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groff_man(7) Miscellaneous Information Manual groff_man(7)
groff_man - compose manual pages with GNU roff
groff -man [option ...] [file ...]
groff -m man [option ...] [file ...]
The GNU implementation of the man macro package is part of the
groff document formatting system. It is used to compose manual
pages (“man pages”) like the one you are reading. This document
presents the macros thematically; for those needing only a quick
reference, the following table lists them alphabetically, with
cross references to appropriate subsections below.
Readers who are not already experienced groff users should
consult groff_man_style(7), an expanded version of this document,
for additional explanations and advice. It covers only those
concepts required for man page document maintenance, and not the
full breadth of the groff typesetting system.
Macro Meaning Subsection
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
.B Bold Font style macros
.BI Bold, italic alternating Font style macros
.BR Bold, roman alternating Font style macros
.EE Example end Document structure macros
.EX Example begin Document structure macros
.I Italic Font style macros
.IB Italic, bold alternating Font style macros
.IP Indented paragraph Paragraphing macros
.IR Italic, roman alternating Font style macros
.LP Begin paragraph Paragraphing macros
.ME Mail-to end Hyperlink macros
.MR Man page cross reference Hyperlink macros
.MT Mail-to start Hyperlink macros
.P Begin paragraph Paragraphing macros
.PP Begin paragraph Paragraphing macros
.RB Roman, bold alternating Font style macros
.RE Relative inset end Document structure macros
.RI Roman, italic alternating Font style macros
.RS Relative inset start Document structure macros
.SH Section heading Document structure macros
.SM Small Font style macros
.SS Subsection heading Document structure macros
.SY Synopsis start Synopsis macros
.TH Title heading Document structure macros
.TP Tagged paragraph Paragraphing macros
.TQ Supplemental paragraph tag Paragraphing macros
.UE URI end Hyperlink macros
.UR URI start Hyperlink macros
.YS Synopsis end Synopsis macros
We discuss other macros (.AT, .DT, .HP, .OP, .PD, .SB, and .UC)
in subsection “Deprecated features” below.
Throughout Unix documentation, a manual entry is referred to
simply as a “man page”, regardless of its length, without
gendered implication, and irrespective of the macro package
selected for its composition.
Macro reference preliminaries
A tagged paragraph describes each macro. We present coupled
pairs together, as with .EX and .EE. An empty macro argument can
be specified with a pair of double-quotes (""), but the man
package is designed such that this should seldom be necessary.
Most macro arguments will be formatted as text in the output;
exceptions are noted.
Document structure macros
Document structure macros organize a man page's content. All of
them break the output line. .TH (title heading) identifies the
document as a man page and configures the page headers and
footers. Section headings (.SH), one of which is mandatory and
many of which are conventionally expected, facilitate location of
material by the reader and aid the man page writer to discuss all
essential aspects of the subject. Subsection headings (.SS) are
optional and permit sections that grow long to develop in a
controlled way. Many technical discussions benefit from
examples; lengthy ones, especially those reflecting multiple
lines of input to or output from the system, are usefully
bracketed by .EX and .EE. When none of the foregoing meets a
structural demand, use .RS/.RE to inset a region within a
(sub)section.
.TH identifier section [footer-middle [footer-inside [header-
middle]]]
Populate the page header and footer. Together, identifier
and the section of the manual to which it belongs can
uniquely identify a man document on the system. See
man(1) or intro(1) for the manual sectioning applicable to
your system. identifier and section are positioned at the
left and right in the header; the latter is set after the
former, in parentheses and without space. footer-middle
is centered in the footer. The arrangement of the rest of
the footer depends on whether double-sided layout is
enabled with the option -rD1. When disabled (the
default), footer-inside is positioned at the bottom left.
Otherwise, footer-inside appears at the bottom left on
recto (odd-numbered) pages, and at the bottom right on
verso (even-numbered) pages. The outside footer is the
page number, except in the continuous-rendering mode
enabled by the option -rcR=1, in which case it is the
identifier and section, as in the header. header-middle
is centered in the header. If section is an integer
between 1 and 9 (inclusive), there is no need to specify
header-middle; an.tmac will supply text for it. This
package may abbreviate identifier and footer-inside with
ellipses if they would overrun the space available in the
header and footer, respectively. In HTML output, headers
and footers are suppressed.
Additionally, this macro breaks the page, resetting the
number to 1 (unless the -rC1 option is given). This
feature is intended only for formatting multiple man
documents in sequence.
A valid man document calls .TH only once, early in the
file, prior to any other macro calls.
.SH [heading-text]
Set heading-text as a section heading. If no argument is
given, the macro plants a one-line input trap; text on the
next line becomes heading-text. The heading text is set
in bold (or the font specified by the string HF), and, on
typesetters, slightly larger than the base type size. If
the heading font \*[HF] is bold, use of an italic style in
heading-text is mapped to the bold-italic style if
available in the font family. The inset level is reset to
1; see subsection “Horizontal and vertical spacing” below.
Text after heading-text is set as an ordinary paragraph
(.P).
The content of heading-text and ordering of sections
follows a set of common practices, as has much of the
layout of material within sections. For example, a
section called “Name” or “NAME” must exist, must be the
first section after the .TH call, and must contain only
text of the form
topic[, another-topic]... \- summary-description
for a man page in English to be properly indexed.
.SS [subheading-text]
Set subheading-text as a subsection heading indented
between a section heading and an ordinary paragraph (.P).
If no argument is given, the macro plants a one-line input
trap; text on the next line becomes subheading-text. The
subheading text is set in bold (or the font specified by
the string HF). If the heading font \*[HF] is bold, use
of an italic style in subheading-text is mapped to the
bold-italic style if available in the font family. The
inset level is reset to 1; see subsection “Horizontal and
vertical spacing” below. Text after subheading-text is
set as an ordinary paragraph (.P).
.EX
.EE Begin and end example. After .EX, filling is disabled and
a constant-width (monospaced) font is selected. Calling
.EE enables filling and restores the previous font.
.EX and .EE are extensions introduced in Ninth Edition
Unix. Documenter's Workbench, Heirloom Doctools, and
Plan 9 troffs, and mandoc (since 1.12.2) also support
them. Solaris troff does not. See subsection “Use of
extensions” in groff_man_style(7).
.RS [inset-amount]
Start a new relative inset level. The current inset
amount is saved, then moved right by inset-amount, if
specified, by the indentation amount of the preceding .IP,
.TP, or (deprecated) .HP macro call if no (sub-)sectioning
or ordinary paragraphing macro has intervened, and by the
amount of the IN register otherwise. Calls to .RS can be
nested; each increments by 1 the inset level used by .RE.
The level prior to any .RS calls is 1.
.RE [inset-level]
End a relative inset. The inset amount corresponding to
inset-level is restored. If no argument is given, the
inset level is reduced by 1.
Paragraphing macros
An ordinary paragraph (.P) indents all output lines by the same
amount. Definition lists frequently occur in man pages; these
can be set as tagged paragraphs, which have one (.TP) or more
(.TQ) leading tags followed by a paragraph that has an additional
indentation. The indented paragraph (.IP) macro is useful to
continue the indented content of a narrative started with .TP, or
to present an itemized or ordered list. All of these macros
break the output line. If another paragraph macro has occurred
since the previous .SH or .SS, they (except for .TQ) follow the
break with a default amount of vertical space, which can be
changed by the deprecated .PD macro; see subsection “Horizontal
and vertical spacing” below. They also reset the type size and
font style to defaults (.TQ again excepted); see subsection “Font
style macros” below.
.P
.LP
.PP Begin a new paragraph; these macros are synonymous. Any
indentation from use of .IP, .TP, or the deprecated .HP is
cleared. The inset amount, as affected by .RS and .RE, is
not.
.TP [indentation]
Set a paragraph with a leading tag, and the remainder of
the paragraph indented. The macro plants a one-line input
trap that honors the \c escape sequence; text on the next
line becomes the tag, set without indentation. Text on
subsequent lines is indented by indentation, if specified,
and by the amount of the IN register otherwise. If the
tag, plus the “tag spacing” stored in the TS register (see
section “Options” below) is wider than the indentation,
the line is broken after the tag.
.TQ Set an additional tag for a paragraph tagged with .TP,
planting a one-line input trap as with .TP.
.TQ is a GNU extension supported by Heirloom Doctools
troff and mandoc (since 1.14.5) but not by Documenter's
Workbench, Plan 9, or Solaris troffs. See subsection “Use
of extensions” in groff_man_style(7).
.IP [mark [indentation]]
Set an indented paragraph with an optional mark.
Arguments, if present, are handled as with .TP, except
that the mark argument to .IP cannot include a macro call,
and the tag separation amount stored in the TS register is
not enforced.
Synopsis macros
Use .SY and .YS to summarize syntax using familiar Unix
conventions. Heirloom Doctools troff and mandoc (since 1.14.5)
support these GNU extensions; Documenter's Workbench, Plan 9, and
Solaris troffs do not. See subsection “Use of extensions” in
groff_man_style(7).
.SY keyword [suffix]
Begin synopsis. Adjustment and automatic hyphenation are
disabled. If .SY has already been called without a
corresponding .YS, a break is performed. keyword and
suffix (if any) are set in bold. If a break is required
in subsequent text (up to another paragraphing,
sectioning, or synopsis macro call), lines after the first
are indented. The indentation amount is the width of
keyword plus a space, if that is the only argument, and by
the sum of the widths of keyword and suffix otherwise.
.YS [reuse-indentation]
End synopsis, breaking the line and restoring indentation,
adjustment, and hyphenation to their previous states. If
an argument is given, the indentation corresponding to the
previous .SY call is reused by the next .SY call instead
of being computed.
Hyperlink macros
Man page cross references are best presented with .MR. Text may
be hyperlinked to email addresses with .MT/.ME or other URIs with
.UR/.UE. Not all output devices support hyperlinking of text;
terminals and pager programs must support ECMA-48 OSC 8 escape
sequences (see grotty(1)). When device support is unavailable or
disabled with the U register (see section “Options” below), .MT
and .UR URIs are rendered between angle brackets after the linked
text.
.MT, .ME, .UR, and .UE are GNU extensions supported by Heirloom
Doctools and mandoc (.UR/.UE since 1.12.3; .MT/.ME since 1.14.2)
but not by Documenter's Workbench, Plan 9, or Solaris troffs.
Plan 9 from User Space's troff implements .MR. See subsection
“Use of extensions” in groff_man_style(7).
The arguments to .MR, .MT, and .UR should be prepared for
typesetting since they can appear in the output. Use special
character escape sequences to encode Unicode basic Latin
characters where necessary, particularly the hyphen-minus. The
formatter removes \: escape sequences from hyperlinks when
supplying device control commands to output drivers.
.MR topic [manual-section [trailing-text]]
(since groff 1.23) Set a man page cross reference as
“topic(manual-section)”. If manual-section is absent, the
package omits the surrounding parentheses. If trailing-
text (typically punctuation) is specified, it follows the
closing parenthesis without intervening space.
Hyphenation is disabled while the cross reference is set.
topic is set in the font specified by the MF string. If
manual-section is present, the cross reference hyperlinks
to a URI of the form “man:topic(manual-section)”.
.MT address
.ME [trailing-text]
Identify address as an RFC 6068 addr-spec for a “mailto:”
URI with the text between the two macro calls as the link
text. An argument to .ME is placed after the link text
without intervening space. address may not be visible in
the rendered document if hyperlinks are enabled and
supported by the output driver. If they are not, address
is set in angle brackets after the link text and before
trailing-text. If hyperlinking is enabled but there is no
link text, address is formatted and hyperlinked without
angle brackets.
.UR uri
.UE [trailing-text]
Identify uri as an RFC 3986 URI hyperlink with the text
between the two macro calls as the link text. An argument
to .UE is placed after the link text without intervening
space. uri may not be visible in the rendered document if
hyperlinks are enabled and supported by the output driver.
If they are not, uri is set in angle brackets after the
link text and before trailing-text. If hyperlinking is
enabled but there is no link text, uri is formatted and
hyperlinked without angle brackets.
If a .TP call is followed immediately by hyperlinking macros
.UR/.UE or .MT/.ME, and the device doesn't support hyperlinking,
the hyperlink is set at the beginning of the indented paragraph,
not as part of the tag.
Font style macros
The man macro package is limited in its font styling options,
offering only bold (.B), italic (.I), and roman. Italic text is
usually set underscored instead on terminals. .SM sets text at a
smaller type size, which differs visually from regular-sized text
only on typesetters. It is often necessary to set text in
different styles without intervening space. The macros .BI, .BR,
.IB, .IR, .RB, and .RI, where “B”, “I”, and “R” indicate bold,
italic, and roman, respectively, set their odd- and even-numbered
arguments in alternating styles, with no space separating them.
The default type size and family for typesetters is 10-point
Times, except on the X75-12 and X100-12 devices where the type
size is 12 points. The default style is roman.
.B [text]
Set text in bold. If no argument is given, the macro
plants a one-line input trap; text on the next line, which
can be further formatted with a macro, is set in bold.
.I [text]
Set text in an italic or oblique face. If no argument is
given, the macro plants a one-line input trap; text on the
next line, which can be further formatted with a macro, is
set in an italic or oblique face.
.SM [text]
Set text one point smaller than the default type size on
typesetters. If no argument is given, the macro plants a
one-line input trap; text on the next line, which can be
further formatted with a macro, is set smaller.
Unlike the above font style macros, the font style alternation
macros below set no input traps; they must be given arguments to
have effect. They apply italic corrections as appropriate.
.BI bold-text italic-text ...
Set each argument in bold and italics, alternately.
.BR bold-text roman-text ...
Set each argument in bold and roman, alternately.
.IB italic-text bold-text ...
Set each argument in italics and bold, alternately.
.IR italic-text roman-text ...
Set each argument in italics and roman, alternately.
.RB roman-text bold-text ...
Set each argument in roman and bold, alternately.
.RI roman-text italic-text ...
Set each argument in roman and italics, alternately.
Horizontal and vertical spacing
All text is rendered with respect to the page offset; see
register PO in section “Options” below. Headers, footers (both
set with .TH), and section headings (.SH) are set with no further
indentation. Subsection headings (.SS) are indented by the
amount in the SN register.
Ordinary paragraphs not within an .RS/.RE inset region are inset
by the amount stored in the BP register; see section “Options”
below. The IN register configures the default indentation amount
used by .RS (as the inset-amount), .IP, .TP, and the deprecated
.HP; an overriding argument is a number plus an optional scaling
unit. If no scaling unit is given, the man package assumes “n”.
An indentation specified in a call to .IP, .TP, or the deprecated
.HP persists until (1) another of these macros is called with an
indentation argument, or (2) .SH, .SS, or .P or its synonyms is
called; these clear the indentation entirely.
Several macros insert vertical space: .SH, .SS, .TP, .P (and its
synonyms), .IP, and the deprecated .HP. The default inter-
section and inter-paragraph spacing is 1v for terminals and 0.4v
for typesetters. (The deprecated macro .PD can change this
vertical spacing, but we discourage its use.) Between .EX and
.EE calls, the inter-paragraph spacing is 1v regardless of output
device.
Registers
Registers are described in section “Options” below. They can be
set not only on the command line but in the site man.local file
as well; see section “Files” below.
Strings
The following strings are defined for use in man pages. None of
these is necessary in a contemporary man page; see
groff_man_style(7). Others are supported for configuration of
rendering parameters; see section “Options” below.
\*R interpolates a special character escape sequence for the
“registered sign” glyph, \(rg, if available, and “(Reg.)”
otherwise.
\*S interpolates an escape sequence setting the type size to
the document default.
\*(lq
\*(rq interpolate special character escape sequences for left
and right double-quotation marks, \(lq and \(rq,
respectively.
\*(Tm interpolates a special character escape sequence for the
“trade mark sign” glyph, \(tm, if available, and “(TM)”
otherwise.
Hooks
Two macros, both GNU extensions, are called internally by the
groff man package to format page headers and footers and can be
redefined by the administrator in a site's man.local file (see
section “Files” below). The presentation of .TH above describes
the default headers and footers. Because these macros are hooks
for groff man internals, man pages have no reason to call them.
Such hook definitions will likely consist of “.sp” and “.tl”
requests. They must also increase the page length with “.pl”
requests in continuous rendering mode; .PT furthermore has the
responsibility of emitting a PDF bookmark after writing the first
page header in a document. Consult the existing implementations
in an.tmac when drafting replacements.
.BT Set the page footer text (“bottom trap”).
.PT Set the page header text (“page trap”).
To remove a page header or footer entirely, define the
appropriate macro as empty rather than deleting it.
Deprecated features
Use of the following in man pages for public distribution is
discouraged.
.AT [system [release]]
Alter the footer for use with legacy AT&T man pages,
overriding any definition of the footer-inside argument to
.TH. This macro exists only to render man pages from
historical systems.
The inside footer is populated per the value of system.
3 7th edition (default)
4 System III
5 System V
The optional release argument specifies the release
number, as in “System V Release 3”.
.DT Reset tab stops to the default (every 0.5i).
Use of this presentation-oriented macro is deprecated. It
translates poorly to HTML, under which exact space control
and tabulation are not readily available. Thus,
information or distinctions that you use tab stops to
express are likely to be lost. If you feel tempted to
change the tab stops such that calling this macro later to
restore them is desirable, consider composing a table
using tbl(1) instead.
.HP [indentation]
Set up a paragraph with a hanging left indentation.
indentation, if present, is handled as with .TP.
Use of this presentation-oriented macro is deprecated. A
hanging indentation cannot be expressed naturally in HTML,
a hanging paragraph is not distinguishable from an
ordinary one if it formats on only one output line, and
non-roff-based man page interpreters may treat .HP as an
ordinary paragraph. Thus, information or distinctions you
mean to express with indentation may be lost.
.OP option-name [option-argument]
Indicate an optional command parameter called option-name,
which is set in bold. If the option takes an argument,
specify option-argument using a noun, abbreviation, or
hyphenated noun phrase. If present, option-argument is
preceded by a space and set in italics. Square brackets
in roman surround both arguments.
Use of this quasi-semantic macro, an extension originating
in Documenter's Workbench troff, is deprecated. It cannot
easily be used to annotate options that take optional
arguments or options whose arguments have internal
structure (such as a mixture of literal and variable
components). One could work around these limitations with
font selection escape sequences, but it is preferable to
use font style alternation macros, which afford greater
flexibility.
.PD [vertical-space]
Configure the amount of vertical space between paragraphs
or (sub)sections. The optional argument vertical-space
specifies the amount; the default scaling unit is “v”.
Without an argument, the spacing is reset to its default
value; see subsection “Horizontal and vertical spacing”
above.
Use of this presentation-oriented macro is deprecated. It
translates poorly to HTML, under which exact control of
inter-paragraph spacing is not readily available. Thus,
information or distinctions that you use .PD to express
are likely to be lost.
.SB [text]
Set text in bold and (on typesetters) one point smaller
than the default type size. If no argument is given, the
macro plants a one-line input trap; text on the next line,
which can be further formatted with a macro, is set
smaller and in bold. Use of this macro, an extension
originating in SunOS 4.0 troff, is deprecated. .SM
without an argument, followed immediately by “.B text”,
produces the same output more portably. The macros' order
is interchangeable; put text with the latter.
.UC [version]
Alter the footer for use with legacy BSD man pages,
overriding any definition of the footer-inside argument to
.TH. This macro exists only to render man pages from
historical systems.
The inside footer is populated per the value of version.
3 3rd Berkeley Distribution (default)
4 4th Berkeley Distribution
5 4.2 Berkeley Distribution
6 4.3 Berkeley Distribution
7 4.4 Berkeley Distribution
History
M. Douglas McIlroy ⟨m.douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu⟩ designed,
implemented, and documented the AT&T man macros for Unix
Version 7 (1979) and employed them to edit the first volume of
its Programmer's Manual, a compilation of all man pages supplied
by the system. That man supported the macros listed in this page
not described as extensions, except .P and the deprecated .AT and
.UC. The only strings defined were R and S; no registers were
documented.
.UC appeared in 3BSD (1980). Unix System III (1980) introduced
.P and exposed the registers IN and LL, which had been internal
to Seventh Edition Unix man. PWB/UNIX 2.0 (1980) added the Tm
string. 4BSD (1980) added lq and rq strings. SunOS 2.0 (1985)
recognized C, D, P, and X registers. 4.3BSD (1986) added .AT and
.P. Ninth Edition Unix (1986) introduced .EX and .EE. SunOS 4.0
(1988) added .SB.
James Clark implemented the foregoing features in early versions
of groff. Later, groff 1.20 (2009) originated .SY/.YS, .TQ,
.MT/.ME, and .UR/.UE. Plan 9 from User Space's troff introduced
.MR in 2020.
The following groff options set registers (with -r) and strings
(with -d) recognized and used by the man macro package. To
ensure rendering consistent with output device capabilities and
reader preferences, man pages should never manipulate them.
-dAD=adjustment-mode
Set line adjustment to adjustment-mode, which is typically
“b” for adjustment to both margins (the default), or “l”
for left alignment (ragged right margin). Any valid
argument to groff's “.ad” request may be used. See
groff(7) for less-common choices.
-rBP=base-paragraph-inset
Set the inset amount for ordinary paragraphs not within an
.RS/.RE inset. The default is 5n.
-rcR=1 Enable continuous rendering. Output is not paginated;
instead, one (potentially very long) page is produced.
This is the default for terminal and HTML devices. Use
-rcR=0 to disable it on terminals; on HTML devices, it
cannot be disabled.
-rC1 Number output pages consecutively, in strictly increasing
sequence, rather than resetting the page number to 1 (or
the value of register P) with each new man document.
-rCS=1 Set section headings (the argument(s) to .SH) in full
capitals. This transformation is off by default because
it discards case distinction information.
-rCT=1 Set the man page identifier (the first argument to .TH) in
full capitals in headers and footers. This transformation
is off by default because it discards case distinction
information.
-rD1 Enable double-sided layout, formatting footers for even
and odd pages differently; see the description of .TH in
subsection “Document structure macros” above.
-rFT=footer-distance
Set distance of the footer relative to the bottom of the
page to footer-distance; this amount is always negative.
At one half-inch above this location, the page text is
broken before writing the footer. Ignored if continuous
rendering is enabled. The default is “-0.5i - 1v”.
-dHF=heading-font
Select the font used for section and subsection headings;
the default is “B” (bold style of the default family).
Any valid argument to groff's “.ft” request may be used.
See groff(7).
-rHY=0 Disable automatic hyphenation. Normally, it is
enabled (1). The hyphenation mode is determined by the
groff locale; see section “Localization“ of groff(7).
-rIN=standard-indentation
Set the default indentation amount used by .IP, .TP, and
the deprecated .HP, and the inset amount used by .RS. The
default is 7n on terminals and 7.2n on typesetters. Use
only integer multiples of unit “n” on terminals for
consistent indentation.
-rLL=line-length
Set line length; the default is 80n on terminals and 6.5i
on typesetters.
-rLT=title-length
Set the line length for titles. By default, it is set to
the line length (see -rLL above).
-dMF=man-page-topic-font
Select the font used for man page identifiers in .TH calls
and topics named in .MR calls; the default is “I” (italic
style of the default family). Any valid argument to
groff's “.ft” request may be used. If the MF string ends
in “I”, it is assumed to be an oblique typeface, and
italic corrections are applied before and after man page
topics and identifiers.
-rPn Start enumeration of pages at n. The default is 1.
-rPO=page-offset
Set page offset; the default is 0 on terminals and 1i on
typesetters.
-rStype-size
Use type-size for the document's body text; acceptable
values are 10, 11, or 12 points. See subsection “Font
style macros” above for the default.
-rSN=subsection-indentation
Set indentation of subsection headings to subsection-
indentation. The default is 3n.
-rTS=separation
Require the given separation between a TP paragraph's tag
and its body. The default is 2n.
-rU0 Disable generation of URI hyperlinks in output drivers
capable of them, making the arguments to MT and UR calls
visible as formatted text. grohtml(1), gropdf(1), and
grotty(1) enable hyperlinks by default (the last only if
not in legacy output mode).
-rXp Number successors of page p as pa, pb, pc, and so forth.
The register tracking the suffixed page letter uses format
“a” (see the “.af” request in groff(7)).
/usr/local/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/an.tmac
Most man macros are defined in this file. It also loads
extensions from an-ext.tmac (see below).
/usr/local/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/andoc.tmac
This brief groff program detects whether the man or mdoc
macro package is being used by a document and loads the
correct macro definitions, taking advantage of the fact
that pages using them must call .TH or .Dd, respectively,
before any other macros. A man program or a user typing,
for example, “groff -mandoc page.1”, need not know which
package the file page.1 uses. Multiple man pages, in
either format, can be handled; andoc reloads each macro
package as necessary. Page-local redefinitions of names
used by the man or mdoc packages prior to .TH or .Dd calls
will be “clobbered” by the reloading process. If you want
to provide your own definition of an extension macro to
ensure its availability, the an-ext.tmac entry below
offers advice.
/usr/local/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/an-ext.tmac
Definitions of macros described above as extensions (and
not deprecated) are contained in this file; in some cases,
they are simpler versions of definitions appearing in
an.tmac, and are ignored if the formatter is GNU troff.
They are written to be compatible with AT&T troff and
permissively licensed—not copylefted. To reduce the risk
of name space collisions, string and register names begin
only with “m”. We encourage man page authors who are
concerned about portability to legacy Unix systems to copy
these definitions into their pages, and maintainers of
troff implementations or work-alike systems that format
man pages to re-use them. To ensure reliable rendering,
define them after your page calls .TH; see the discussion
of andoc.tmac above. Further, it is wise to define such
page-local macros (if at all) after the “Name” section to
accommodate timid makewhatis(8) or mandb(8)
implementations that easily give up scanning for indexing
material.
/usr/local/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/man.tmac
is a wrapper enabling the package to be loaded with the
option “-m man”.
/usr/local/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/mandoc.tmac
is a wrapper enabling andoc.tmac to be loaded with the
option “-m mandoc”.
/usr/local/share/groff/site-tmac/man.local
Put site-local changes and customizations into this file.
The initial GNU implementation of the man macro package was
written by James Clark. Later, Werner Lemberg ⟨wl@gnu.org⟩
supplied the S, LT, and cR registers, the last a 4.3BSD-Reno
mdoc(7) feature. Larry Kollar ⟨kollar@alltel.net⟩ added the FT,
HY, and SN registers; the HF string; and the PT and BT macros.
G. Branden Robinson ⟨g.branden.robinson@gmail.com⟩ implemented
the AD and MF strings; BP, CS, CT, PO, TS, and U registers; and
the MR macro. Extension macros since groff 1.20 were written by
Lemberg, Eric S. Raymond ⟨esr@thyrsus.com⟩, and Robinson.
This document was originally written for the Debian GNU/Linux
system by Susan G. Kleinmann ⟨sgk@debian.org⟩. It was corrected
and updated by Lemberg and Robinson. The extension macros were
documented by Raymond and Robinson.
tbl(1), eqn(1), and refer(1) are preprocessors used with man
pages. man(1) describes the man page librarian on your system.
groff_mdoc(7) details the groff version of the BSD-originated
alternative macro package for man pages.
groff_man_style(7), groff(7), groff_char(7)
This page is part of the groff (GNU troff) project. Information
about the project can be found at
⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/groff/⟩. If you have a bug report
for this manual page, see ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/groff/⟩.
This page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/groff.git⟩ on 2024-06-14. (At
that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
the repository was 2024-06-10.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there
is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
man-pages@man7.org
groff 1.23.0.1273-9d53-dirty 6 June 2024 groff_man(7)
Pages that refer to this page: dh_installman(1), man(1), man-pages(7), uri(7)
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HTML rendering created 2024-06-26 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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