man > groff_www(7)

groff_www(7)                      Miscellaneous Information Manual                      groff_www(7)

Name
       groff_www - GNU roff macros for authoring web pages

Synopsis
       groff -m www [option ...] [file ...]

Description
       This  manual page describes the GNU www macro package, which is part of the groff(7) document
       formatting system.  This macro file is automatically loaded by the default troffrc file  when
       the  formatter (usually groff(1)) is called with either of the options -Thtml or -Txhtml.  To
       see hyperlinks in action, format this man page using one of those options.

       This document is a basic guide; the HTML output driver (grohtml) remains in an  alpha  state.
       It has been included with the distribution to encourage testing.

       Here is a summary of the functions found in this macro set.

       .JOBNAME     split output into multiple files
       .HX          automatic heading level cut off
       .BCL         specify colours on a web page
       .BGIMG       specify background image
       .URL         create a URL using two parameters
       .FTP         create an FTP reference
       .MTO         create an HTML email address
       .TAG         generate an HTML name
       .IMG         include an image file
       .PIMG        include PNG image
       .MPIMG       place PNG on the margin and wrap text around it
       .HnS         begin heading
       .HnE         end heading
       .LK          emit automatically collected links.
       .HR          produce a horizontal rule
       .NHR         suppress automatic generation of rules.
       .HTL         only generate HTML title
       .HEAD        add data to <head> block
       .ULS         unorder list begin
       .ULE         unorder list end
       .OLS         ordered list begin
       .OLE         ordered list end
       .DLS         definition list begin
       .DLE         definition list end
       .LI          insert a list item
       .DC          generate a drop capital
       .HTML        pass an HTML raw request to the device driver
       .CDS         code example begin
       .CDE         code example end
       .ALN         place links on left of main text.
       .LNS         start a new two-column table with links in the left.
       .LNE         end the two-column table.
       .LINKSTYLE   initialize default URL attributes.

Macros
       .JOBNAME filename
              Split output into multiple HTML files.  A file is split whenever a .SH or .NH 1 is en‐
              countered.   Its  argument is the file stem name for future output files.  This option
              is equivalent to grohtml's -j option.

       .HX n  Specify the cut off depth when generating links from section headings.  For example, a
              parameter of 2 would cause grohtml to generate a list of links for .NH 1 and .NH 2 but
              not for .NH 3.  Whereas

                     .HX 0

              tells grohtml that no heading links should be created  at  all.   Another  method  for
              turning automatic headings off is by issuing the command-line switch -P-l to groff.

       .BCL foreground background active not-visited visited
              This  macro  takes five parameters: foreground, background, active hypertext link, hy‐
              pertext link not yet visited, and visited hypertext link colour.

       .BGIMG imagefile
              the only parameter to this macro is the background image file.

       .URL url [description] [after]
              generates a URL using either one, two, or three arguments.  The first parameter is the
              actual URL, the second is the name of the link, and the third is optional stuff to  be
              printed  immediately afterwards.  If description and after are absent then the URL be‐
              comes the anchor text.  Hyphenation is disabled while printing  the  actual  URL;  ex‐
              plicit breakpoints should be inserted with the \: escape sequence.  Here is how to en‐
              code foo:

                     .URL http://\:foo\:.org/ foo :

              If this is processed by a device other than -Thtml or -Txhtml it appears as:

                     foo ⟨http://foo.org⟩:

              The  URL  macro  can  be of any type; for example, we can reference Eric Raymond's pic
              guide by:

                     .URL pic\:.html "Eric Raymond's pic guide"

       .MTO address [description] [after]
              Generate an email HTML reference.  The first argument is mandatory as  the  email  ad‐
              dress.  The optional second argument is the text you see in your browser.  If an empty
              argument  is  given,  address  is  used  instead.  An optional third argument is stuff
              printed immediately afterwards.  Hyphenation is disabled  while  printing  the  actual
              email address.  For example, Joe User can be achieved by the following macro:

                     .MTO joe AT user.org "Joe User"

              All  URLs currently are treated as consuming no textual space in groff.  This could be
              considered as a bug since it causes some problems.  To circumvent this,  www.tmac  in‐
              serts  a  zero-width  character  which  expands  to a harmless space (only if run with
              -Thtml or -Txhtml).

       .FTP url [description] [after]
              indicates that data can be obtained via FTP.  The first argument is the  URL  and  the
              second  is  the  browser  text.  A third argument, similar to the macros above, is in‐
              tended for stuff printed immediately afterwards.  The second and the  third  parameter
              are  optional.  Hyphenation is disabled while printing the actual URL.  As an example,
              here is the location of the GNU FTP server.  The macro example above can be  specified
              as:

                     .FTP ftp://\:ftp\:.gnu\:.org/ "GNU FTP server" .

       .TAG name
              Generates  an  HTML name tag from its argument.  This can then be referenced using the
              URL macro.  As you can see, you must precede the tag name with # since it is  a  local
              reference.  This link was achieved via placing a TAG in the URL description above; the
              source looks like this:

                     .TP
                     .B URL
                     generates
                     .TAG URL
                     a URL using either two or three arguments.
                     ...

       .IMG [-R|-L|-C] filename [width] [height]
              Include  a  picture into the document.  The first argument is the horizontal location:
              right, left, or center (-R, -L, or -C).  Alignment is centered by default  (-C).   The
              second  argument  is  the  filename.   The optional third and fourth arguments are the
              width and height.  If the width is absent it defaults to 1 inch.  If the height is ab‐
              sent it defaults to the width.  This maps onto an HTML img tag.  If you are  including
              a PNG image then it is advisable to use the PIMG macro.

       .PIMG [-R|-L|-C] filename [width [height]]
              Include  an  image in PNG format.  This macro takes exactly the same parameters as the
              IMG macro; it has the advantage of working with PostScript and HTML devices also since
              it can automatically convert the image into the EPS format, using the  following  pro‐
              grams  of  the  netpbm package: pngtopnm, pnmcrop, and pnmtops.  If the document isn't
              processed with -Thtml or -Txhtml it is necessary to use the -U option of groff.

       .MPIMG [-R|-L] [-G gap] filename [width [height]]
              Place a PNG image on the margin and wrap text around it.  The first parameters are op‐
              tional.  The alignment: left or right (-L or -R) specifies the margin where  the  pic‐
              ture  is  placed  at.   The default alignment is left (-L).  Optionally, -G gap can be
              used to arrange a gap between the picture and the text that wraps around it.  The  de‐
              fault gap width is zero.
              The first non-optional argument is the filename.  The optional following arguments are
              the width and height.  If the width is absent it defaults to 1 inch.  If the height is
              absent it defaults to the width.  Example:

                     .MPIMG -L -G 2c foo.png 3c 1.5c

              The  height  and width may also be given as percentages.  The PostScript device calcu‐
              lates the width from the .l register and the height from the .p register.   For  exam‐
              ple:

                     .MPIMG -L -G 2c foo.png 15%

       .HnS n Begin  heading.  The numeric heading level n is specified by the first parameter.  Use
              this macro if your headings contain URL, FTP or MTO macros.  Example:

                     .HnS 1
                     .HR
                     GNU Troff
                     .URL https://\:www\:.gnu\:.org/\:software/\:groff/
                     \[em]a
                     .URL http://www\:.gnu\:.org/ GNU
                     project.
                     .HR
                     .HnE

              In this case you might wish to disable automatic links to headings.  This can be  done
              via -P-l from the command line.

       .HnE   End heading.

       .LK    Force grohtml to place the automatically generated links at this position.

       .HR    Generate a full-width horizontal rule for -Thtml and -Txhtml.  No effect for all other
              devices.

       .NHR   Suppress generation of the top and bottom rules which grohtml emits by default.

       .HTL   Generate  an  HTML title only.  This differs from the TL macro of the ms macro package
              which generates both an HTML title and an <H1> heading.  Use it to provide an HTML ti‐
              tle as search engine fodder but a graphic title in the document.  The macro terminates
              when a space or break is seen (.sp, .br).

       .HEAD  Add arbitrary HTML data to the <head> block.  Ignored if not processed with -Thtml  or
              -Txhtml.  Example:

                     .HEAD "<link \
                       rel=""icon"" \
                       type=""image/png"" \
                       href=""http://foo.org//bar.png""/>"

       .HTML  All  text after this macro is treated as raw HTML.  If the document is processed with‐
              out -Thtml or -Txhtml then the macro is ignored.  Internally, this macro is used as  a
              building block for other higher-level macros.

              For example, the BGIMG macro is defined as

                     .de BGIMG
                     .   HTML <body background=\\$1>
                     ..

       .DC l text [color]
              Produce a drop capital.  The first parameter is the letter to be dropped and enlarged,
              the  second  parameter text is the adjoining text whose height the first letter should
              not exceed.  The optional third parameter is the color of the dropped letter.  It  de‐
              faults to black.

       .CDS   Start displaying a code section in constant width font.

       .CDE   End code display

       .ALN [color] [percentage]
              Place section heading links automatically to the left of the main text.  The color ar‐
              gument  is optional and if present indicates which HTML background color is to be used
              under the links.  The optional percentage indicates the amount of width to  devote  to
              displaying  the links.  The default values are #eeeeee and 30 for color and percentage
              width, respectively.  This macro should only be called once at the  beginning  of  the
              document.   After calling this macro each section heading emits an HTML table consist‐
              ing of the links in the left and the section text on the right.

       .LNS   Start a new two-column table with links in the left column.  This can be called if the
              document has text before the first .SH and if .ALN is used.  Typically this is  called
              just before the first paragraph and after the main title as it indicates that text af‐
              ter this point should be positioned to the right of the left-hand navigational links.

       .LNE   End  a two-column table.  This should be called at the end of the document if .ALN was
              used.

       .LINKSTYLE color [ fontstyle [ openglyph closeglyph ] ]
              Initialize default URL attributes to be used if this macro set is not  used  with  the
              HTML device.  The macro set initializes itself with the following call

                     .LINKSTYLE blue CR \[la] \[ra]

              but these values will be superseded by a user call to LINKSTYLE.

Section heading links
       By default grohtml generates links to all section headings and places these at the top of the
       HTML document.  (See LINKS for details of how to switch this off or alter the position).

Limitations of grohtml
       tbl(1) tables are rendered as PNG images.  Paul DuBois's approach with tblcvt(1), part of the
       troffcvt distribution, should be explored.

Files
       /usr/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/www.tmac

Authors
       The www macro package was written by Gaius Mulley, with additions by Werner Lemberg and Bernd
       Warken.

See also
       groff(1), troff(1), grohtml(1), netpbm(1)

groff 1.23.0                                31 March 2024                               groff_www(7)
groff_www(7) □✕
Name Synopsis Description Macros
.JOBNAME filename .BGIMG imagefile .URL url [description] [after] .MTO address [description] [after] .FTP url [description] [after] .TAG name .IMG [-R|-L|-C] filename [width] [height] .PIMG [-R|-L|-C] filename [width [height]] .MPIMG [-R|-L] [-G gap] filename [width [height]] .DC l text [color] .ALN [color] [percentage] .LINKSTYLE color [ fontstyle [ openglyph closeglyph ] ]
Section heading links Limitations of grohtml Files Authors

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