


GROFF_MAN(7)                                         GROFF_MAN(7)


NAME
       groff_man - groff `an' macros to support generation of man
       pages

SYNOPSIS
       groff -man [ options...  ] [ files...  ]

DESCRIPTION
       The tmac.an 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.

       .TP 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.

       .SH text for a heading
              Sets up an unindented and unnumbered section  head-
              ing.  Prints out all the text following `.SH' up to
              the end of the line  in  bold  face,  with  a  size
              slightly  smaller  than  that  for indented section
              headings.

       .SS text for a heading
              Sets up an indented section  heading.   Prints  out
              all  the  text following `.SS' up to the end of the
              line in bold face, with a size slightly larger than
              that for unindented section headings.

       .TP [nnn]
              Sets  up an indented paragraph.  The indentation is
              set to nnn if that argument is supplied.  The first
              line of text following this macro is interpreted as
              a string to be printed flush-left, as it is  appro-
              priate  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 para-
              graph  begins  on  the  line  following  the label,
              entirely indented.  The `.TP' macro  is  the  macro
              used for the explanations you are just reading.

       .LP or .PP or .P
              These  macros  are  mutual  aliases.   Any  of them
              causes a line break at the current  position,  fol-
              lowed  by  a vertical space downwards by the amount
              that is set in the `PD' counter.



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GROFF_MAN(7)                                         GROFF_MAN(7)


       .IP [designator] [nnn]
              Sets up an indented paragraph, using designator  as
              a  tag  to  mark its beginning.  The indentation is
              permanently set to nnn if  that  argument  is  sup-
              plied.  To set the indentation back to the previous
              level, one must call some  other  macro  that  uses
              indented paragraphs, and explicitly provide it with
              the value of the previous indentation.

              For example, the following paragraphs were all  set
              up  with bullets as the designator, using `.IP \(bu
              4':

       o   `IP' is one of the three macros  used  in  tmac.an  to
           format lists.

       o   `HP' is another.  This macro produces a paragraph with
           a left hanging indentation.

       o   `TP' is another.  This macro  produces  an  unindented
           label  (given  by the text on the first line following
           `TP'), followed by an indented paragraph  with  appro-
           priately descriptive text.

       .HP [nnn]
           Sets up paragraphs with hanging left indentation.  The
           indentation is set to nnn if  that  argument  is  sup-
           plied.   The following pargraph illustrates the effect
           of this macro with the hanging indentation set to 2:

       This is a pagraph following an  invocation  of  the  `.HP'
         macro.   As  you  can see, it produces a paragraph where
         all lines but  the  first  are  flushed  right  and  are
         shorter than the preceding lines.

MACROS TO SET FONTS
       .SM    Causes the text on the same line or the text on the
              next line to appear in a font  that  is  one  point
              size smaller than the default font.

       .SB    Causes the text on the same line or the text on the
              next line to appear in small boldface 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 `and' to appear in
              bold face, while `word' and `that' appear in  ital-
              ics.

       .IB text
              Causes  text  to  appear  alternately in italic and
              bold face.  The text must be on the  same  line  as



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GROFF_MAN(7)                                         GROFF_MAN(7)


              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.

       .R text
              Causes text to appear in roman font.  If no text is
              present on the line where the macro is called, then
              the  text  of the next line appears in roman.  This
              is the default font to which text  is  returned  at
              the end of processing of the other macros.

       .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 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 line appears in italic.

SEE ALSO
       Since  the  tmac.an  macros  consist  of  groups  of groff
       requests, one can, in principle, supplement the  function-
       ality of the tmac.an macros with individual groff requests
       where necessary.  A complete list  of  these  requests  is
       available on the WWW at
         http://www.cs.pdx.edu/~trent/gnu/groff/groff_toc.html

AUTHOR
       This  manual  page  was  originally written for the Debian
       GNU/Linux system by Susan G.  Kleinmann  <sgk@debian.org>,
       corrected  by Werner Lemberg <wl@gnu.org>, and is now part
       of the GNU troff distribution.















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