GROFF_MAN(7)                                                      GROFF_MAN(7)



NAME
       groff_man - groff `an' macros to support generation of man pages

SYNOPSIS
       groff -man [options...] [files...]

DESCRIPTION
       The tmac.an macros used to generate man pages with groff were written
       by James Clark.  This document provides a brief summary of the use of
       each macro in that package.

       .TP title section [extra1] [extra2] [extra3]
              Sets the title of the man page to title and the section to
              section, which must take on a value between 1 and 8.  The value
              section may also have a string appended, e.g. `.pm', to indicate
              a specific subsection of the man pages.

       .SH text for a heading
              Sets up an unindented and unnumbered section heading.  Prints
              out all the text following `.SH' up to the end of the line in
              bold face, with a size slightly smaller than that for indented
              section headings.

       .SS text for a heading
              Sets up an indented section heading.  Prints out all the text
              following `.SS' up to the end of the line in bold face, with a
              size slightly larger than that for unindented section headings.

       .TP [nnn]
              Sets up an indented paragraph.  The indentation is set to nnn if
              that argument is supplied.  The first line of text following
              this macro is interpreted as a string to be printed flush-left,
              as it is appropriate for a label.  It is not interpreted as part
              of a paragraph, so there is no attempt to fill the first line
              with text from the following input lines.  Nevertheless, if the
              label is not as wide as the indentation, then the paragraph
              starts at the same line (but indented), continuing on the
              following lines.  If the label is wider than the indentation,
              then the descriptive part of the paragraph begins on the line
              following the label, entirely indented.  The `.TP' macro is the
              macro used for the explanations you are just reading.

       .LP or .PP or .P
              These macros are mutual aliases.  Any of them causes a line
              break at the current position, followed by a vertical space
              downwards by the amount that is set in the `PD' counter.

       .IP [designator] [nnn]
              Sets up an indented paragraph, using designator as a tag to mark
              its beginning.  The indentation is permanently set to nnn if
              that argument is supplied.  To set the indentation back to the
              previous level, one must call some other macro that uses
              indented paragraphs, and explicitly provide it with the value of
              the previous indentation.


              For example, the following paragraphs were all set up with
              bullets as the designator, using `.IP \(bu 4':

       o   `IP' is one of the three macros used in tmac.an to format lists.

       o   `HP' is another.  This macro produces a paragraph with a left
           hanging indentation.

       o   `TP' is another.  This macro produces an unindented label (given by
           the text on the first line following `TP'), followed by an indented
           paragraph with appropriately descriptive text.

       .HP [nnn]
           Sets up paragraphs with hanging left indentation.  The indentation
           is set to nnn if that argument is supplied.  The following pargraph
           illustrates the effect of this macro with the hanging indentation
           set to 2:

       This is a pagraph following an invocation of the `.HP' macro.  As you
          can see, it produces a paragraph where all lines but the first are
          flushed right and are shorter than the preceding lines.
         

MACROS TO SET FONTS
       .SM    Causes the text on the same line or the text on the next line to
              appear in a font that is one point size smaller than the default
              font.

       .SB    Causes the text on the same line or the text on the next line to
              appear in small boldface font.

       .BI text
              Causes text on the same line to appear alternately in bold face
              and italic.  The text must be on the same line as the macro
              call.  Thus `.BI this word and that' would cause `this' and
              `and' to appear in bold face, while `word' and `that' appear in
              italics.

       .IB text
              Causes text to appear alternately in italic and bold face.  The
              text must be on the same line as the macro call.

       .BR text
              Causes text on the same line to appear alternately in bold face
              and roman.  The text must be on the same line as the macro call.

       .RB text
              Causes text on the same line to appear alternately in roman and
              bold face.  The text must be on the same line as the macro call.

       .R text
              Causes text to appear in roman font.  If no text is present on
              the line where the macro is called, then the text of the next
              line appears in roman.  This is the default font to which text
              is returned at the end of processing of the other macros.

       .B text
              Causes text to appear in bold face.  If no text is present on
              the line where the macro is called, then the text of the next
              line appears in bold face.

       .I text
              Causes text to appear in italic.  If no text is present on the
              line where the macro is called, then the text of the next line
              appears in italic.

SEE ALSO
       Since the tmac.an macros consist of groups of groff requests, one can,
       in principle, supplement the functionality of the tmac.an macros with
       individual groff requests where necessary.  A complete list of these
       requests is available on the WWW at
       http://www.cs.pdx.edu/~trent/gnu/groff/groff_toc.html

AUTHOR
       This manual page was originally written for the Debian GNU/Linux system
       by Susan G. Kleinmann <sgk@debian.org>, corrected by Werner Lemberg
       <wl@gnu.org>, and is now part of the GNU troff distribution.



Groff Version 1.15                                                9 April 2000
