the command line, num‐
26 ber the pages continuously, rather than starting each at 1.
27 -rD1 Double-sided printing. Footers for even and odd pages are for‐
29 matted differently.
30 -rFT=dist
32 Set distance of the footer relative to the bottom of the page if
33 negative or relative to the top if positive. The default is
34 -0.5i.
35 -rHY=flags
37 Set hyphenation flags. Possible values are 1 to hyphenate with‐
38 out restrictions, 2 to not hyphenate the last word on a page,
39 4 to not hyphenate the last two characters of a word, and 8 to
40 not hyphenate the first two characters of a word. These values
41 are additive; the default is 14.
42 -rIN=width
44 Set body text indentation to width. The default is 7n for
45 nroff, 7.2n for troff. For nroff, this value should always be
46 an integer multiple of unit ‘n’ to get consistent indentation.
47 -rLL=line-length
49 Set line length. If this option is not given, the line length
50 is set to respect any value set by a prior ‘.ll’ request (which
51 must be in effect when the ‘.TH’ macro is invoked), if this dif‐
52 fers from the built-in default for the formatter; otherwise it
53 defaults to 78n in nroff mode and 6.5i in troff mode.
54 Note that the use of a ‘.ll’ request to initialize the line
56 length is supported for backward compatibility with some ver‐
57 sions of the man program; direct initialization of the ‘LL’ reg‐
58 ister should always be preferred to the use of such a request.
59 In particular, note that a ‘.ll 65n’ request does not preserve
60 the normal nroff default line length, (the man default initial‐
61 ization to 78n prevails), whereas, the ‘-rLL=65n’ option, or an
62 equivalent ‘.nr LL 65n’ request preceding the use of the ‘TH’
63 macro, does set a line length of 65n.
64 -rLT=title-length
66 Set title length. If this option is not given, the title length
67 defaults to the line length.
68 -rPnnn Enumeration of pages start with nnn rather than with 1.
70 -rSxx Base document font size is xx points (xx can be 10, 11, or 12)
72 rather than 10 points.
73 -rSN=width
75 Set sub-subheading indentation to width. The default is 3n.
76 -rXnnn After page nnn, number pages as nnna, nnnb, nnnc, etc. For
78 example, the option ‘-rX2’ produces the following page numbers:
79 1, 2, 2a, 2b, 2c, etc.
80
82 This section describes the available macros for manual pages. For fur‐
83 ther customization, put additional macros and requests into the file
84 man.local, which is loaded immediately after the man package.
85 .EX
87 .EE Example/End Example. After .EX, filling is disabled and the
88 font is set to constant-width. This is useful for formatting
89 code, command, and configuration-file examples. The EE macro
90 restores filling and restores the previous font.
91 These macros are defined on many (but not all) legacy Unix sys‐
93 tems running classic troff. To be certain your page will be
94 portable to those systems, copy their definitions from the
95 an-ext.tmac file of a groff installation.
96 .HP [nnn]
98 Set up a paragraph with hanging left indentation. The indenta‐
99 tion is set to nnn if that argument is supplied (the default
100 unit is ‘n’ if omitted), otherwise it is set to the previous
101 indentation value specified with .TP, .IP, or .HP (or to the
102 default value if none of them have been used yet). Font size
103 and face are reset to its default values. The following para‐
104 graph illustrates the effect of this macro with hanging indenta‐
105 tion set to 4 (enclosed by .RS and .RE to set the left margin
106 temporarily to the current indentation):
107 This is a paragraph following an invocation of the HP macro. As
109 you can see, it produces a paragraph where all lines but the
110 first are indented.
111 Use of this presentation-level macro is deprecated. While it is
113 universally portable to legacy Unix systems, a hanging indenta‐
114 tion cannot be expressed naturally under HTML, and many HTML-
115 based manual viewers simply interpret it as a starter for a nor‐
116 mal paragraph. Thus, any information or distinction you tried
117 to express with the indentation may be lost.
118 .IP [designator] [nnn]
120 Set up an indented paragraph, using designator as a tag to mark
121 its beginning. The indentation is set to nnn if that argument
122 is supplied (the default unit is ‘n’ if omitted), otherwise it
123 is set to the previous indentation value specified with .TP,
124 .IP, or .HP (or to the default value if none of them have been
125 used yet). Font size and face of the paragraph (but not the
126 designator) are reset to its default values.
127 To start an indented paragraph with a particular indentation but
129 without a designator, use ‘""’ (two doublequotes) as the second
130 argument.
131 For example, the following paragraphs were all set up with bul‐
133 lets as the designator, using ‘.IP \(bu 4’. The whole block has
134 been enclosed with .RS and .RE to set the left margin temporar‐
135 ily to the current indentation value.
136 · IP is one of the three macros used in the man package to
138 format lists.
139 · HP is another. This macro produces a paragraph with a left
141 hanging indentation.
142 · TP is another. This macro produces an unindented label fol‐
144 lowed by an indented paragraph.
145 .LP
147 .PP
148 .P These macros are mutual aliases. Any of them causes a line
149 break at the current position, followed by a vertical space
150 downwards by the amount specified by the PD macro. The font
151 size and shape are reset to the default value (normally 10pt
152 Roman). Finally, the current left margin and the indentation is
153 reset to the default values.
154 .RE [nnn]
156 This macro moves the left margin back to level nnn, restoring
157 the previous left margin. If no argument is given, it moves one
158 level back. The first level (i.e., no call to .RS yet) has num‐
159 ber 1, and each call to .RS increases the level by 1.
160 .RS [nnn]
162 This macro moves the left margin to the right by the value nnn
163 if specified (default unit is ‘n’); otherwise it is set to the
164 previous indentation value specified with .TP, .IP, or .HP (or
165 to the default value if none of them have been used yet). The
166 indentation value is then set to the default.
167 Calls to the RS macro can be nested.
169 .SH [text for a heading]
171 Set up an unnumbered section heading sticking out to the left.
172 Prints out all the text following .SH up to the end of the line
173 (or the text in the next input line if there is no argument to
174 .SH) in bold face (or the font specified by the string HF), one
175 size larger than the base document size. Additionally, the left
176 margin and the indentation for the following text is reset to
177 the default values.
178 .SS [text for a heading]
180 Set up a secondary, unnumbered section heading. Prints out all
181 the text following .SS up to the end of the line (or the text in
182 the next input line if there is no argument to .SS) in bold face
183 (or the font specified by the string HF), at the same size as
184 the base document size. Additionally, the left margin and the
185 indentation for the following text is reset to the default val‐
186 ues.
187 .TH title section [extra1] [extra2] [extra3]
189 Set the title of the man page to title and the section to sec‐
190 tion, which must take on a value between 1 and 8. The value
191 section may also have a string appended, e.g. ‘.pm’, to indicate
192 a specific subsection of the man pages. Both title and section
193 are positioned at the left and right in the header line (with
194 section in parentheses immediately appended to title. extra1 is
195 positioned in the middle of the footer line. extra2 is posi‐
196 tioned at the left in the footer line (or at the left on even
197 pages and at the right on odd pages if double-sided printing is
198 active). extra3 is centered in the header line.
199 For HTML output, headers and footers are completely suppressed.
201 Additionally, this macro starts a new page; the new line number
203 is 1 again (except if the ‘-rC1’ option is given on the command
204 line) -- this feature is intended only for formatting multiple
205 man pages; a single man page should contain exactly one TH macro
206 at the beginning of the file.
207 .TP [nnn]
209 Set up an indented paragraph with label. The indentation is set
210 to nnn if that argument is supplied (the default unit is ‘n’ if
211 omitted), otherwise it is set to the previous indentation value
212 specified with .TP, .IP, or .HP (or to the default value if none
213 of them have been used yet).
214 The first input line of text following this macro is interpreted
216 as a string to be printed flush-left, as it is appropriate for a
217 label. It is not interpreted as part of a paragraph, so there
218 is no attempt to fill the first line with text from the follow‐
219 ing input lines. Nevertheless, if the label is not as wide as
220 the indentation the paragraph starts at the same line (but
221 indented), continuing on the following lines. If the label is
222 wider than the indentation the descriptive part of the paragraph
223 begins on the line following the label, entirely indented. Note
224 that neither font shape nor font size of the label is set to a
225 default value; on the other hand, the rest of the text has
226 default font settings.
227 The TP macro is the macro used for the explanations you are just
229 reading.
230 .TQ The TQ macro sets up header continuation for a TP macro. With
232 it, you can stack up any number of labels (such as in a glos‐
233 sary, or list of commands) before beginning the indented para‐
234 graph. For an example, look up the documentation of the LP, PP,
235 and P macros.
236 This macro is not defined on legacy Unix systems running classic
238 troff. To be certain your page will be portable to those sys‐
239 tems, copy its definition from the an-ext.tmac file of a groff
240 installation.
241 To summarize, the following macros cause a line break with the inser‐
243 tion of vertical space (which amount can be changed with the PD macro):
244 SH, SS, TP, TQ, LP (PP, P), IP, and HP. The macros RS, RE, EX, and EE
245 also cause a break but no insertion of vertical space.
246
248 The standard font is Roman; the default text size is 10 point.
249 .B [text]
251 Causes text to appear in bold face. If no text is present on
252 the line where the macro is called the text of the next input
253 line appears in bold face.
254 .BI text
256 Causes text on the same line to appear alternately in bold face
257 and italic. The text must be on the same line as the macro
258 call. Thus
259 .BI this "word and" that
261 would cause ‘this’ and ‘that’ to appear in bold face, while
263 ‘word and’ appears in italics.
264 .BR text
266 Causes text on the same line to appear alternately in bold face
267 and roman. The text must be on the same line as the macro call.
268 .I [text]
270 Causes text to appear in italic. If no text is present on the
271 line where the macro is called the text of the next input line
272 appears in italic.
273 .IB text
275 Causes text to appear alternately in italic and bold face. The
276 text must be on the same line as the macro call.
277 .IR text
279 Causes text on the same line to appear alternately in italic and
280 roman. The text must be on the same line as the macro call.
281 .RB text
283 Causes text on the same line to appear alternately in roman and
284 bold face. The text must be on the same line as the macro call.
285 .RI text
287 Causes text on the same line to appear alternately in roman and
288 italic. The text must be on the same line as the macro call.
289 .SB [text]
291 Causes the text on the same line or the text on the next input
292 line to appear in boldface font, one point size smaller than the
293 default font.
294 .SM [text]
296 Causes the text on the same line or the text on the next input
297 line to appear in a font that is one point size smaller than the
298 default font.
299
301 The following macros are not defined on legacy Unix systems running
302 classic troff. To be certain your page will be portable to those sys‐
303 tems, copy their definitions from the an-ext.tmac file of a groff
304 installation.
305 Using these macros helps ensure that you get hyperlinks when your man‐
307 ual page is rendered in a browser or other program that is Web-enabled.
308 .MT address
310 .ME [punctuation]
311 Wrap an email address. The argument of .MT is the address; text
312 following, until .ME, is a name to be associated with the
313 address. Any argument to the ME macro is pasted to the end of
314 the link text. On a device that is not a browser,
315 contact
317 .MT fred.foonly@\:fubar.net
318 Fred Foonly
319 .ME
320 for more information
321 usually displays like this: “contact Fred Foonly <fred.foonly@
323 fubar.net> for more information”.
324 The use of \: to insert hyphenless breakpoints is a groff exten‐
326 sion and can be omitted.
327 .UR URL
329 .UE [punctuation]
330 Wrap a World Wide Web hyperlink. The argument to .UR is the
331 URL; thereafter, lines until .UE are collected and used as the
332 link text. Any argument to the UE macro is pasted to the end of
333 the text. On a device that is not a browser,
334 this is a link to
336 .UR http://\:randomsite.org/\:fubar
337 some random site
338 .UE ,
339 given as an example
340 usually displays like this: “this is a link to some random site
342 <http://randomsite.org/fubar>, given as an example”.
343 The use of \: to insert hyphenless breakpoints is a groff exten‐
345 sion and can be omitted.
346
348 The following macros are not defined on legacy Unix systems running
349 classic troff. To be certain your page will be portable to those sys‐
350 tems, copy their definitions from the an-ext.tmac file of a groff
351 installation.
352 These macros are a convenience for authors. They also assist automated
354 translation tools and help browsers in recognizing command synopses and
355 treating them differently from running text.
356 .OP key value
358 Describe an optional command argument. The arguments of this
359 macro are set surrounded by option braces in the default Roman
360 font; the first argument is printed with a bold face, while the
361 second argument is typeset as italic.
362 .SY command
364 Begin synopsis. Takes a single argument, the name of a command.
365 Text following, until closed by .YS, is set with a hanging
366 indentation with the width of command plus a space. This pro‐
367 duces the traditional look of a Unix command synopsis.
368 .YS This macro restores normal indentation at the end of a command
370 synopsis.
371 Here is a real example:
373 .SY groff
375 .OP \-abcegiklpstzCEGNRSUVXZ
376 .OP \-d cs
377 .OP \-f fam
378 .OP \-F dir
379 .OP \-I dir
380 .OP \-K arg
381 .OP \-L arg
382 .OP \-m name
383 .OP \-M dir
384 .OP \-n num
385 .OP \-o list
386 .OP \-P arg
387 .OP \-r cn
388 .OP \-T dev
389 .OP \-w name
390 .OP \-W name
391 .RI [ file
392 .IR .\|.\|. ]
393 .YS
394 produces the following output:
396 groff [-abcegiklpstzCEGNRSUVXZ] [-d cs] [-f fam] [-F dir]
398 [-I dir] [-K arg] [-L arg] [-m name] [-M dir] [-n num]
399 [-o list] [-P arg] [-r cn] [-T dev] [-w name] [-W name]
400 [file ...]
401 If necessary, you might use br requests to control line breaking. You
403 can insert plain text as well; this looks like the traditional (unorna‐
404 mented) syntax for a required command argument or filename.
405
407 The default indentation is 7.2n in troff mode and 7n in nroff mode
408 except for grohtml, which ignores indentation.
409 .AT [system [release]]
411 Alter the footer for use with AT&T man pages. This command
412 exists only for compatibility; don't use it. See the groff info
413 manual for more.
414 .BT Print the footer string. Redefine this macro to get control of
416 the footer.
417 .DT Set tabs every 0.5 inches. Since this macro is always called
419 during a TH macro, it makes sense to call it only if the tab
420 positions have been changed.
421 Use of this presentation-level macro is deprecated. It trans‐
423 lates poorly to HTML, under which exact whitespace control and
424 tabbing are not readily available. Thus, information or dis‐
425 tinctions that you use .DT to express are likely to be lost. If
426 you feel tempted to use it, you should probably be composing a
427 table using tbl(1) markup instead.
428 .PD [nnn]
430 Adjust the empty space before a new paragraph or section. The
431 optional argument gives the amount of space (default unit is
432 ‘v’); without parameter, the value is reset to its default value
433 (1 line in nroff mode, 0.4v otherwise). This affects the macros
434 SH, SS, TP, LP (resp. PP and P), IP, and HP.
435 Use of this presentation-level macro is deprecated. It trans‐
437 lates poorly to HTML, under which exact control of inter-para‐
438 graph spacing is not readily available. Thus, information or
439 distinctions that you use .PD to express are likely to be lost.
440 .PT Print the header string. Redefine this macro to get control of
442 the header.
443 .UC [version]
445 Alter the footer for use with BSD man pages. This command
446 exists only for compatibility; don't use it. See the groff info
447 manual for more.
448 The following strings are defined:
450 \*R The ‘registered’ sign.
452 \*S Switch back to the default font size.
454 \*(lq
456 \*(rq Left and right quote. This is equal to ‘\(lq’ and ‘\(rq\[cq],
457 respectively.
458 \*(HF The typeface used to print headings and subheadings. The
460 default is ‘B’.
461 \*(Tm The ‘trademark’ sign.
463 If a preprocessor like tbl or eqn is needed, it has become common to
465 make the first line of the man page look like this:
466 '\" word
468 Note the single space character after the double quote. word consists
470 of letters for the needed preprocessors: ‘e’ for eqn, ‘r’ for refer,
471 and ‘t’ for tbl. Modern implementations of the man program read this
472 first line and automatically call the right preprocessor(s).
473
475 Since the man macros consist of groups of groff requests, one can, in
476 principle, supplement the functionality of the man macros with individ‐
477 ual groff requests where necessary. See the groff info pages for a
478 complete reference of all requests.
479 Note, however, that using raw troff requests is likely to make your
481 page render poorly on the (increasingly common) class of viewers that
482 render it to HTML. Troff requests make implicit assumptions about
483 things like character and page sizes that may break in an HTML environ‐
484 ment; also, many of these viewers don't interpret the full troff vocab‐
485 ulary, a problem that can lead to portions of your text being silently
486 dropped.
487 For portability to modern viewers, it is best to write your page
489 entirely in the requests described on this page. Further, it is best
490 to completely avoid those we have described as ‘presentation-level’
491 (.HP, .PD, and .DT).
492 The macros we have described as extensions (.EX/.EE, .SY/.OP/.YS,
494 .UR/.UE, and .MT/.ME) should be used with caution, as they may not yet
495 be built in to some viewer that is important to your audience. If in
496 doubt, copy the implementation onto your page.
497
499 man.tmac
500 an.tmac
501 These are wrapper files to call andoc.tmac.
502 andoc.tmac
504 Use this file in case you don't know whether the man macros or
505 the mdoc package should be used. Multiple man pages (in either
506 format) can be handled.
507 an-old.tmac
509 Most man macros are contained in this file.
510 an-ext.tmac
512 The extension macro definitions for .SY, .OP, .YS, .TQ, .EX/.EE,
513 .UR/.UE, and .MT/.ME are contained in this file. It is written
514 in classic troff, and released for free re-use, and not copy‐
515 lefted; manual page authors concerned about portability to
516 legacy Unix systems are encouraged to copy these definitions
517 into their pages, and maintainers of troff or its workalikes are
518 encouraged to re-use them.
519 Note that the definitions for these macros are read after the
521 call of TH, so they will replace macros of the same names given
522 at the beginning of your file. If you must use your own defini‐
523 tions for these macros, they must be given after calling TH.
524 man.local
526 Local changes and customizations should be put into this file.
527
529 tbl(1), eqn(1), refer(1), man(1), man(7), groff_mdoc(7)
530
532 Copyright © 1999-2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
533 Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
535 manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
536 preserved on all copies.
537 Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
539 manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the
540 entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a per‐
541 mission notice identical to this one.
542 Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this man‐
544 ual into another language, under the above conditions for modified ver‐
545 sions, except that this permission notice may be included in transla‐
546 tions approved by the Free Software Foundation instead of in the origi‐
547 nal English.
548
550 This manual page was originally written for the Debian GNU/Linux system
551 by Susan G. Kleinmann ⟨sgk@debian.org⟩.
552 It was corrected and updated by Werner Lemberg ⟨wl@gnu.org⟩.
554 The extension macros were documented (and partly designed) by Eric S.
556 Raymond ⟨esr@thyrsus.com⟩; he also wrote the portability advice.
557Groff Version 1.22.3 4 November 2014 GROFF_MAN(7)