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. The "tmac" name originated in
early Unix culture as an abbreviation of "troff macros".
Macro packages can be loaded by supplying the -m option to troff(1) or
a groff front end. A macro file's name must have the form name.tmac
(or tmac.name) and be placed in a "tmac directory" to be loadable with
the "-m name" 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.
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.
Encode macro files in ISO 646:1991 IRV (US-ASCII) or ISO Latin-1
(8859-1). To prepare for a future groff release supporting UTF-8
input, restrict files to ISO 646 codes. soelim(1) by design does not
interpret mso requests, and the encodings used by documents employing a
macro file can vary.
Macro packages
Some macro packages ("major" or "full-service") assume responsibility
for page layout and other critical functions; others ("supplemental" or
"auxiliary") do not. 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, in
general, 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
challenged AT&T troff users; GNU troff'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attempts at compatibility with the demands of historical documents.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
Two full-service macro packages are specialized for formatting Unix
reference manuals; they do not support features like footnotes or
multiple columnation.
an constructs man pages in a format introduced by Seventh Edition
Unix (1979). Its macro interface is small, and the package
widely used; see groff_man(7).
doc constructs man pages in a format introduced by 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 recognizes a document's use of an or doc and loads the
corresponding macro package. Multiple man pages, in either
format, can be handled; andoc reloads each macro package as
necessary.
General full-service packages
The following packages each support composition of documents of any
kind, from single-page memos to lengthy monographs. They are similar
in functionality; select one that suits your taste.
me originates in 2BSD (1978); see groff_me(7).
mm originates in Programmer's Workbench (PWB) Unix 1.0 (1977); see
groff_mm(7).
mom was contributed to groff in 2002, and freely exercises its many
extended features. See groff_mom(7).
ms originates in Sixth Edition Unix (1975); see groff_ms(7).
Localization packages
For Western languages, an auxiliary package for localization 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 supplemental 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. Sets the input encoding to Latin-1 by loading
latin1.tmac.
es Spanish; localizes man, me, mm, mom, and ms. Sets the input
encoding to Latin-9 by loading latin9.tmac.
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. Sets the input
encoding to Latin-1 by loading latin1.tmac.
ja Japanese.
pl Polish; localizes man, me, mm, mom, and ms. Sets the input
encoding to Latin-2 by loading latin2.tmac.
ru Russian; localizes man, me, mm, mom, and ms. Sets the input
encoding to KOI8-R by loading koi8-r.tmac.
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
Localization influences automatic hyphenation in two distinct but
related respects. A macro file specific to a character coding
identifies which character codes correspond to letters expected in the
language's hyphenation pattern files and sets up case equivalences for
those letters. A language's macro file determines which of these
letters are equivalent to other letters for hyphenation purposes.
For example, in English, the letter "" occurs in loan words. The
latin1.tmac and latin9.tmac macro files define a hyphenation code for
"" and make "" equivalent to it. The English localization file en.tmac
furthermore makes "" equivalent to "n". In Spanish (es.tmac), however,
"" and "n" are not equivalent. The language localization file loads an
appropriate encoding localization file; a document need not do so
directly.
latin1
latin2
latin5
latin9 support the ISO Latin-1, Latin-2, Latin-5, and Latin-9
encodings (8859-1, 8859-2, 8859-9, and 8859-15, respectively).
koi8-r supports the KOI8-R encoding. KOI8-R code points in the range
0x80-0x9F are not valid input to GNU troff; see section
"Identifiers" in groff(7). This should be no impediment to
practical documents, as these KOI8-R code points do not encode
letters, but box-drawing symbols and characters that are better
obtained via special character escape sequences; see
groff_char(7).
General 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 with
the "-d paper=fmt" option to troff. Valid fmts 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 longer
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 typesetter (but not a
terminal).
pdfpic provides a single macro, PDFPIC, that operates in two modes.
If it is not used with gropdf, the given file must be a PDF;
PDFPIC then relies on the external program pdftops(1) to
convert the PDF to an encapsulated PostScript (EPS) file and
calls the PSPIC macro with which it shares an interface. If
output is to a PDF document, PDFPIC uses the "pdf: pdfpic"
device extension command (see gropdf(1)); the given file can
then be a PDF or any graphic file format supported by
gropdf.
Since PDFPIC needs to discover the width and height of the
image (to check if sufficient room exists to place it on the
page), it has dependencies on external programs as shown
below.
+------+------------+---------+-------------+
| | pdfinfo(1) | file(1) | identify(1) |
+------+------------+---------+-------------+
|.pdf | \/ | \/ | \/ |
+------+------------+---------+-------------+
|.jpg | <?> | \/ | \/ |
+------+------------+---------+-------------+
|.jp2 | <?> | <?> | \/ |
+------+------------+---------+-------------+
|other | <?> | <?> | \/ |
+------+------------+---------+-------------+
To include image formats such as PNG, PAM, and GIF, gropdf
relies upon PerlMagick modules to embed the graphic. They
are not needed for the types listed in the table above.
If the required programs are not available, file is treated
as a PDF; failure is likely if it is not one.
pic supplies definitions of the macros PS, PE, PF, and PY, used
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.
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
extension 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 that 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-1.24.1/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 oddly terse to modern eyes. The formatter's -m
option was the main means of loading a macro package, and its argument
had to follow immediately without intervening space. This looked like
a long option name 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. It has
since become conventional in operating systems to use a suffixed file
name extension to suggest a file type or format, thus we see roff
documents with names ending in .man, .me, and so on.
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.
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. 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 with the request "so
file-name"; the argument is resolved as fopen(3) would, from the
current working directory of the formatter. This approach was
inadequate to locate macro packages, since systems stored them in
varying locations. 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.
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 by specifying the -s option to
groff(1). man(1) librarian programs typically run soelim
automatically. (As a rule, macro packages themselves 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. roff(7) describes
these elements.
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[.$]; see groff(7).
Drafting macros
One approach temporarily disables escape sequences by bracketing a
macro definition with eo and ec requests.
.eo
.ds midpart was called with the following
.de print_args
\f[I]\$0\f[] \*[midpart] \n[.$] arguments: \$*
..
.ec
The above procedure has limitations; it is unsuitable for a macro that
requires certain interpolations at the time it is defined, or for
indirect definitions of identifiers. See section "Copy mode" of
groff(7). In such cases, you might define and test the macro with the
escape character doubled before escape sequences that are interpreted
even in copy mode, then bracket it with eo and ec requests, un-double
the escape characters, then test again.
Tips for macro definitions
o Use only control lines in macro definitions; that is, start every
input line with a control character. groff's nop request makes use
of text lines unnecessary.
.de Text
. if (\\n[.$] == 0) \
. return
. nop \&\\$*\&
..
o Write a comment macro that works in both draft and non-draft modes;
since the escape character is disabled in draft mode, trouble might
occur when comment escape sequences are used.
.de c
..
.c This is my comment.
o Comment lengthy macro definitions.
o Use empty requests, and indentation after control characters, to
clarify a macro's structure.
Authors
This document was written by 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".
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 1.24.1 2026-05-15 groff_tmac(5)
groff 1.24.1 - Generated Mon May 18 15:47:02 CDT 2026