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 further 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
systems, an additional full-service package, and many supplemental
packages. Multiple full-service 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
identifiers (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with the demands of historical documents.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 format, 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 packages, 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 encoding (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 separately; see
groff_mmse(7).
zh Chinese.
Input encodings
latin1
latin2
latin5
latin9 are various ISO 8859 input encodings supported by groff. On
systems using ISO character 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 functionality to any other macro package or to plain
("raw") groff documents.
62bit provides macros for addition, multiplication, and division of
62-bit integers (allowing 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
orientation, 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 formatting
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) preprocessor. 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 image'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 uniformly 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 after 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 numeric 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"
<file:///opt/local/share/doc/groff-1.23.0/msboxes.pdf> 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 convention, 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 equations, 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 programs
generally call soelim automatically. (Macro packages themselves
generally do not require 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 arguments are passed with a macro call. Within the
macro definition, the arguments are available 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[.$]; see groff(7).
Draft mode
Writing groff macros is easy when the escaping mechanism is temporarily
disabled. In groff, this is done by enclosing the macro definition(s)
within a pair of .eo and .ec requests. Then the body in the macro
definition is just like a normal part of the document -- text enhanced
by calls of requests, macros, strings, registers, etc. For example,
the code above can be written in a simpler way by
.eo
.ds midpart was called with the following
.de print_args
\f[I]\$0\f[] \*[midpart] \n[.$] arguments:
\$*
..
.ec
Unfortunately, draft mode cannot be used universally. Although it is
good enough for defining 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
o 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 \)\\$*\)
..
o Write a comment macro that works both for copy and draft modes;
since the escape character 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.
o 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.
o 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 comparable 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 produces strange results; not
knowing this, many people get desperate about diversions. To ensure
that a diversion works, add line breaks at the right places. To be
safe, enclose everything 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 <groff-bernd.warken-72@web
.de>, Werner Lemberg <wl@gnu.org>, and G. Branden Robinson <g.branden
.robinson@gmail.com>.
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 <https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/
lsb/fhs> 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 2 July 2023 groff_tmac(5)
groff 1.23.0 - Generated Sat Dec 23 10:01:45 CST 2023