.ME [punctuation] Wrap an email address. The argument of MT
is the address; text following, until ME, is a name to be associated with
the address. Any argument to the ME macro is pasted to the end of the link
text. On a device that is not a browser,
contact
.UR fred.foonly@\:fubar.net
Fred Foonly .UE for more information
- usually displays like this: [lq]contact
Fred Foonly
- <fred.foonly@:fubar.net> for more information[rq].
- The use of
- \:
to insert hyphenless breakpoints is a groff extension and can be omitted.
The following macros are not defined
on legacy Unix systems running classic troff. To be certain your page will
be portable to those systems, copy their definitions from the an-ext.tmac
file of a groff installation.
These macros are a convenience for authors.
They also assist automated translation tools and help browsers in recognizing
command synopses and treating them differently from running text.
.- Begin
synopsis. Takes a single argument, the name of a command. Text following,
until closed by YS, is set with a hanging indentation with the width of
command plus a space. This produces the traditional look of a Unix command
synopsis.
.- Describe an optional command argument. The arguments of this
macro are set surrounded by option braces in the default Roman font; the
first argument is printed with a bold face, while the second argument is
typeset as italic.
.- This macro restores normal indentation at the end of
a command synopsis.
Here is a real example:
- .SY groff
- .OP \-abcegiklpstzCEGNRSUVXZ
.OP \-d cs .OP \-f fam .OP \-F dir .OP \-I dir .OP \-K arg .OP \-L arg .OP \-m name .OP \-M dir
.OP \-n num .OP \-o list .OP \-P arg .OP \-r cn .OP \-T dev .OP \-w name .OP \-W name .RI [ file
.IR .\|.\|. ] .YS
produces the following output:
[file ...]
If
necessary, you might use br requests to control line breaking. You can
insert plain text as well; this looks like the traditional (unornamented)
syntax for a required command argument or filename.
The
default indentation is 7.2n in troff mode and 7n in nroff mode except for
grohtml which ignores indentation.
.- Set tabs every 0.5~inches. Since this
macro is always called during a TH request, it makes sense to call it only
if the tab positions have been changed.
- Use of this presentation-level macro
is deprecated.
- It translates poorly to HTML, under which exact whitespace
control and tabbing are not readily available. Thus, information or distinctions
that you use DT to express are likely to be lost. If you feel tempted to
use it, you should probably be composing a table using tbl(@MAN1DIR@) markup
instead.
.- Adjust the empty space before a new paragraph or section. The
optional argument gives the amount of space (default unit is ‘v’); without
parameter, the value is reset to its default value (1~line in nroff mode,
0.4v~otherwise). This affects the macros SH, SS, TP, LP (resp. PP and P),
IP, and HP.
- Use of this presentation-level macro is deprecated.
- It translates
poorly to HTML, under which exact control of inter-paragraph spacing is
not readily available. Thus, information or distinctions that you use PD
to express are likely to be lost.
.- Alter the footer for use with CR]AT&T]
man~pages. This command exists only for compatibility; don’t use it. See
the groff info manual for more.
.- Alter the footer for use with CR]BSD] man~pages.
This command exists only for compatibility; don’t use it. See the groff
info manual for more.
.- Print the header string. Redefine this macro to get
control of the header.
.- Print the footer string. Redefine this macro to
get control of the footer.
The following strings are defined:
- \*S
- Switch
back to the default font size.
- \*R
- The ‘registered’ sign.
- \*(Tm
- The ‘trademark’
sign.
- \*(lq
- \*(rq Left and right quote. This is equal to ‘\(lq’ and ‘\(rq’, respectively.
- \*(HF
- The typeface used to print headings and subheadings. The default
is ‘B’.
If a preprocessor like tbl or eqn is needed, it has become usage
to make the first line of the man~page look like this:
’\" word
Note the
single space character after the double quote. word consists of letters
for the needed preprocessors: ‘e’ for eqn, ‘r’ for refer, and ‘t’ for tbl. Modern
implementations of the man program read this first line and automatically
call the right preprocessor(s).
Since
the man macros consist of groups of groff requests, one can, in principle,
supplement the functionality of the man macros with individual groff requests
where necessary. See the groff info pages for a complete reference of all
requests.
Note, however, that using raw troff requests is likely to make
your page render poorly on the (increasingly common) class of viewers that
render it to HTML. Troff requests make implicit assumptions about things
like character and page sizes that may break in an HTML environment; also,
many of these viewers don’t interpret the full troff vocabulary, a problem
which can lead to portions of your text being silently dropped.
For portability
to modern viewers, it is best to write your page entirely in the requests
described on this page. Further, it is best to completely avoid those we
have described as ‘presentation-level’ (HP, PD, and DT).
The macros we have
described as extensions (.EX/.EE, .SY/.OP/.YS, .UR/.UE, and .MT/.ME) should be used
with caution, as they may not yet be built in to some viewer that is important
to your audience. If in doubt, copy the implementation onto your page.
- man.tmac
- an.tmac These are wrapper files to call andoc.tmac.
- andoc.tmac
- Use this file in case you don’t know whether the man macros or the mdoc
package should be used. Multiple man pages (in either format) can be handled.
- an-old.tmac
- Most man macros are contained in this file.
- an-ext.tmac
- The extension
macro definitions for .SY, .OP, .YS, .TQ, .EX/.EE, .UR/.UE, and .MT/.ME are contained
in this file. It is written in classic troff, and released for free re-use,
and not copylefted; manual page authors concerned about portability to
legacy Unix systems are encouraged to copy these definitions into their
pages, and maintainers of troff or its workalikes are encouraged to re-use
them.
- man.local
- Local changes and customizations should be put into this
file.
tbl(1)
, eqn(1)
, refer(1)
, man(1)
, man(7)
, groff_mdoc(7)
This manual page was originally written for the Debian GNU/Linux
system by Susan G. Kleinmann It was corrected and updated by Werner
Lemberg The extension macros were documented (and partly designed) by
Eric S. Raymond he also wrote the portability advice.
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