1groff_man(7) Miscellaneous Information Manual groff_man(7)
2
6 groff_man - compose manual pages with GNU roff
7
9 groff -man [option ...] [file ...]
10 groff -m man [option ...] [file ...]
11
13 The GNU implementation of the man macro package is part of the groff
14 document formatting system. It is used to produce manual pages
15 (“man pages”) like the one you are reading.
16 This document presents the macros thematically; for those needing only
18 a quick reference, the following table lists them alphabetically, with
19 cross references to appropriate subsections below.
20 Man page authors and maintainers who are not already experienced groff
22 users should consult groff_man_style(7), an expanded version of this
23 document, for additional explanations and advice. It covers only those
24 concepts required for man page document maintenance, and not the full
25 breadth of the groff typesetting system.
26 Macro Meaning Subsection
28 ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
29 .B Bold Font style macros
30 .BI Bold, italic alternating Font style macros
31 .BR Bold, roman alternating Font style macros
32 .EE Example end Document structure macros
33 .EX Example begin Document structure macros
34 .I Italic Font style macros
35 .IB Italic, bold alternating Font style macros
36 .IP Indented paragraph Paragraphing macros
37 .IR Italic, roman alternating Font style macros
38 .LP Begin paragraph Paragraphing macros
39 .ME Mail-to end Hyperlink macros
40 .MR Man page cross reference Hyperlink macros
41 .MT Mail-to start Hyperlink macros
42 .P Begin paragraph Paragraphing macros
43 .PP Begin paragraph Paragraphing macros
44 .RB Roman, bold alternating Font style macros
45 .RE Relative inset end Document structure macros
46 .RI Roman, italic alternating Font style macros
47 .RS Relative inset start Document structure macros
48 .SB Small bold Font style macros
49 .SH Section heading Document structure macros
50 .SM Small Font style macros
51 .SS Subsection heading Document structure macros
52 .SY Synopsis start Command synopsis macros
53 .TH Title heading Document structure macros
54 .TP Tagged paragraph Paragraphing macros
55 .TQ Supplemental paragraph tag Paragraphing macros
56 .UE URI end Hyperlink macros
57 .UR URI start Hyperlink macros
58 .YS Synopsis end Command synopsis macros
59 We discuss other macros (.AT, .DT, .HP, .OP, .PD, and .UC) in subsec‐
61 tion “Deprecated features” below.
62 Throughout Unix documentation, a manual entry is referred to simply as
64 a “man page”, regardless of its length, without gendered implication,
65 and irrespective of the macro package selected for its composition.
66 Macro reference preliminaries
68 A tagged paragraph describes each macro. We present coupled pairs to‐
69 gether, as with .EX and .EE.
70 An empty macro argument can be specified with a pair of double-quotes
72 (""), but the man package is designed such that this should seldom be
73 necessary. Most macro arguments will be formatted as text in the out‐
74 put; exceptions are noted.
75 Document structure macros
77 Document structure macros organize a man page's content. All of them
78 break the output line. .TH (title heading) identifies the document as
79 a man page and configures the page headers and footers. Section head‐
80 ings (.SH), one of which is mandatory and many of which are convention‐
81 ally expected, facilitate location of material by the reader and aid
82 the man page writer to discuss all essential aspects of the topic.
83 Subsection headings (.SS) are optional and permit sections that grow
84 long to develop in a controlled way. Many technical discussions bene‐
85 fit from examples; lengthy ones, especially those reflecting multiple
86 lines of input to or output from the system, are usefully bracketed by
87 .EX and .EE. When none of the foregoing meets a structural demand, use
88 .RS/.RE to inset a region within a (sub)section.
89 .TH topic section [footer-middle] [footer-inside] [header-middle]
91 Determine the contents of the page header and footer. The sub‐
92 ject of the man page is topic and the section of the manual to
93 which it belongs is section. See man(1) or intro(1) for the
94 manual sectioning applicable to your system. topic and section
95 are positioned together at the left and right in the header
96 (with section in parentheses immediately appended to topic).
97 footer-middle is centered in the footer. The arrangement of the
98 rest of the footer depends on whether double-sided layout is en‐
99 abled with the option -rD1. When disabled (the default),
100 footer-inside is positioned at the bottom left. Otherwise,
101 footer-inside appears at the bottom left on recto (odd-numbered)
102 pages, and at the bottom right on verso (even-numbered) pages.
103 The outside footer is the page number, except in the continuous-
104 rendering mode enabled by the option -rcR=1, in which case it is
105 the topic and section, as in the header. header-middle is cen‐
106 tered in the header. If section is an integer between 1 and 9
107 (inclusive), there is no need to specify header-middle; an.tmac
108 will supply text for it. The macro package may also abbreviate
109 topic and footer-inside with ellipses if they would overrun the
110 space available in the header and footer, respectively. For
111 HTML output, headers and footers are suppressed.
112 Additionally, this macro breaks the page, resetting the number
114 to 1 (unless the -rC1 option is given). This feature is in‐
115 tended only for formatting multiple man documents in sequence.
116 A valid man document calls .TH once, early in the file, prior to
118 any other macro calls.
119 .SH [heading-text]
121 Set heading-text as a section heading. If no argument is given,
122 a one-line input trap is planted; text on the next line becomes
123 heading-text. The left margin is reset to zero to set the head‐
124 ing text in bold (or the font specified by the string HF), and,
125 on typesetting devices, slightly larger than the base type size.
126 If the heading font \*[HF] is bold, use of an italic style in
127 heading-text is mapped to the bold-italic style if available in
128 the font family. The inset level is reset to 1, setting the
129 left margin to the value of the IN register. Text after head‐
130 ing-text is set as an ordinary paragraph (.P).
131 The content of heading-text and ordering of sections follows a
133 set of common practices, as has much of the layout of material
134 within sections. For example, a section called “Name” or “NAME”
135 must exist, must be the first section after the .TH call, and
136 must contain only text of the form
137 topic[, another-topic]... \- summary-description
138 for a man page to be properly indexed. See groff_man_style(7)
139 for suggestions and man(7) for the conventions prevailing on
140 your system.
141 .SS [subheading-text]
143 Set subheading-text as a subsection heading indented between a
144 section heading and an ordinary paragraph (.P). If no argument
145 is given, a one-line input trap is planted; text on the next
146 line becomes subheading-text. The left margin is reset to the
147 value of the SN register to set the heading text in bold (or the
148 font specified by the string HF). If the heading font \*[HF] is
149 bold, use of an italic style in subheading-text is mapped to the
150 bold-italic style if available in the font family. The inset
151 level is reset to 1, setting the left margin to the value of the
152 IN register. Text after subheading-text is set as an ordinary
153 paragraph (.P).
154 .EX
156 .EE Begin and end example. After .EX, filling is disabled and a
157 constant-width (monospaced) font is selected. Calling .EE en‐
158 ables filling and restores the previous font.
159 These macros are extensions introduced in Ninth Edition Research
161 Unix. Systems running that troff, or those from Documenter's
162 Workbench, Heirloom Doctools, or Plan 9 troff support them. To
163 be certain your page will be portable to systems that do not,
164 copy their definitions from the an-ext.tmac file of a groff in‐
165 stallation.
166 .RS [inset-amount]
168 Start a new relative inset level. The position of the left mar‐
169 gin is saved, then moved right by inset-amount, if specified,
170 and by the amount of the IN register otherwise. Calls to .RS
171 can be nested; each increments by 1 the inset level used by .RE.
172 The level prior to any .RS calls is 1.
173 .RE [level]
175 End a relative inset. The left margin corresponding to inset
176 level level is restored. If no argument is given, the inset
177 level is reduced by 1.
178 Paragraphing macros
180 An ordinary paragraph (.P) is set without a first-line indentation at
181 the current left margin. In man pages and other technical literature,
182 definition lists are frequently encountered; these can be set as
183 “tagged paragraphs”, which have one (.TP) or more (.TQ) leading tags
184 followed by a paragraph that has an additional indentation. The in‐
185 dented paragraph (.IP) macro is useful to continue the indented content
186 of a narrative started with .TP, or to present an itemized or ordered
187 list. All of these macros break the output line. If another paragraph
188 macro has occurred since the previous .SH or .SS, they (except for .TQ)
189 follow the break with a default amount of vertical space, which can be
190 changed by the deprecated .PD macro; see subsection “Horizontal and
191 vertical spacing” below. They also reset the type size and font style
192 to defaults (.TQ again excepted); see subsection “Font style macros”
193 below.
194 .P
196 .LP
197 .PP Begin a new paragraph; these macros are synonymous. The inden‐
198 tation is reset to the default value; the left margin, as af‐
199 fected by .RS and .RE, is not.
200 .TP [indentation]
202 Set a paragraph with a leading tag, and the remainder of the
203 paragraph indented. A one-line input trap is planted; text on
204 the next line, which can be formatted with a macro, becomes the
205 tag, which is placed at the current left margin. The tag can be
206 extended with the \c escape sequence. Subsequent text is in‐
207 dented by indentation, if specified, and by the amount of the IN
208 register otherwise. If the tag is not as wide as the indenta‐
209 tion, the paragraph starts on the same line as the tag, at the
210 applicable indentation, and continues on the following lines.
211 Otherwise, the descriptive part of the paragraph begins on the
212 line following the tag.
213 .TQ Set an additional tag for a paragraph tagged with .TP. An input
215 trap is planted as with .TP.
216 This macro is a GNU extension not defined on systems running
218 AT&T, Plan 9, or Solaris troff; see an-ext.tmac in section
219 “Files” below.
220 .IP [tag] [indentation]
222 Set an indented paragraph with an optional tag. The tag and in‐
223 dentation arguments, if present, are handled as with .TP, with
224 the exception that the tag argument to .IP cannot include a
225 macro call.
226 Command synopsis macros
228 .SY and .YS aid you to construct a command synopsis that has the clas‐
229 sical Unix appearance. They break the output line.
230 These macros are GNU extensions not defined on systems running AT&T,
232 Plan 9, or Solaris troff; see an-ext.tmac in section “Files” below.
233 .SY command
235 Begin synopsis. A new paragraph begins at the left margin un‐
236 less .SY has already been called without a corresponding .YS, in
237 which case only a break is performed. Adjustment and automatic
238 hyphenation are disabled. command is set in bold. If a break
239 is required, lines after the first are indented by the width of
240 command plus a space.
241 .YS End synopsis. Indentation, adjustment, and hyphenation are re‐
243 stored to their previous states.
244 Hyperlink macros
246 Man page cross references are best presented with .MR. Text may be hy‐
247 perlinked to email addresses with .MT/.ME or other URIs with .UR/.UE.
248 Hyperlinked text is supported on HTML and terminal output devices; ter‐
249 minals and pager programs must support ECMA-48 OSC 8 escape sequences
250 (see grotty(1)). When device support is unavailable or disabled with
251 the U register (see section “Options” below), .MT and .UR URIs are ren‐
252 dered between angle brackets after the linked text.
253 .MT, .ME, .UR, and .UE are GNU extensions not defined on systems run‐
255 ning AT&T, Plan 9, or Solaris troff; see an-ext.tmac in section “Files”
256 below. Plan 9 from User Space's troff implements .MR.
257 The arguments to .MR, .MT, and .UR should be prepared for typesetting
259 since they can appear in the output. Use special character escape se‐
260 quences to encode Unicode basic Latin characters where necessary, par‐
261 ticularly the hyphen-minus. The formatter removes \: escape sequences
262 from hyperlinks when supplying device control commands to output driv‐
263 ers.
264 .MR topic manual-section [trailing-text]
266 (since groff 1.23) Set a man page cross reference as “topic(man‐
267 ual-section)”. If trailing-text (typically punctuation) is
268 specified, it follows the closing parenthesis without interven‐
269 ing space. Hyphenation is disabled while the cross reference is
270 set. topic is set in the font specified by the MF string. The
271 cross reference hyperlinks to a URI of the form “man:topic(man‐
272 ual-section)”.
273 .MT address
275 .ME [trailing-text]
276 Identify address as an RFC 6068 addr-spec for a “mailto:” URI
277 with the text between the two macro calls as the link text. An
278 argument to .ME is placed after the link text without interven‐
279 ing space. address may not be visible in the rendered document
280 if hyperlinks are enabled and supported by the output driver.
281 If they are not, address is set in angle brackets after the link
282 text and before trailing-text. If hyperlinking is enabled but
283 there is no link text, address is formatted and hyperlinked
284 without angle brackets.
285 .UR uri
287 .UE [trailing-text]
288 Identify uri as an RFC 3986 URI hyperlink with the text between
289 the two macro calls as the link text. An argument to .UE is
290 placed after the link text without intervening space. uri may
291 not be visible in the rendered document if hyperlinks are en‐
292 abled and supported by the output driver. If they are not, uri
293 is set in angle brackets after the link text and before trail‐
294 ing-text. If hyperlinking is enabled but there is no link text,
295 uri is formatted and hyperlinked without angle brackets.
296 The hyperlinking of .TP paragraph tags with .UR/.UE and .MT/.ME is not
298 yet supported; if attempted, the hyperlink will be typeset at the be‐
299 ginning of the indented paragraph even on hyperlink-supporting devices.
300 Font style macros
302 The man macro package is limited in its font styling options, offering
303 only bold (.B), italic (.I), and roman. Italic text is usually set un‐
304 derscored instead on terminal devices. The .SM and .SB macros set text
305 in roman or bold, respectively, at a smaller type size; these differ
306 visually from regular-sized roman or bold text only on typesetting de‐
307 vices. It is often necessary to set text in different styles without
308 intervening space. The macros .BI, .BR, .IB, .IR, .RB, and .RI, where
309 “B”, “I”, and “R” indicate bold, italic, and roman, respectively, set
310 their odd- and even-numbered arguments in alternating styles, with no
311 space separating them.
312 The default type size and family for typesetting devices is 10-point
314 Times, except on the X75-12 and X100-12 devices where the type size is
315 12 points. The default style is roman.
316 .B [text]
318 Set text in bold. If no argument is given, a one-line input
319 trap is planted; text on the next line, which can be further
320 formatted with a macro, is set in bold.
321 .I [text]
323 Set text in an italic or oblique face. If no argument is given,
324 a one-line input trap is planted; text on the next line, which
325 can be further formatted with a macro, is set in an italic or
326 oblique face.
327 .SM [text]
329 Set text one point smaller than the default type size on type‐
330 setting devices. If no argument is given, a one-line input trap
331 is planted; text on the next line, which can be further format‐
332 ted with a macro, is set smaller.
333 .SB [text]
335 Set text in bold and (on typesetting devices) one point smaller
336 than the default type size. If no argument is given, a one-line
337 input trap is planted; text on the next line, which can be fur‐
338 ther formatted with a macro, is set smaller and in bold. This
339 macro is an extension introduced in SunOS 4.0.
340 Unlike the above font style macros, the font style alternation macros
342 below set no input traps; they must be given arguments to have effect.
343 Italic corrections are applied as appropriate.
344 .BI bold-text italic-text ...
346 Set each argument in bold and italics, alternately.
347 .BR bold-text roman-text ...
349 Set each argument in bold and roman, alternately.
350 .IB italic-text bold-text ...
352 Set each argument in italics and bold, alternately.
353 .IR italic-text roman-text ...
355 Set each argument in italics and roman, alternately.
356 .RB roman-text bold-text ...
358 Set each argument in roman and bold, alternately.
359 .RI roman-text italic-text ...
361 Set each argument in roman and italics, alternately.
362 Horizontal and vertical spacing
364 The indentation argument accepted by .IP, .TP, and the deprecated .HP
365 is a number plus an optional scaling unit, as is .RS's inset-amount.
366 If no scaling unit is given, the man package assumes “n”. An indenta‐
367 tion specified in a call to .IP, .TP, or the deprecated .HP persists
368 until (1) another of these macros is called with an indentation argu‐
369 ment, or (2) .SH, .SS, or .P or its synonyms is called; these clear the
370 indentation entirely.
371 The left margin used by ordinary paragraphs set with .P (and its syn‐
373 onyms) not within an .RS/.RE relative inset is 7.2n for typesetting de‐
374 vices and 7n for terminal devices (but see the -rIN option). Headers,
375 footers (both set with .TH), and section headings (.SH) are set at the
376 page offset (see groff(7)) and subsection headings (.SS) indented from
377 it by 3n (but see the -rSN option).
378 Several macros insert vertical space: .SH, .SS, .TP, .P (and its syn‐
380 onyms), .IP, and the deprecated .HP. The default inter-section and in‐
381 ter-paragraph spacing is is 1v for terminal devices and 0.4v for type‐
382 setting devices. (The deprecated macro .PD can change this vertical
383 spacing, but its use is discouraged.) Between .EX and .EE calls, the
384 inter-paragraph spacing is 1v regardless of output device.
385 Registers
387 Registers are described in section “Options” below. They can be set
388 not only on the command line but in the site man.local file as well;
389 see section “Files” below.
390 Strings
392 The following strings are defined for use in man pages. None of these
393 is necessary in a contemporary man page; see groff_man_style(7). Oth‐
394 ers are supported for configuration of rendering parameters; see sec‐
395 tion “Options” below.
396 \*R interpolates a special character escape sequence for the “regis‐
398 tered sign” glyph, \(rg, if available, and “(Reg.)” otherwise.
399 \*S interpolates an escape sequence setting the type size to the
401 document default.
402 \*(lq
404 \*(rq interpolate special character escape sequences for left and
405 right double-quotation marks, \(lq and \(rq, respectively.
406 \*(Tm interpolates a special character escape sequence for the “trade
408 mark sign” glyph, \(tm, if available, and “(TM)” otherwise.
409 Hooks
411 Two macros, both GNU extensions, are called internally by the groff man
412 package to format page headers and footers and can be redefined by the
413 administrator in a site's man.local file (see section “Files” below).
414 The presentation of .TH above describes the default headers and foot‐
415 ers. Because these macros are hooks for groff man internals, man pages
416 have no reason to call them. Such hook definitions will likely consist
417 of “.sp” and “.tl” requests. They must also increase the page length
418 with “.pl” requests in continuous rendering mode; .PT furthermore has
419 the responsibility of emitting a PDF bookmark after writing the first
420 page header in a document. Consult the existing implementations in
421 an.tmac when drafting replacements.
422 .BT Set the page footer text (“bottom trap”).
424 .PT Set the page header text (“page trap”).
426 To remove a page header or footer entirely, define the appropriate
428 macro as empty rather than deleting it.
429 Deprecated features
431 Use of the following in man pages for public distribution is discour‐
432 aged.
433 .AT [system [release]]
435 Alter the footer for use with legacy AT&T man pages, overriding
436 any definition of the footer-inside argument to .TH. This macro
437 exists only to render man pages from historical systems.
438 system can be any of the following.
440 3 7th edition (default)
442 4 System III
444 5 System V
446 The optional release argument specifies the release number, as
448 in “System V Release 3”.
449 .DT Reset tab stops to the default (every 0.5i).
451 Use of this presentation-oriented macro is deprecated. It
453 translates poorly to HTML, under which exact space control and
454 tabulation are not readily available. Thus, information or dis‐
455 tinctions that you use tab stops to express are likely to be
456 lost. If you feel tempted to change the tab stops such that
457 calling this macro later is desirable to restore them, you
458 should probably be composing a table using tbl(1) instead.
459 .HP [indentation]
461 Set up a paragraph with a hanging left indentation. The inden‐
462 tation argument, if present, is handled as with .TP.
463 Use of this presentation-oriented macro is deprecated. A hang‐
465 ing indentation cannot be expressed naturally under HTML, and
466 non-roff-based man page interpreters may treat .HP as an ordi‐
467 nary paragraph. Thus, information or distinctions you mean to
468 express with indentation may be lost.
469 .OP option-name [option-argument]
471 Indicate an optional command parameter called option-name, which
472 is set in bold. If the option takes an argument, specify op‐
473 tion-argument using a noun, abbreviation, or hyphenated noun
474 phrase. If present, option-argument is preceded by a space and
475 set in italics. Square brackets in roman surround both argu‐
476 ments.
477 Use of this quasi-semantic macro, an extension originating in
479 Documenter's Workbench troff, is deprecated. It cannot easily
480 be used to annotate options that take optional arguments or op‐
481 tions whose arguments have internal structure (such as a mixture
482 of literal and variable components). One could work around
483 these limitations with font selection escape sequences, but it
484 is preferable to use font style alternation macros, which afford
485 greater flexibility.
486 .PD [vertical-space]
488 Define the vertical space between paragraphs or (sub)sections.
489 The optional argument vertical-space specifies the amount; the
490 default scaling unit is “v”. Without an argument, the spacing
491 is reset to its default value; see subsection “Horizontal and
492 vertical spacing” above.
493 Use of this presentation-oriented macro is deprecated. It
495 translates poorly to HTML, under which exact control of inter-
496 paragraph spacing is not readily available. Thus, information
497 or distinctions that you use .PD to express are likely to be
498 lost.
499 .UC [version]
501 Alter the footer for use with legacy BSD man pages, overriding
502 any definition of the footer-inside argument to .TH. This macro
503 exists only to render man pages from historical systems.
504 version can be any of the following.
506 3 3rd Berkeley Distribution (default)
508 4 4th Berkeley Distribution
510 5 4.2 Berkeley Distribution
512 6 4.3 Berkeley Distribution
514 7 4.4 Berkeley Distribution
516 History
518 M. Douglas McIlroy ⟨m.douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu⟩ designed, imple‐
519 mented, and documented the AT&T man macros for Unix Version 7 (1979)
520 and employed them to edit the first volume of its Programmer's Manual,
521 a compilation of all man pages supplied by the system. That man sup‐
522 ported the macros listed in this page not described as extensions, ex‐
523 cept .P and the deprecated .AT and .UC. The only strings defined were
524 R and S; no registers were documented.
525 .UC appeared in 3BSD (1980). Unix System III (1980) introduced .P and
527 exposed the registers IN and LL, which had been internal to Seventh
528 Edition Unix man. PWB/UNIX 2.0 (1980) added the Tm string. 4BSD
529 (1980) added lq and rq strings. SunOS 2.0 (1985) recognized C, D, P,
530 and X registers. 4.3BSD (1986) added .AT and .P. Ninth Edition Re‐
531 search Unix (1986) introduced .EX and .EE. SunOS 4.0 (1988) added .SB.
532 The foregoing features were what James Clark implemented in early ver‐
534 sions of groff. Later, groff 1.20 (2009) originated .SY/.YS, .TQ,
535 .MT/.ME, and .UR/.UE. Plan 9 from User Space's troff introduced .MR in
536 2020.
537
539 The following groff options set registers (with -r) and strings (with
540 -d) recognized and used by the man macro package. To ensure rendering
541 consistent with output device capabilities and reader preferences, man
542 pages should never manipulate them.
543 -dAD=adjustment-mode
545 Set line adjustment to adjustment-mode, which is typically “b”
546 for adjustment to both margins (the default), or “l” for left
547 alignment (ragged right margin). Any valid argument to groff's
548 “.ad” request may be used. See groff(7) for less-common
549 choices.
550 -rcR=1 Enable continuous rendering. Output is not paginated; instead,
552 one (potentially very long) page is produced. This is the de‐
553 fault for terminal and HTML devices. Use -rcR=0 to disable it
554 on terminal devices; on HTML devices, it cannot be disabled.
555 -rC1 Number output pages consecutively, in strictly increasing se‐
557 quence, rather than resetting the page number to 1 (or the value
558 of register P) with each new man document.
559 -rCS=1 Set section headings (the argument(s) to .SH) in full capitals.
561 This transformation is off by default because it discards case
562 distinction information.
563 -rCT=1 Set the man page topic (the first argument to .TH) in full capi‐
565 tals in headers and footers. This transformation is off by de‐
566 fault because it discards case distinction information.
567 -rD1 Enable double-sided layout, formatting footers for even and odd
569 pages differently; see the description of .TH in subsection
570 “Document structure macros” above.
571 -rFT=footer-distance
573 Set distance of the footer relative to the bottom of the page to
574 footer-distance; this amount is always negative. At one half-
575 inch above this location, the page text is broken before writing
576 the footer. Ignored if continuous rendering is enabled. The
577 default is -0.5i.
578 -dHF=heading-font
580 Set the font used for section and subsection headings; the de‐
581 fault is “B” (bold style of the default family). Any valid ar‐
582 gument to groff's “.ft” request may be used. See groff(7).
583 -rHY=0 Disable automatic hyphenation. Normally, it is enabled (1).
585 The hyphenation mode is determined by the groff locale; see sec‐
586 tion “Localization“ of groff(7).
587 -rIN=standard-indentation
589 Set the amount of indentation used for ordinary paragraphs (.P
590 and its synonyms) and the default indentation amount used by
591 .IP, .RS, .TP, and the deprecated .HP. See subsection “Horizon‐
592 tal and vertical spacing” above for the default. For terminal
593 devices, standard-indentation should always be an integer multi‐
594 ple of unit “n” to get consistent indentation.
595 -rLL=line-length
597 Set line length; the default is 78n for terminal devices and
598 6.5i for typesetting devices.
599 -rLT=title-length
601 Set the line length for titles. By default, it is set to the
602 line length (see -rLL above).
603 -dMF=man-page-topic-font
605 Set the font used for man page topics named in .TH and .MR
606 calls; the default is “I” (italic style of the default family).
607 Any valid argument to groff's “.ft” request may be used. If the
608 MF string ends in “I”, it is assumed to be an oblique typeface,
609 and italic corrections are applied before and after man page
610 topics.
611 -rPn Start enumeration of pages at n. The default is 1.
613 -rStype-size
615 Use type-size for the document's body text; acceptable values
616 are 10, 11, or 12 points. See subsection “Font style macros”
617 above for the default.
618 -rSN=subsection-indentation
620 Set indentation of subsection headings to subsection-indenta‐
621 tion. See subsection “Horizontal and vertical spacing” above
622 for the default.
623 -rU1 Enable generation of URI hyperlinks in the grohtml and grotty
625 output drivers. grohtml enables them by default; grotty does
626 not, pending more widespread pager support for OSC 8 escape se‐
627 quences. Use -rU0 to disable hyperlinks; this will make the ar‐
628 guments to MT and UR calls visible in the document text produced
629 by link-capable drivers.
630 -rXp Number successors of page p as pa, pb, pc, and so forth. The
632 register tracking the suffixed page letter uses format “a” (see
633 the “.af” request in groff(7)).
634
636 /usr/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/an.tmac
637 Most man macros are defined in this file. It also loads exten‐
638 sions from an-ext.tmac (see below).
639 /usr/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/andoc.tmac
641 This brief groff program detects whether the man or mdoc macro
642 package is being used by a document and loads the correct macro
643 definitions, taking advantage of the fact that pages using them
644 must call .TH or .Dd, respectively, before any other macros. A
645 man program or user typing, for example, “groff -mandoc page.1”,
646 need not know which package the file page.1 uses. Multiple man
647 pages, in either format, can be handled; andoc reloads each
648 macro package as necessary.
649 /usr/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/an-ext.tmac
651 Except for .SB, definitions of macros described above as exten‐
652 sions are contained in this file; in some cases, they are sim‐
653 pler versions of definitions appearing in an.tmac, and are ig‐
654 nored if the formatter is GNU troff. They are written to be
655 compatible with AT&T troff and permissively licensed—not copy‐
656 lefted. To reduce the risk of name space collisions, string and
657 register names begin only with “m”. We encourage man page au‐
658 thors who are concerned about portability to legacy Unix systems
659 to copy these definitions into their pages, and maintainers of
660 troff implementations or work-alike systems that format man
661 pages to re-use them.
662 The definitions for these macros are read after a page calls
664 .TH, so they will replace any macros of the same names preceding
665 it in your file. If you use your own implementations of these
666 macros, they must be defined after .TH is called to have any ef‐
667 fect. Furthermore, it is wise to define such page-local macros
668 (if at all) after the “Name” section to accommodate timid make‐
669 whatis or mandb implementations that may give up their scan for
670 indexing material early.
671 /usr/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/man.tmac
673 This is a wrapper that loads an.tmac.
674 /usr/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/mandoc.tmac
676 This is a wrapper that loads andoc.tmac.
677 /etc/groff/site-tmac/man.local
679 Put site-local changes and customizations into this file.
680
682 The initial GNU implementation of the man macro package was written by
683 James Clark. Later, Werner Lemberg ⟨wl@gnu.org⟩ supplied the S, LT,
684 and cR registers, the last a 4.3BSD-Reno mdoc(7) feature. Larry Kollar
685 ⟨kollar@alltel.net⟩ added the FT, HY, and SN registers; the HF string;
686 and the PT and BT macros. G. Branden Robinson ⟨g.branden.robinson@
687 gmail.com⟩ implemented the AD and MF strings; CS, CT, and U registers;
688 and the MR macro. Except for .SB, the extension macros were written by
689 Lemberg, Eric S. Raymond ⟨esr@thyrsus.com⟩, and Robinson.
690 This document was originally written for the Debian GNU/Linux system by
692 Susan G. Kleinmann ⟨sgk@debian.org⟩. It was corrected and updated by
693 Lemberg and Robinson. The extension macros were documented by Raymond
694 and Robinson.
695
697 tbl(1), eqn(1), and refer(1) are preprocessors used with man pages.
698 man(1) describes the man page librarian on your system. groff_mdoc(7)
699 details the groff version of the BSD-originated alternative macro pack‐
700 age for man pages.
701 groff_man_style(7), groff(7), groff_char(7), man(7)
703groff 1.23.0 2 November 2023 groff_man(7)