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 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.
-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 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 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
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
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 double-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.
Additionally, 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
following lines.
If the label is wider than the indentation, then 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 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 doublequotes) as the second argument.
For example, the following paragraphs were all set up with bullets 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 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 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 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.
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,
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
grohtml
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 individual
groff
requests where necessary.
A complete list of these requests is available on the WWW at
This manual page was originally written for the Debian GNU/Linux system by
Susan G. Kleinmann <[email protected]>, corrected and updated by Werner Lemberg
<[email protected]>, and is now part of the GNU troff distribution.
