Document control registers¶

The following table lists the document control number registers. For the sake of consistency, set registers related to margins at the beginning of your document, or just after the RP macro.

Margin settings

Text settings

Paragraph settings

Footnote settings

Other settings

Cover page macros¶

Use the following macros to create a cover page for your document in the order shown.

.RP [no]

Specifies the report format for your document. The report format creates a separate cover page. With no RP macro, groff prints a subset of the cover page on page 1 of your document.

If you use the optional no argument, groff prints a title page but does not repeat any of the title page information (title, author, abstract, etc.) on page 1 of the document.

.P1

(P-one) Prints the header on page 1. The default is to suppress the header.

.DA

[xxx] (optional) Print the current date, or the arguments to the macro if any, on the title page (if specified) and in the footers. This is the default for nroff.

.ND

[xxx] (optional) Print the current date, or the arguments to the macro if any, on the title page (if specified) but not in the footers. This is the default for troff.

.TL

Specifies the document title. Groff collects text following the TL macro into the title, until reaching the author name or abstract.

.AU

Specifies the author's name. You can specify multiple authors by using an AU macro for each author.

.AI

Specifies the author's institution. You can specify multiple institutions.

.AB [no]

Begins the abstract. The default is to print the word ABSTRACT, centered and in italics, above the text of the abstract. The option no suppresses this heading.

.AE

End the abstract.

Paragraphs¶

Use the PP macro to create indented paragraphs, and the LP macro to create paragraphs with no initial indent.

The QP macro indents all text at both left and right margins by the amount of the register QI. The effect is reminiscent of the HTML <BLOCKQUOTE> tag. The next paragraph or heading returns the margins to normal. QP inserts the vertical space specified in register PD as inter-paragraph spacing.

A paragraph bracketed between the macros QS and QE has the same appearance as a paragraph started with QP and a following paragraph started with LP. Both QS and QE insert the inter-paragraph spacing specified in PD and the text is indented on both sides by the amount of register QI. The text between QS and QE can be split into further paragraphs by using .LP or .PP.

The XP macro produces an “exdented” paragraph; that is, one with a hanging indent. The first line of the paragraph begins at the left margin, and subsequent lines are indented (the opposite of PP).

For each of the above paragraph types, and also for any list entry introduced by the IP macro (described later), the document control register PORPHANS, sets the minimum number of lines which must be printed, after the start of the paragraph, and before any page break occurs. If there is insufficient space remaining on the current page to accommodate this number of lines, then a page break is forced before the first line of the paragraph is printed.

Similarly, when a section heading (see subsection “Headings” below) precedes any of these paragraph types, the HORPHANS document control register specifies the minimum number of lines of the paragraph which must be kept on the same page as the heading. If insufficient space remains on the current page to accommodate the heading and this number of lines of paragraph text, then a page break is forced before the heading is printed.

Headings¶

Use headings to create a hierarchical structure for your document. By default, the ms macros print headings in bold using the same font family and point size as the body text. For output devices which support scalable fonts, this behaviour may be modified by defining the document control registers GROWPS and PSINCR.

The following heading macros are available:

.NH xx

Numbered heading. The argument xx is either a numeric argument to indicate the level of the heading, or S xx xx ... to set the section number explicitly. If you specify heading levels out of sequence, such as invoking .NH 3 after .NH 1, groff prints a warning on standard error.

If the GROWPS register is set to a value greater than the level of the heading, then the point size of the heading will be increased by PSINCR units over the text size specified by the PS register, for each level by which the heading level is less than the value of GROWPS. For example, the sequence:

will cause “1. Top Level Heading” to be printed in 13pt bold text, followed by “1.1. Second Level Heading” in 11.5pt bold text, while “1.1.1. Third Level Heading”, and all more deeply nested heading levels, will remain in the 10pt bold text which is specified by the PS register.

Note that the value stored in PSINCR is interpreted in groff basic units; the p scaling factor should be employed when assigning a value specified in points.

The style used to represent the section number, within a numbered heading, is controlled by the SN-STYLE string; this may be set to either the SN-DOT or the SN-NO-DOT style, (described below), by aliasing SN-STYLE accordingly. By default, SN-STYLE is initialised by defining the alias

it may be changed to the SN-NO-DOT style, if preferred, by defining the alternative alias

Any such change becomes effective with the first use of .NH, after the new alias is defined.

After invoking .NH, the assigned heading number is available in the strings SN-DOT (as it appears in the default formatting style for numbered headings, with a terminating period following the number), and SN-NO-DOT (with this terminating period omitted). The string SN is also defined, as an alias for SN-DOT; if preferred, the user may redefine it as an alias for SN-NO-DOT, by including the initialisation:

at any time; the change becomes effective with the next use of .NH, after the new alias is defined.

.SH

[xx] Unnumbered subheading. The use of the optional xx argument is a GNU extension, which adjusts the point size of the unnumbered subheading to match that of a numbered heading, introduced using .NH xx with the same value of xx. For example, given the same settings for PS, GROWPS and PSINCR, as used in the preceding .NH example, the sequence:

will print “An Unnumbered Subheading” in 11.5pt bold text.

Highlighting¶

The ms macros provide a variety of methods to highlight or emphasize text:

.B

[txt [post [pre]]] Sets its first argument in bold type. If you specify a second argument, groff prints it in the previous font after the bold text, with no intervening space (this allows you to set punctuation after the highlighted text without highlighting the punctuation). Similarly, it prints the third argument (if any) in the previous font before the first argument. For example,

prints “(foo)”.

If you give this macro no arguments, groff prints all text following in bold until the next highlighting, paragraph, or heading macro.

.R

[txt [post [pre]]] Sets its first argument in roman (or regular) type. It operates similarly to the B macro otherwise.

.I

[txt [post [pre]]] Sets its first argument in italic type. It operates similarly to the B macro otherwise.

.CW

[txt [post [pre]]] Sets its first argument in a constant-width face. It operates similarly to the B macro otherwise.

.BI

[txt [post [pre]]] Sets its first argument in bold italic type. It operates similarly to the B macro otherwise.

.BX

[txt] Prints its argument and draws a box around it. If you want to box a string that contains spaces, use a digit-width space (\0).

.UL

[txt [post]] Prints its first argument with an underline. If you specify a second argument, groff prints it in the previous font after the underlined text, with no intervening space.

.LG

Prints all text following in larger type (2 points larger than the current point size) until the next font size, highlighting, paragraph, or heading macro. You can specify this macro multiple times to enlarge the point size as needed.

.SM

Prints all text following in smaller type (2 points smaller than the current point size) until the next type size, highlighting, paragraph, or heading macro. You can specify this macro multiple times to reduce the point size as needed.

.NL

Prints all text following in the normal point size (that is, the value of the PS register).

\*{text\*}

Print the enclosed text as a superscript.

Indents¶

You may need to indent sections of text. A typical use for indents is to create nested lists and sublists.

Use the RS and RE macros to start and end a section of indented text, respectively. The PI register controls the amount of indent.

You can nest indented sections as deeply as needed by using multiple, nested pairs of RS and RE.

Lists¶

The IP macro handles duties for all lists. Its syntax is as follows:

.IP

[marker [width]] The marker is usually a bullet character \(bu for unordered lists, a number (or auto-incrementing number register) for numbered lists, or a word or phrase for indented (glossary-style) lists.

The width specifies the indent for the body of each list item. Once specified, the indent remains the same for all list items in the document until specified again.

Tab stops¶

Use the ta request to set tab stops as needed. Use the TA macro to reset tabs to the default (every 5n). You can redefine the TA macro to create a different set of default tab stops.

Displays and keeps¶

Use displays to show text-based examples or figures (such as code listings). Displays turn off filling, so lines of code can be displayed as-is without inserting br requests in between each line. Displays can be kept on a single page, or allowed to break across pages. The following table shows the display types available.

Use the DE macro to end any display type. The macros Ds and De were formerly provided as aliases for DS and DE, respectively, but they have been removed, and should no longer be used. X11 documents which actually use Ds and De always load a specific macro file from the X11 distribution (macros.t) which provides proper definitions for the two macros.

To keep text together on a page, such as a paragraph that refers to a table (or list, or other item) immediately following, use the KS and KE macros. The KS macro begins a block of text to be kept on a single page, and the KE macro ends the block.

You can specify a floating keep using the KF and KE macros. If the keep cannot fit on the current page, groff holds the contents of the keep and allows text following the keep (in the source file) to fill in the remainder of the current page. When the page breaks, whether by an explicit bp request or by reaching the end of the page, groff prints the floating keep at the top of the new page. This is useful for printing large graphics or tables that do not need to appear exactly where specified.

The macros B1 and B2 can be used to enclose a text within a box; .B1 begins the box, and .B2 ends it. Text in the box is automatically placed in a diversion (keep).

Tables, figures, equations, and references¶

The ms macros support the standard groff preprocessors: tbl, pic, eqn, and refer. Mark text meant for preprocessors by enclosing it in pairs of tags as follows:

.TS [H] and .TE

Denote a table to be processed by the tbl preprocessor. The optional H argument instructs groff to create a running header with the information up to the TH macro. Groff prints the header at the beginning of the table; if the table runs onto another page, groff prints the header on the next page as well.

.PS and .PE

Denote a graphic to be processed by the pic preprocessor. You can create a pic file by hand, using the AT&T pic manual available on the Web as a reference, or by using a graphics program such as xfig.

.EQ

[align] and .EN Denote an equation to be processed by the eqn preprocessor. The optional align argument can be C, L, or I to center (the default), left-justify, or indent the equation, respectively.

.[ and .]

Denote a reference to be processed by the refer preprocessor. The GNU refer(1) manual page provides a comprehensive reference to the preprocessor and the format of the bibliographic database.

Footnotes¶

The ms macros provide a flexible footnote system. You can specify a numbered footnote by using the \** escape, followed by the text of the footnote enclosed by FS and FE macros.

You can specify symbolic footnotes by placing the mark character (such as \(dg for the dagger character) in the body text, followed by the text of the footnote enclosed by FS \(dg and FE macros.

You can control how groff prints footnote numbers by changing the value of the FF register as follows:

You can use footnotes safely within keeps and displays, but avoid using numbered footnotes within floating keeps. You can set a second \** between a \** and its corresponding .FS; as long as each .FS occurs after the corresponding \** and the occurrences of .FS are in the same order as the corresponding occurrences of \**.

Headers and footers¶

There are three ways to define headers and footers:

• Use the strings LH, CH, and RH to set the left, center, and right headers. Use LF, CF, and RF to set the left, center, and right footers. The string-setting approach works best for documents that do not distinguish between odd and even pages.
• Use the OH and EH macros to define headers for the odd and even pages, and OF and EF macros to define footers for the odd and even pages. This is more flexible than defining the individual strings. The syntax for these macros is as follows:

where XX is one of the foregoing four macros and each of left, center, and right is text of your choice. You can replace the quote (') marks with any character not appearing in the header or footer text.

•

You can redefine the PT and BT macros to change the behavior of the header and footer, respectively. The header process also calls the (undefined) HD macro after PT; you can define this macro if you need additional processing after printing the header (for example, to draw a line below the header).

Margins¶

You control margins using a set of number registers. The following table lists the register names and defaults:

Note that there is no right margin setting. The combination of page offset and line length provide the information necessary to derive the right margin.

Multiple columns¶

The ms macros can set text in as many columns as will reasonably fit on the page. The following macros are available. All of them force a page break if a multi-column mode is already set. However, if the current mode is single-column, starting a multi-column mode does not force a page break.

.1C

Single-column mode.

.2C

Two-column mode.

.MC

[column-width [gutter-width]] Multi-column mode. If you specify no arguments, it is equivalent to the 2C macro. Otherwise, column-width is the width of each column and gutter-width is the space between columns. The MINGW number register is the default gutter width.

Creating a table of contents¶

Wrap text that you want to appear in the table of contents in XS and XE macros. Use the TC macro to print the table of contents at the end of the document, resetting the page number to i (Roman numeral 1).

You can manually create a table of contents by specifying a page number as the first argument to XS. Add subsequent entries using the XA macro. For example:

.XS 1
Introduction
.XA 2
A Brief History of the Universe
.XA 729
Details of Galactic Formation
...
.XE

Use the PX macro to print a manually-generated table of contents without resetting the page number.

If you give the argument no to either PX or TC, groff suppresses printing the title specified by the \*[TOC] string.

Fractional point sizes¶

Traditionally, the ms macros only support integer values for the document's font size and vertical spacing. To overcome this restriction, values larger than or equal to 1000 are taken as fractional values, multiplied by 1000. For example, ‘.nr PS 10250’ sets the font size to 10.25 points.

The following four registers accept fractional point sizes: PS, VS, FPS, and FVS.

Due to backwards compatibility, the value of VS must be smaller than 40000 (this is 40.0 points).

Strings¶

You can redefine the following strings to adapt the groff ms macros to languages other than English:

The \*- string produces an em dash—like this.

Use \*Q and \*U to get a left and right typographer's quote, respectively, in troff (and plain quotes in nroff).

Text Settings¶

The FAM string sets the default font family. If this string is undefined at initialization, it is set to Times.

The point size, vertical spacing, and inter-paragraph spacing for footnotes are controlled by the number registers FPS, FVS, and FPD; at initialization these are set to \n(PS-2, \n[FPS]+2, and \n(PD/2, respectively. If any of these registers are defined before initialization, the initialization macro does not change them.

The hyphenation flags (as set by the hy request) are set from the HY register; the default is 6.

Improved accent marks (as originally defined in Berkeley's ms version) are available by specifying the AM macro at the beginning of your document. You can place an accent over most characters by specifying the string defining the accent directly after the character. For example, n\*~ produces an n with a tilde over it.