1GROFF_ME(7) Miscellaneous Information Manual GROFF_ME(7)
2
6 groff_me - “me” macro package for formatting documents with GNU roff
7
9 groff -me [option ...] [input-file ...]
10 groff -m me [option ...] [input-file ...]
12
14 The me package of macro definitions for the roff language provides a
15 convenient facility for preparing technical papers in various formats.
16 This manual page describes the GNU version of the me macros, which is
17 part of the groff document formatting system. This version can be used
18 with both GNU troff and Unix troff.
19 Many roff requests are unsafe in conjunction with this package; how‐
21 ever, the following requests may be used with impunity after the first
22 .pp:
23 .bp begin new page
25 .br break output line here
26 .sp n insert n spacing lines
27 .ls n (line spacing) n=1 single, n=2 double space
28 .na no alignment of right margin
29 .ce n center next n lines
30 .ul n underline next n lines
31 Note: In contrast to its behavior with other macro packages and “raw”
33 roff, when using the me package, the .sp request will not put space at
34 the top of a page.
35 Output of the pic, eqn, refer, and tbl preprocessors is acceptable as
37 input.
38 Macro Reference
40 Numeric arguments to macros are denoted with lowercase letters and
41 string arguments with uppercase. An optional macro argument such as x
42 appears in brackets, [x]. Note that arguments to macros generally must
43 be quoted if they contain whitespace. An exception is the argument to
44 header and footer macros, which require some explanation. They take
45 the form “c left c middle c right c”, with spaces added here for clar‐
46 ity. The strings left, middle, and right correspond to their page
47 placement and can contain unprotected whitespace, but must not contain
48 the (non-space) character c, which delimits them. For brevity, the ta‐
49 ble presents header and footer arguments as clcmcrc. Popular choices
50 for c are the ASCII apostrophe “'” and the ASCII double quote “"”.
51 This list is incomplete; some requests are too complex to summarize in
53 a table, and some that are listed below accept additional arguments not
54 shown. See the -me Reference Manual for interesting details.
55 Request Initial Causes Explanation
57 Value Break
58 ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
59 .(c - yes Begin centered block.
60 .(d - no Begin delayed text.
61 .(f - no Begin footnote.
62 .(l - yes Begin list.
63 .(q - yes Begin major quote.
64 .(x [X] - no Begin item in index (named X).
65 .(z - no Begin floating keep.
66 .)c - yes End centered block.
68 .)d - yes End delayed text.
69 .)f - yes End footnote.
70 .)l - yes End list.
71 .)q - yes End major quote.
72 .)x - yes End index item.
73 .)z - yes End floating keep.
74 .++ M [clcmcrc] - no Define paper section as M, which
75 must be one of C (chapter), A (ap‐
76 pendix), P (preliminary, i.e.,
77 front matter or table of con‐
78 tents), AB (abstract), B (bibliog‐
79 raphy), RC (chapters renumbered
80 from page one each chapter), or RA
81 (appendix renumbered from page
82 one) (and set page header to clcm‐
83 crc).
84 .+c [T] - yes Begin chapter (or appendix, etc.,
85 as set by .++) (with title T).
86 .1c 1 yes One-column format on a new page.
87 .2c 1 yes Two-column format.
88 .EN - yes Space after equation produced by
89 eqn or neqn.
90 .EQ [M [T]] - yes Begin displayed equation (with in‐
91 dentation M, which must be one of
92 C (centered, default), I (in‐
93 dented), or L (justified left)
94 (and title T in right margin)).
95 .GE - yes End gremlin picture.
96 .GS - yes Begin gremlin picture.
97 .PE - yes End pic picture.
98 .PS - yes Begin pic picture.
99 .TE - yes End tbl table.
100 .TH - yes End heading of tbl table.
101 .TS [H] - yes Begin tbl table; if H, table re‐
102 peats heading on each page.
103 .b [X [Y]] - no Print X in bold (appending Y in
104 the previous font); if no argu‐
105 ments, switch to bold.
106 .ba n 0 yes Augment the base indent (for regu‐
107 lar text, like paragraphs) by n.
108 .bc - yes Begin new column.
109 .bi [X [Y]] - no Print X in bold italics (appending
110 Y in the previous font); if no ar‐
111 guments, switch to bold italics.
112 .bu - yes Begin bulleted paragraph.
113 .bx [X [Y]] - no Print X in a box (with Y ap‐
114 pended). Renders reliably only in
115 no-fill mode.
116 .ef clcmcrc """" no Set even-numbered page footer.
117 .eh clcmcrc """" no Set even-numbered page header.
118 .fo clcmcrc """" no Set page footer.
119 .hx - no Suppress headers and footers on
120 next page.
121 .he clcmcrc """" no Set page header.
122 .hl - yes Draw a horizontal line.
123 .i [X [Y]] - no Print X in italics (appending Y in
124 the previous font); if no argu‐
125 ments, switch to italics.
126 .ip [X [n]] n=5n yes Start indented paragraph (with
127 hanging tag X (and indentation
128 n)).
129 .lp - yes Begin paragraph with first line
130 flush left.
131 .np 1 yes Start numbered paragraph.
132 .of clcmcrc """" no Set odd-numbered page footer.
134 .oh clcmcrc """" no Set odd-numbered page header.
135 .pd - yes Print delayed text.
136 .pp - yes Begin paragraph with indented
137 first line.
138 .r [X [Y]] - no Print X in roman (appending Y in
139 the previous font); if no argu‐
140 ments, switch to roman.
141 .re 0.5i no Reset tabs to default values.
142 .sh [n [T]] n=1 yes Start numbered section; print sec‐
143 tion number (set to n (and title
144 T)) in bold.
145 .sk - no Leave the next page blank. Only
146 one page is remembered ahead.
147 .sm X [Y] - no Print X in a smaller point size
148 (appending Y at the previous
149 size).
150 .sz n 10p no Augment the point size by n
151 points.
152 .tp - yes Begin title page.
153 .u X [Y] - no Underline X (appending Y without
154 underlining). Renders reliably
155 only in no-fill mode.
156 .uh [T] - yes Start unnumbered section (and
157 print title T in bold).
158 .xp [X] - no Print index (named X).
159
161 /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/me.tmac (a wrapper file for e.tmac)
162 /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/e.tmac
163
165 Early roff macro packages limited themselves to a single-letter name‐
166 space (mm, ms, mv, mn, etc.). The “e” in “me” stands for “Eric P. All‐
167 man”, who wrote the macro package and the original technical papers
168 documenting it while an undergraduate at the University of California.
169
171 groff(1), troff(1)
172 Two manuals are available in source and rendered form. On your system,
174 they may be compressed and/or available in additional formats.
175 /usr/share/doc/groff/meintro.me
177 /usr/share/doc/groff/meintro.ps
178 is Writing Papers with Groff Using -me, by Eric P. Allman and
179 James Clark.
180 /usr/share/doc/groff/meref.me
182 /usr/share/doc/groff/meref.ps
183 is the -me Reference Manual, by Eric P. Allman and James Clark.
184 For preprocessors supported by me, see eqn(1), grn(1), pic(1), re‐
186 fer(1), and tbl(1).
187groff 1.22.4 19 January 2023 GROFF_ME(7)