groff: Man usage
4.1.2 Usage
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This section describes the available macros for manual pages. For
further customization, put additional macros and requests into the file
'man.local', which is loaded immediately after the 'man' package.
-- Macro: .TH title section [extra1 [extra2 [extra3]]]
Set the title of the man page to TITLE and the section to SECTION,
which must have a value between 1 and 8. The value of SECTION may
also have a string appended, e.g. '.pm', to indicate a specific
subsection of the man pages.
Both TITLE and SECTION are positioned at the left and right in the
header line (with SECTION in parentheses immediately appended to
TITLE. EXTRA1 is positioned in the middle of the footer line.
EXTRA2 is positioned at the left in the footer line (or at the left
on even pages and at the right on odd pages if double-sided
printing is active). EXTRA3 is centered in the header line.
For HTML and XHTML output, headers and footers are completely
suppressed.
Additionally, this macro starts a new page; the new line number
is 1 again (except if the '-rC1' option is given on the command
line) - this feature is intended only for formatting multiple man
pages; a single man page should contain exactly one 'TH' macro at
the beginning of the file.
-- Macro: .SH [heading]
Set up an unnumbered section heading sticking out to the left.
Prints out all the text following 'SH' up to the end of the line
(or the text in the next line if there is no argument to 'SH') in
bold face (or the font specified by the string 'HF'), one size
larger than the base document size. Additionally, the left margin
and the indentation for the following text is reset to its default
value.
-- Macro: .SS [heading]
Set up an unnumbered (sub)section heading. Prints out all the text
following 'SS' up to the end of the line (or the text in the next
line if there is no argument to 'SS') in bold face (or the font
specified by the string 'HF'), at the same size as the base
document size. Additionally, the left margin and the indentation
for the following text is reset to its default value.
-- Macro: .TP [nnn]
Set up an indented paragraph with label. The indentation is set to
NNN if that argument is supplied (the default unit is 'n' if
omitted), otherwise it is set to the previous indentation value
specified with 'TP', 'IP', or 'HP' (or to the default value if none
of them have been used yet).
The first line of text following this macro is interpreted as a
string to be printed flush-left, as it is appropriate 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 the paragraph starts at the same line (but indented),
continuing on the following lines. If the label is wider than the
indentation the descriptive part of the paragraph begins on the
line following the label, entirely indented. Note that neither
font shape nor font size of the label is set to a default value; on
the other hand, the rest of the text has default font settings.
-- Macro: .LP
-- Macro: .PP
-- Macro: .P
These macros are mutual aliases. Any of them causes a line break
at the current position, followed by a vertical space downwards by
the amount specified by the 'PD' macro. The font size and shape
are reset to the default value (10pt roman if no '-rS' option is
given on the command line). Finally, the current left margin and
the indentation is restored.
-- Macro: .IP [designator [nnn]]
Set up an indented paragraph, using DESIGNATOR as a tag to mark its
beginning. The indentation is set to NNN if that argument is
supplied (default unit is 'n'), otherwise it is set to the previous
indentation value specified with 'TP', 'IP', or 'HP' (or the
default value if none of them have been used yet). Font size and
face of the paragraph (but not the designator) are reset to their
default values.
To start an indented paragraph with a particular indentation but
without a designator, use '""' (two double quotes) as the first
argument of 'IP'.
For example, to start a paragraph with bullets as the designator
and 4 en indentation, write
.IP \(bu 4
-- Macro: .HP [nnn]
Set up a paragraph with hanging left indentation. The indentation
is set to NNN if that argument is supplied (default unit is 'n'),
otherwise it is set to the previous indentation value specified
with 'TP', 'IP', or 'HP' (or the default value if non of them have
been used yet). Font size and face are reset to their default
values.
-- Macro: .RS [nnn]
Move the left margin to the right by the value NNN if specified
(default unit is 'n'); otherwise it is set to the previous
indentation value specified with 'TP', 'IP', or 'HP' (or to the
default value if none of them have been used yet). The indentation
value is then set to the default.
Calls to the 'RS' macro can be nested.
-- Macro: .RE [nnn]
Move the left margin back to level NNN, restoring the previous left
margin. If no argument is given, it moves one level back. The
first level (i.e., no call to 'RS' yet) has number 1, and each call
to 'RS' increases the level by 1.
To summarize, the following macros cause a line break with the
insertion of vertical space (which amount can be changed with the 'PD'
macro): 'SH', 'SS', 'TP', 'LP' ('PP', 'P'), 'IP', and 'HP'.
The macros 'RS' and 'RE' also cause a break but do not insert
vertical space.
Finally, the macros 'SH', 'SS', 'LP' ('PP', 'P'), and 'RS' reset the
indentation to its default value.
Info Catalog
groff: Man options
groff: man
groff: Man font macros