NAME

man − macros to typeset manual

SYNOPSIS

­nroff -man ­file ... 

­troff -man ­file ... 

DESCRIPTION

These macros are used to format pages of this manual. 

Except in ­.LR and ­.RL requests, any text argument denoted ­t in the request summary may be zero to six words.  Quotes " ... " may be used to include blanks in a ‘word’.  If ­t is empty, the special treatment is applied to the next text input line (the next line that doesn’t begin with dot).  In this way, for example, ­.I may be used to italicize a line of more than 6 words, or ­.SM followed by ­.B to make small letters in ‘bold’ font. 

A prevailing indent distance is remembered between successive indented paragraphs, and is reset to default value upon reaching a non-indented paragraph.  Default units for indents ­i are ens. 

The fonts are

­R roman, the main font, preferred for diagnostics

­I italic, preferred for parameters, short names of commands, names of manual pages, and naked function names

­B ‘bold’, actually the constant width font, preferred for examples, file names, declarations, keywords, names of ­struct members, and literals (numbers are rarely literals)

­L also the constant width font.  In ­troff L=B; in ­nroff arguments of the macros .L, .LR, and ­.RL are printed in quotes; preferred only where quotes really help (e.g. lower-case literals and punctuation). 

Type font and size are reset to default values before each paragraph, and after processing font- or size-setting macros. 

The ­-man macros admit equations and tables in the style of eqn(1) and tbl(1), but do not support arguments on ­.EQ and ­.TS macros. 

These strings are predefined by -man:

­\∗R ‘®’, ‘(Reg)’ in nroff.

­\∗S Change to default type size. 

FILES

­/sys/lib/tmac/tmac.an

SEE ALSO

troff(1), man(1)

REQUESTS

RequestCauseIf noExplanation

BreakArgument

.B tnot=n.t.l.∗Text ­t is ‘bold’. 

.BI tnot=n.t.l.Join words of ­t alternating bold and italic. 

.BR tnot=n.t.l.Join words of ­t alternating bold and Roman. 

.DTnoRestore default tabs. 

.EEyesEnd displayed example

.EXyesBegin displayed example

.HP iyesi=p.i.∗Set prevailing indent to i. Begin paragraph with hanging indent.

.I tnot=n.t.l.Text ­t is italic. 

.IB tnot=n.t.l.Join words of ­t alternating italic and bold. 

.IP x iyesx=""Same as .TP with tag x.

.IR tnot=n.t.l.Join words of ­t alternating italic and Roman. 

.L tnot=n.t.l.Text ­t is literal. 

.LPyesSame as .PP. 

.LR tnoJoin 2 words of ­t alternating literal and Roman. 

.PD dnod=.4vInterparagraph distance is d.

.PPyesBegin paragraph.  Set prevailing indent to default. 

.REyesEnd of relative indent.  Set prevailing indent to amount of starting .RS. 

.RI tnot=n.t.l.Join words of ­t alternating Roman and italic. 

.RL tnoJoin 2 or 3 words of ­t alternating Roman and literal. 

.RS iyesi=p.i.Start relative indent, move left margin in distance i. Set prevailing indent to default for nested indents.

.SH tyest=""Subhead; reset paragraph distance. 

.SM tnot=n.t.l.Text ­t is small. 

.SS tnot=""Secondary subhead. 

.TF syesPrevailing indent is wide as string ­s in font L; paragraph distance is 0. 

.TH n c xyesBegin page named ­n of chapter c; ­x is extra commentary, e.g. ‘local’, for page head.  Set prevailing indent and tabs to default. 

.TP iyesi=p.i.Set prevailing indent to i. Restore default indent if i=0. Begin indented paragraph with hanging tag given by next text line. If tag doesn’t fit, place it on separate line.

.1CyesEqualize columns and return to 1-column output

.2CyesStart 2-column nofill output

∗ n.t.l. = next text line; p.i. = prevailing indent

BUGS

There’s no way to fool ­troff into handling literal double quote marks ­" in font-alternation macros, such as .BI. 
There is no direct way to suppress column widows in 2-column output; the column lengths may be adjusted by inserting ­.sp requests before the closing .1C. 

Plan 9  —  December 11, 1999