GROFF_MS(7)GROFF_MS(7)NAME
groff_ms - groff ms macros
SYNOPSIS
groff -ms [ options... ] [ files... ]
groff -m ms [ options... ] [ files... ]
DESCRIPTION
This manual page describes the GNU version of the ms macros, part of
the groff typesetting system. The ms macros are mostly compatible with
the documented behavior of the 4.3 BSD Unix ms macros (see Differences
from troff ms below for details). The ms macros are suitable for
reports, letters, books, and technical documentation.
USAGE
The ms macro package expects files to have a certain amount of struc‐
ture. The simplest documents can begin with a paragraph macro and con‐
sist of text separated by paragraph macros or even blank lines. Longer
documents have a structure as follows:
Document type
If you use the RP (report) macro at the beginning of the docu‐
ment, groff prints the cover page information on its own page;
otherwise it prints the information on the first page with your
document text immediately following. Other document formats
found in AT&T troff are specific to AT&T or Berkeley, and are
not supported in groff ms.
Format and layout
By setting number registers, you can change your document's type
(font and size), margins, spacing, headers and footers, and
footnotes. See Document control registers below for more
details.
Cover page
A cover page consists of a title, and optionally the author's
name and institution, an abstract, and the date. See Cover page
macros below for more details.
Body Following the cover page is your document. It consists of para‐
graphs, headings, and lists.
Table of contents
Longer documents usually include a table of contents, which you
can add by placing the TC macro at the end of your document.
Document control registers
The following table lists the document control number registers. For
the sake of consistency, set registers related to margins at the begin‐
ning of your document, or just after the RP macro.
Margin settings
Reg. Definition Effective Default
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────
PO Page offset (left mar‐ next page 1i
gin)
LL Line length next para. 6i
LT Header/footer length next para. 6i
HM Top (header) margin next page 1i
FM Bottom (footer) margin next page 1i
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Text settings
Reg. Definition Effective Default
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
PS Point size next para. 10p
VS Line spacing (leading) next para. 12p
PSINCR Point size increment next heading 1p
for section headings of
increasing importance
GROWPS Heading level beyond next heading 0
which PSINCR is ignored
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Paragraph settings
Reg. Definition Effective Default
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
PI Initial indent next para. 5n
PD Space between paragraphs next para. 0.3v
QI Quoted paragraph indent next para. 5n
PORPHANS Number of initial lines to next para. 1
be kept together
HORPHANS Number of initial lines to next heading 1
be kept with heading
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Footnote settings
Reg. Definition Effective Default
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
FL Footnote length next footnote \n[LL]*5/6
FI Footnote indent next footnote 2n
FF Footnote format next footnote 0
FPS Point size next footnote \n[PS]-2
FVS Vert. spacing next footnote \n[FPS]+2
FPD Para. spacing next footnote \n[PD]/2
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Other settings
Reg. Definition Effective Default
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────
MINGW Minimum width between next page 2n
columns
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────
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 for‐
mat 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. The
effect is identical to the HTML <BLOCKQUOTE> element. The next para‐
graph 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).
For each of the above paragraph types, and also for any list entry
introduced by the IP macro (described later), the document control reg‐
ister 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 accommo‐
date 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) pre‐
ceeds any of these paragraph types, the HORPHANS document control reg‐
ister 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 fam‐
ily and point size as the body text. For output devices which support
scalable fonts, this behaviour may be modified, by defining the docu‐
ment 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:
.nr PS 10
.nr GROWPS 3
.nr PSINCR 1.5p
.
.NH 1
Top Level Heading
.
.NH 2
Second Level Heading
.
.NH 3
Third Level Heading
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.
After invoking .NH, the assigned heading number is available in
the strings SN-DOT (exactly as it appears in the formatted head‐
ing), and SN-NO-DOT (with its final 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:
.ds SN-NO-DOT
.als SN SN-NO-DOT
before the first use of .NH, or simply:
.als SN SN-NO-DOT
after the first use of .NH.
.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 preceeding
.NH example, the sequence:
.SH 2
An Unnumbered Subheading
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 punctua‐
tion after the highlighted text without highlighting the punctu‐
ation). Similarly, it prints the third argument (if any) in the
previous font before the first argument. For example,
.B foo ) (
prints (foo).
If you give this macro no arguments, groff prints all text fol‐
lowing in bold until the next highlighting, paragraph, or head‐
ing 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 simi‐
larly 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 multi‐
ple 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 multi‐
ple 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 num‐
bered 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 list‐
ings). 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 fol‐
lowing table shows the display types available.
Display macro Type of display
With keep No keep
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
.DS L .LD Left-justified.
.DS I [indent] .ID Indented (default indent in
the DI register).
.DS B .BD Block-centered (left-justi‐
fied, longest line centered).
.DS C .CD Centered.
.DS R .RD Right-justified.
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
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 actu‐
ally use Ds and De always load a specific macro file from the X11 dis‐
tribution (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
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 avail‐
able 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 data‐
base.
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:
0 Prints the footnote number as a superscript; indents the
footnote (default).
1 Prints the number followed by a period (like 1.) and
indents the footnote.
2 Like 1, without an indent.
3 Like 1, but prints the footnote number as a hanging para‐
graph.
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 two 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 foot‐
ers. 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:
.OH 'left'center'right'
You can replace the quote (') marks with any character not appearing
in the header or footer text.
Margins
You control margins using a set of number registers. The following ta‐
ble lists the register names and defaults:
Reg. Definition Effective Default
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────
PO Page offset (left mar‐ next page 1i
gin)
LL Line length next para. 6i
LT Header/footer length next para. 6i
HM Top (header) margin next page 1i
FM Bottom (footer) margin next page 1i
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────
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 cur‐
rent mode is single-column, starting a multi-column mode does not force
a page break.
.1C Single-column mode.
.2C Two-column mode.
.MC [width [gutter]]
Multi-column mode. If you specify no arguments, it is equiva‐
lent to the 2C macro. Otherwise, width is the width of each
column and gutter is the space between columns. The MINGW num‐
ber 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 with‐
out resetting the page number.
If you give the argument no to either PX or TC, groff suppresses print‐
ing the title specified by the \*[TOC] string.
Fractional point sizes
Traditionally, the ms macros only support integer values for the docu‐
ment'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).
DIFFERENCES FROM troff ms
The groff ms macros are a complete re-implementation, using no original
AT&T code. Since they take advantage of the extended features in
groff, they cannot be used with AT&T troff. Other differences include:
· The internals of groff ms differ from the internals of Unix ms.
Documents that depend upon implementation details of Unix ms may not
format properly with groff ms.
· The error-handling policy of groff ms is to detect and report
errors, rather than silently to ignore them.
· Bell Labs localisms are not implemented.
· Berkeley localisms, in particular the TM and CT macros, are not
implemented.
· Groff ms does not work in compatibility mode (e.g., with the -C
option).
· There is no support for typewriter-like devices.
· Groff ms does not provide cut marks.
· Multiple line spacing is not supported (use a larger vertical spac‐
ing instead).
· Some Unix ms documentation says that the CW and GW number registers
can be used to control the column width and gutter width, respec‐
tively. These number registers are not used in groff ms.
· Macros that cause a reset (paragraphs, headings, etc.) may change
the indent. Macros that change the indent do not increment or
decrement the indent, but rather set it absolutely. This can cause
problems for documents that define additional macros of their own.
The solution is to use not the in request but instead the RS and RE
macros.
· The number register GS is set to 1 by the groff ms macros, but is
not used by the Unix ms macros. Documents that need to determine
whether they are being formatted with Unix ms or groff ms should use
this number register.
· To make groff ms use the default page offset (which also specifies
the left margin), the PO number register must stay undefined until
the first ms macro is evaluated. This implies that PO should not be
used early in the document, unless it is changed also: Remember that
accessing an undefined register automatically defines it.
Strings
You can redefine the following strings to adapt the groff ms macros to
languages other than English:
String Default Value
─────────────────────────────────
REFERENCES References
ABSTRACT ABSTRACT
TOC Table of Contents
MONTH1 January
MONTH2 February
MONTH3 March
MONTH4 April
MONTH5 May
MONTH6 June
MONTH7 July
MONTH8 August
MONTH9 September
MONTH10 October
MONTH11 November
MONTH12 December
─────────────────────────────────
The \*- string produces an em dash — like this.
Use \*Q and \*U to get a left and right typographer's quote, respec‐
tively, in troff (and plain quotes in nroff).
Text Settings
The FAM string sets the default font family. If this string is unde‐
fined at initialization, it is set to Times.
The point size, vertical spacing, and inter-paragraph spacing for foot‐
notes are controlled by the number registers FPS, FVS, and FPD; at ini‐
tialization these are set to \n(PS-2, \n[FPS]+2, and \n(PD/2, respec‐
tively. 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 docu‐
ment. 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.
NAMING CONVENTIONS
The following conventions are used for names of macros, strings and
number registers. External names available to documents that use the
groff ms macros contain only uppercase letters and digits.
Internally the macros are divided into modules; naming conventions are
as follows:
· Names used only within one module are of the form module*name.
· Names used outside the module in which they are defined are of the
form module@name.
· Names associated with a particular environment are of the form
environment:name; these are used only within the par module.
· name does not have a module prefix.
· Constructed names used to implement arrays are of the form
array!index.
Thus the groff ms macros reserve the following names:
· Names containing the characters *, @, and :.
· Names containing only uppercase letters and digits.
FILES
/usr/share/groff/1.19.2/tmac/ms.tmac (a wrapper file for s.tmac)
/usr/share/groff/1.19.2/tmac/s.tmac
SEE ALSOgroff(1), troff(1), tbl(1), pic(1), eqn(1), refer(1), Groff: The GNU
Implementation of troff by Trent Fisher and Werner Lemberg.
AUTHOR
Original manual page by James Clark et al; rewritten by Larry Kollar
(lkollar@despammed.com).
Groff Version 1.19.2 4 September 2005 GROFF_MS(7)
