man > groff_tmac(5)

groff_tmac(5)                            File Formats Manual                           groff_tmac(5)

Name
       groff_tmac - macro files in the GNU roff typesetting system

Description
       Definitions  of macros, strings, and registers for use in a roff(7) document can be collected
       into macro files, roff input files designed to produce no output themselves but instead  ease
       the  preparation of other roff documents.  There is no syntactical difference between a macro
       file and any other roff document; only its purpose distinguishes it.  When a  macro  file  is
       installed  at  a standard location, named according to a certain convention, and suitable for
       use by a general audience, it is termed a macro package.  Macro packages  can  be  loaded  by
       supplying the -m option to troff(1) or a groff front end.

       Each  macro  package  stores  its macro, string, and register definitions in one or more tmac
       files.  This name originated in early Unix culture as an abbreviation of “troff macros”.

       A macro file must have a name in the form name.tmac (or tmac.name) and be placed in  a  “tmac
       directory”  to  be  loadable with the -mname option.  Section “Environment” of troff(1) lists
       these directories.  Alternatively, a groff document requiring a macro file can load  it  with
       the mso (“macro source”) request.

       Like  any  other roff document, a macro file can use the “so” request (“source”) to load fur‐
       ther files relative to its own location.

       Macro files are named for their most noteworthy application, but a macro file need not define
       any macros.  It can restrict itself to defining registers and strings or invoking other groff
       requests.  It can even be empty.

Macro packages
       Macro packages come in two varieties; those which assume responsibility for page  layout  and
       other  critical  functions (“major” or “full-service”) and those which do not (“supplemental”
       or “auxiliary”).  GNU roff provides most major macro packages found in AT&T and BSD Unix sys‐
       tems, an additional full-service package, and many supplemental packages.  Multiple full-ser‐
       vice macro packages cannot be used by the same document.  Auxiliary packages can generally be
       freely combined, though attention to their use of the groff language name spaces for  identi‐
       fiers  (particularly  registers, macros, strings, and diversions) should be paid.  Name space
       management was a significant challenge in AT&T troff; groff's support  for  arbitrarily  long
       identifiers  affords  few  excuses  for name collisions, apart from attempts at compatibility
       with the demands of historical documents.

   Man pages
       an
       man    an is used to compose man pages in the format originating in Version  7  Unix  (1979).
              It has a small macro interface and is widely used; see groff_man(7).

       doc
       mdoc   doc  is used to compose man pages in the format originating in 4.3BSD-Reno (1990).  It
              provides many more features than an, but is also larger,  more  complex,  and  not  as
              widely adopted; see groff_mdoc(7).

       Because  readers  of man pages often do not know in advance which macros are used to format a
       given document, a wrapper is available.

       andoc
       mandoc This macro file, specific to groff, recognizes whether a document  uses  man  or  mdoc
              format  and loads the corresponding macro package.  Multiple man pages, in either for‐
              mat, can be handled; andoc reloads each macro package as necessary.

   Full-service packages
       The packages in this section provide a complete set of macros for writing  documents  of  any
       kind,  up  to  whole books.  They are similar in functionality; it is a matter of taste which
       one to use.

       me     The classical me macro package; see groff_me(7).

       mm     The semi-classical mm macro package; see groff_mm(7).

       mom    The mom macro package, only available in groff.  As this was not based on other  pack‐
              ages, it was freely designed as quite a nice, modern macro package.  See groff_mom(7).

       ms     The classical ms macro package; see groff_ms(7).

   Localization packages
       For  Western languages, the localization file sets the hyphenation mode and loads hyphenation
       patterns and exceptions.  Localization files can also adjust  the  date  format  and  provide
       translations  of strings used by some of the full-service macro packages; alter the input en‐
       coding (see the next section); and change the amount of additional inter-sentence space.  For
       Eastern languages, the localization file defines character classes and sets  flags  on  them.
       By default, troffrc loads the localization file for English.

       trans  loads  localized  strings  used  by various macro packages after their localized forms
              have been prepared by a localization macro file.

       groff provides the following localization files.

       cs     Czech; localizes man, me, mm, mom, and ms.  Sets the  input  encoding  to  Latin-2  by
              loading latin2.tmac.

       de
       den    German;  localizes  man,  me,  mm, mom, and ms.  Sets the input encoding to Latin-1 by
              loading latin1.tmac.

              de.tmac selects hyphenation patterns for traditional orthography,  and  den.tmac  does
              the same for the new orthography (“Rechtschreibreform”).

       en     English.

       fr     French;  localizes  man,  me,  mm, mom, and ms.  Sets the input encoding to Latin-9 by
              loading latin9.tmac.

       it     Italian; localizes man, me, mm, mom, and ms.

       ja     Japanese.

       sv     Swedish; localizes man, me, mm, mom, and ms.  Sets the input encoding  to  Latin-1  by
              loading  latin1.tmac.   Some  of  the  localization of the mm package is handled sepa‐
              rately; see groff_mmse(7) (only in Swedish locales).

       zh     Chinese.

   Input encodings
       latin1
       latin2
       latin5
       latin9 are various ISO 8859 input encodings supported by groff.  On systems using ISO charac‐
              ter encodings, groff loads latin1.tmac automatically at startup.  A document that uses
              Latin-2, Latin-5, or Latin-9 can specify one of these alternative encodings.

       cp1047 provides  support  for  EBCDIC-based  systems.   On  those  platforms,   groff   loads
              cp1047.tmac automatically at startup.

       Because  different  input  character codes constitute valid GNU troff input on ISO and EBCDIC
       systems, the latin macro files cannot be used on EBCDIC systems, and cp1047 cannot be used on
       ISO systems.

   Auxiliary packages
       The macro packages in this section are not intended for stand-alone use, but  can  add  func‐
       tionality to any other macro package or to plain (“raw”) groff documents.

       62bit  provides  macros for addition, multiplication, and division of 62-bit integers (allow‐
              ing safe multiplication of signed 31-bit integers, for example).

       hdtbl  allows the generation of tables using a syntax similar to the HTML table model.   This
              Heidelberger  table  macro  package  is not a preprocessor, which can be useful if the
              contents of table entries are determined by  macro  calls  or  string  interpolations.
              Compare  to  tbl(1).   It  works  only  with  the  ps  and  pdf  output  devices.  See
              groff_hdtbl(7).

       papersize
              enables the paper format to be set on the command line by giving a  “-d  paper=format”
              option  to  troff.   Possible  values  for format are the ISO and DIN formats “A0–A6”,
              “B0–B6”,  “C0–C6”,  and  “D0–D6”;  the  U.S.  formats  “letter”,  “legal”,  “tabloid”,
              “ledger”,  “statement”,  and “executive”; and the envelope formats “com10”, “monarch”,
              and “DL”.  All formats, even those for envelopes, are  in  portrait  orientation:  the
              length measurement is vertical.  Appending “l” (ell) to any of these denotes landscape
              orientation  instead.   This  macro file assumes one-inch horizontal margins, and sets
              registers recognized by the groff man, mdoc, mm, mom, and  ms  packages  to  configure
              them accordingly.  If you want different margins, you will need to use those packages'
              facilities, or troff ll and/or po requests to adjust them.  An output device typically
              requires  command-line options -p and -l to override the paper dimensions and orienta‐
              tion, respectively, defined in  its  DESC  file;  see  subsection  “Paper  format”  of
              groff(1).  This macro file is normally loaded at startup by the troffrc file when for‐
              matting for a typesetting device (but not a terminal).

       pdfpic provides a single macro, PDFPIC, to include a PDF graphic in a document using features
              of the pdf output driver.  For other output devices, PDFPIC calls PSPIC, with which it
              shares an interface (see below).  This macro file is normally loaded at startup by the
              troffrc file.

       pic    supplies  definitions  of the macros PS, PE, and PF, usable with the pic(1) preproces‐
              sor.  They center each picture.  Use it if your document does not use  a  full-service
              macro  package, or that package does not supply working pic macro definitions.  Except
              for man and mdoc, those provided with groff already do so (exception: mm  employs  the
              name PF for a different purpose).

       pspic  provides  a  macro,  PSPIC, that includes a PostScript graphic in a document.  The ps,
              dvi, html, and xhtml output devices support such inclusions; for  all  other  drivers,
              the  image  is  replaced  with  a  rectangular border of the same size.  pspic.tmac is
              loaded at startup by the troffrc file.

              Its syntax is as follows.

                     .PSPIC [-L|-R|-C|-I n] file [width [height]]

              file is the name of the PostScript file; width and height give the desired  width  and
              height  of  the image.  If neither a width nor a height argument is specified, the im‐
              age's natural width (as given in the file's bounding box) or the current  line  length
              is  used  as  the width, whatever is smaller.  The width and height arguments may have
              scaling units attached; the default scaling unit is i.  PSPIC scales the graphic  uni‐
              formly in the horizontal and vertical directions so that it is no more than width wide
              and height high.  Option -C centers the graphic horizontally; this is the default.  -L
              and  -R  left- and right-align the graphic, respectively.  -I indents the graphic by n
              (with a default scaling unit of m).

              To use PSPIC within a diversion, we recommend extending it with  the  following  code,
              assuring that the diversion's width completely covers the image's width.

                     .am PSPIC
                     .  vpt 0
                     \h'(\\n[ps-offset]u + \\n[ps-deswid]u)'
                     .  sp -1
                     .  vpt 1
                     ..

              Failure  to load PSPIC's image argument is not an error.  (The psbb request does issue
              an error diagnostic.)  To make such a failure fatal, append  to  the  pspic*error-hook
              macro.

                     .am pspic*error-hook
                     .  ab
                     ..

       ptx    provides  a  macro, xx, to format permuted index entries as produced by the GNU ptx(1)
              program.  If your formatting needs differ, copy the macro into your document and adapt
              it to your needs.

       rfc1345
              defines special character escape sequences named for the glyph mnemonics specified  in
              RFC 1345 and the digraph table of the Vim text editor.  See groff_rfc1345(7).

       sboxes offers  an  interface  to  the  “pdf:  background” device control command supported by
              gropdf(1).  Using this package, groff ms documents can draw colored rectangles beneath
              any output.

              .BOXSTART SHADED color OUTLINED color INDENT size WEIGHT size
                     begins a box, where the argument after SHADED gives the fill color and that af‐
                     ter OUTLINED the border color.  Omit the former to get a borderless filled  box
                     and  the latter for a border with no fill.  The specified WEIGHT is used if the
                     box is OUTLINED.

                     INDENT precedes a value which leaves a gap between the border and the  contents
                     inside the box.

                     Each  color must be a defined groff color name, and each size a valid groff nu‐
                     meric expression.  The keyword/value pairs can be specified in any order.

              Boxes can be stacked, so you can start a box within another  box;  usually  the  later
              boxes  would be smaller than the containing box, but this is not enforced.  When using
              BOXSTART, the left position is the current indent minus the INDENT in the command, and
              the right position is the left position  (calculated  above)  plus  the  current  line
              length and twice the indent.

              .BOXSTOP
                     takes  no  parameters.   It closes the most recently started box at the current
                     vertical position after adding its INDENT spacing.

              Your groff documents can conditionally exercise the sboxes macros.  The register GSBOX
              is defined if the package is loaded, and interpolates a true value if the  pdf  output
              device is in use.

              sboxes  furthermore  hooks  into the groff_ms(7) package to receive notifications when
              footnotes are growing, so that it can close boxes  on  a  page  before  footnotes  are
              printed.   When  that condition obtains, sboxes will close open boxes two points above
              the footnote separator and re-open them on the next page.  (This amount probably  will
              not match the box's INDENT.)

              See “Using PDF boxes with groff and the ms macros” for a demonstration.

       trace  aids the debugging of groff documents by tracing macro calls.  See groff_trace(7).

       www    defines macros corresponding to HTML elements.  See groff_www(7).

Naming
       AT&T  nroff  and troff were implemented before the conventions of the modern C getopt(3) call
       evolved, and used a naming scheme for macro packages that looks odd to  modern  eyes.   Macro
       packages  were  typically loaded using the -m option to the formatter; when directly followed
       by its argument without an intervening space, this looked like a long option  preceded  by  a
       single  minus—a  sensation  in  the  computer stone age.  Macro packages therefore came to be
       known by names that started with the letter “m”, which was omitted from the name of the macro
       file as stored on disk.  For example, the manuscript macro package was stored as  tmac.s  and
       loaded with the option -ms.

       groff  commands  permit  space  between  an option and its argument.  The syntax “groff -m s”
       makes the macro file name more clear but may surprise users familiar with the  original  con‐
       vention, unaware that the package's “real” name was “s” all along.  For such packages of long
       pedigree,  groff  accommodates different users' expectations by supplying wrapper macro files
       that load the desired file with mso requests.  Thus, all of “groff  -m  s”,  “groff  -m  ms”,
       “groff -ms”, and “groff -mms” serve to load the manuscript macros.

       Wrappers are not provided for packages of more recent vintage, like www.tmac.

       As  noted in passing above, AT&T troff named macro files in the form tmac.name.  It has since
       become conventional in operating systems to use a suffixed file name extension to  suggest  a
       file type or format.

Inclusion
       The  traditional  method  of employing a macro package is to specify the -m package option to
       the formatter, which then reads package's macro file prior to any input files.  Historically,
       package was sought in a file named tmac.package (that is, with a “tmac.” prefix).  GNU  troff
       searches for package.tmac in the macro path; if not found, it looks for tmac.package instead,
       and vice versa.

       Alternatively,  one  could  include  a macro file by using the request “.so file-name” in the
       document; file-name is resolved relative to the location of the input  document.   GNU  troff
       offers an improved feature in the similar request “mso package-file-name”, which searches the
       macro path for package-file-name.  Because its argument is a file name, its “.tmac” component
       must  be  included  for the file to be found; however, as a convenience, if opening it fails,
       mso strips any such suffix and tries again with a “tmac.” prefix, and vice versa.

       If a sourced file requires preprocessing, for example if it includes tbl tables or eqn  equa‐
       tions,  the preprocessor soelim(1) must be used.  This can be achieved with a pipeline or, in
       groff, by specifying the -s option to the formatter (or front end).   man(1)  librarian  pro‐
       grams  generally  call soelim automatically.  (Macro packages themselves generally do not re‐
       quire preprocessing.)

Writing macros
       A roff(7) document is a text file that is enriched by predefined formatting constructs,  such
       as  requests,  escape sequences, strings, numeric registers, and macros from a macro package.
       These elements are described in roff(7).

       To give a document a personal style, it is most useful to extend  the  existing  elements  by
       defining  some  macros  for repeating tasks; the best place for this is near the beginning of
       the document or in a separate file.

       Macros without arguments are just like strings.  But the full power of macros occurs when ar‐
       guments are passed with a macro call.  Within the macro definition, the arguments are  avail‐
       able  as  the escape sequences \$1, ..., \$9, \$[...], \$*, and \$@, the name under which the
       macro was called is in \$0, and the number of arguments is in register \n[.$]; see groff(7).

   Draft mode
       Writing groff macros is easy when the escaping mechanism is temporarily disabled.  In  groff,
       this  is  done  by  enclosing  the macro definition(s) within a pair of .eo and .ec requests.
       Then the body in the macro definition is just like a normal part of the document —  text  en‐
       hanced  by  calls  of requests, macros, strings, registers, etc.  For example, the code above
       can be written in a simpler way by

              .eo
              .ds midpart was called with the following
              .de print_args
              \f[I]\$0\f[] \*[midpart] \n[.$] arguments:
              \$*
              ..
              .ec

       Unfortunately, draft mode cannot be used universally.  Although it is good enough for  defin‐
       ing  normal  macros,  draft mode fails with advanced applications, such as indirectly defined
       strings, registers, etc.  An optimal way is to define and test all macros in draft  mode  and
       then do the backslash doubling as a final step; do not forget to remove the .eo request.

   Tips for macro definitions
       •      Start  every  line  with  a dot, for example, by using the groff request .nop for text
              lines, or write your own macro that handles also text lines with a leading dot.

                     .de Text
                     .  if (\\n[.$] == 0) \
                     .    return
                     .  nop \)\\$*\)
                     ..

       •      Write a comment macro that works both for copy and draft modes; since the escape char‐
              acter is off in draft mode, trouble might occur  when  comment  escape  sequences  are
              used.   For example, the following macro just ignores its arguments, so it acts like a
              comment line:

                     .de c
                     ..
                     .c This is like a comment line.

       •      In long macro definitions, make ample use of comment lines or almost-empty lines (this
              is, lines which have a leading dot and nothing else) for a better structuring.

       •      To increase readability, use groff's indentation facility for requests and macro calls
              (arbitrary whitespace after the leading dot).

   Diversions
       Diversions can be used to implement quite advanced programming constructs.  They are compara‐
       ble to pointers to large data structures in the C programming language, but  their  usage  is
       quite different.

       In  their  simplest  form,  diversions are multi-line strings, but diversions get their power
       when used dynamically within macros.  The (formatted) information stored in a  diversion  can
       be retrieved by calling the diversion just like a macro.

       Most  of  the problems arising with diversions can be avoided if you remember that diversions
       always store complete lines.  Using diversions when the line buffer has not been flushed pro‐
       duces strange results; not knowing this, many people get desperate about diversions.  To  en‐
       sure that a diversion works, add line breaks at the right places.  To be safe, enclose every‐
       thing that has to do with diversions within a pair of line breaks; for example, by explicitly
       using  .br  requests.   This  rule should be applied to diversion definition, both inside and
       outside, and to all calls of diversions.  This is a bit of overkill, but it works nicely.

       (If you really need diversions which should ignore the current partial line, use environments
       to save the current partial line and/or use the .box request.)

       The most powerful feature using diversions is to start a diversion within a macro  definition
       and  end  it  within  another macro.  Then everything between each call of this macro pair is
       stored within the diversion and can be manipulated from within the macros.

Authors
       This document was written by Bernd Warken, Werner Lemberg, and G. Branden Robinson.

See also
       Groff: The GNU Implementation of troff, by Trent A. Fisher and Werner Lemberg, is the primary
       groff manual.  You can browse it interactively with “info groff”.

       The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard is maintained by the Linux Foundation.

       groff(1)
              is an overview of the groff system.

       groff_man(7),
       groff_mdoc(7),
       groff_me(7),
       groff_mm(7),
       groff_mom(7),
       groff_ms(7),
       groff_rfc1345(7),
       groff_trace(7),
               and
       groff_www(7)
              are groff macro packages.

       groff(7)
              summarizes the language recognized by GNU troff.

       troff(1)
              documents the default macro file search path.

groff 1.23.0                                31 March 2024                              groff_tmac(5)