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Name | Synopsis | Description | Usage | Differences from troff ms | Naming Conventions | Files | Authors | See also | COLOPHON |
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groff_ms(7) Miscellaneous Information Manual groff_ms(7)
groff_ms - GNU roff manuscript macro package for formatting
documents
groff -ms [option ...] [input-file ...]
groff -m ms [option ...] [input-file ...]
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.
The ms macro package expects files to have a certain amount of
structure. The simplest documents can begin with a paragraph
macro and consist 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
document, 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 margins, spacing, headers and footers,
footnotes, and the base point size for the text. 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
paragraphs, 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 beginning of your document, or just after the RP macro.
Margin settings
Reg. Definition Effective Default
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
PO Page offset (left margin) next page 1i
LL Line length next paragraph 6i
LT Header/footer length next paragraph 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 paragraph 10p
VS Line spacing (leading) next paragraph 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 paragraph 5n
PD Space between next paragraph 0.3v
paragraphs
QI Quoted paragraph next paragraph 5n
indent
PORPHANS Number of initial next paragraph 1
lines to be kept
together
HORPHANS Number of initial next heading 1
lines to 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
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
DD Display, table, eqn, pic spacing next para. 0.5v
MINGW Minimum width between columns next page 2n
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
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
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
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 by
the amount of the register QI. The next paragraph or heading
returns the margins to normal. QP inserts the vertical space
specified in register PD as inter-paragraph spacing.
A paragraph bracketed between the macros QS and QE has the same
appearance as a paragraph started with QP and a following
paragraph started with LP. Both QS and QE insert the inter-
paragraph spacing specified in PD and the text is indented on
both sides by the amount of register QI. The text between QS and
QE can be split into further paragraphs by using .LP or .PP.
The XP macro produces an “exdented” paragraph; that is, one with
a hanging indent. 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 register 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 accommodate 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) precedes any of these paragraph types, the HORPHANS
document control register 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 family and point size as the body text. For output
devices which support scalable fonts, this behaviour may be
modified by defining the document 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.
The style used to represent the section number, within a
numbered heading, is controlled by the SN-STYLE string;
this may be set to either the SN-DOT or the SN-NO-DOT
style, (described below), by aliasing SN-STYLE
accordingly. By default, SN-STYLE is initialised by
defining the alias
.als SN-STYLE SN-DOT
it may be changed to the SN-NO-DOT style, if preferred, by
defining the alternative alias
.als SN-STYLE SN-NO-DOT
Any such change becomes effective with the first use of
.NH, after the new alias is defined.
After invoking .NH, the assigned heading number is
available in the strings SN-DOT (as it appears in the
default formatting style for numbered headings, with a
terminating period following the number), and SN-NO-DOT
(with this terminating 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:
.als SN SN-NO-DOT
at any time; the change becomes effective with the next
use of .NH, after the new alias is defined.
.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 preceding .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 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,
.B foo ) (
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.
\*<text\*>
Print the enclosed text as a subscript.
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 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
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
listings). 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 following 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-justified,
longest line centered).
.DS C .CD Centered.
.DS R .RD Right-justified.
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
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.
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
Denote 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
Denote 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
Denote 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, respectively.
.[ and .]
Denote 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
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 (that
is, “1.”) and indents the footnote.
2 Like 1, without an indent.
3 Like 1, but prints the footnote number as a
paragraph with a hanging indent.
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 three 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 footers. The string-setting approach 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:
.XX 'left'center'right'
where XX is one of the foregoing four macros and each of left,
center, and right is text of your choice. You can replace the
quote (') marks with any character not appearing in the header
or footer text.
• You can redefine the PT and BT macros to change the behavior
of the header and footer, respectively. The header process
also calls the (undefined) HD macro after PT; you can define
this macro if you need additional processing after printing
the header (for example, to draw a line below the header).
Margins
You control margins using a set of number registers. The
following table lists the register names and defaults:
Reg. Definition Effective Default
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
PO Page offset (left margin) next page 1i
LL Line length next paragraph 6i
LT Header/footer length next paragraph 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 current mode is single-column, starting a multi-
column mode does not force a page break.
.1C Single-column mode.
.2C Two-column mode.
.MC [column-width [gutter-width]]
Multi-column mode. If you specify no arguments, it is
equivalent to the 2C macro. Otherwise, column-width is
the width of each column and gutter-width is the space
between columns. The MINGW number 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
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.
Fractional point sizes
Traditionally, the ms macros only support integer values for the
document'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.
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.
• Some Bell Labs localisms are not implemented by default.
However, if you call the otherwise undocumented SC section-
header macro, you will enable implementations of three other
archaic Bell Labs macros: UC, P1, and P2. These are not
enabled by default because (a) they were not documented, in
the original ms manual, and (b) the P1 and UC macros both
collide with different macros in the Berkeley version of ms.
These emulations are sufficient to give back the 1976
Kernighan & Cherry paper Typesetting Mathematics – User's
Guide its section headings, and restore some text that had
gone missing as arguments of undefined macros. No warranty
express or implied is given as to how well the typographic
details these produce match the original Bell Labs macros.
• 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
spacing instead).
• Some Unix ms documentation says that the CW and GW number
registers can be used to control the column width and gutter
width, respectively. 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,
respectively, in troff (and plain quotes in nroff).
Text Settings
The FAM string sets the default font family. If this string is
undefined at initialization, it is set to Times.
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 6.
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.
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.
/usr/local/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/s.tmac
groff implementation of manuscript macros.
/usr/local/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/ms.tmac
Wrapper to load s.tmac.
The GNU version of the ms macro package was written by James
Clark and contributors. This document was (re-)written by Larry
Kollar ⟨lkollar@despammed.com⟩.
A manual is available in source and rendered form. On your
system, it may be compressed and/or available in additional
formats.
/usr/local/share/doc/groff-1.23.0/ms.ms
/usr/local/share/doc/groff-1.23.0/ms.ps
“Using groff with the ms Macro Package”; Larry Kollar.
Groff: The GNU Implementation of troff, by Trent A. Fisher and
Werner Lemberg
groff(1), troff(1), tbl(1), pic(1), eqn(1), refer(1)
This page is part of the groff (GNU troff) project. Information
about the project can be found at
⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/groff/⟩. If you have a bug report
for this manual page, see ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/groff/⟩.
This page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/groff.git⟩ on 2020-12-18. (At
that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
the repository was 2020-12-09.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there
is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
man-pages@man7.org
groff 1.23.0.rc1.56-5346-dirt1y3 November 2020 groff_ms(7)
Pages that refer to this page: groff(1), groff_tmac(5), groff(7)
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