Document control registers

Margin settings

Text settings

Paragraph settings

Footnote settings

Other settings

Cover page macros

.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

The QP macro indents all text at both left and right margins. The effect is identical to the HTML <BLOCKQUOTE> element. The next paragraph or heading returns margins to normal.

The XP macro produces an exdented paragraph. The first line of the paragraph begins at the left margin, and subsequent lines are indented (the opposite of PP).

Headings

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.

.SH

Unnumbered subheading.

Highlighting

.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

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

.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

Displays and keeps

Use the DE macro to end any display type.

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.

Tables, figures, equations, and references

.TS [H] and .TE

Denotes 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

Denotes 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

Denotes 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.

.[ and .]

Denotes 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

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

• 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. This 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:

You can replace the quote (') marks with any character not appearing in the header or footer text.

Margins

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

.1C

Single-column mode.

.2C

Two-column mode.

.MC [width [gutter]]

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

Creating a table of contents

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.

Strings

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

Text Settings

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 14.

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.