MAN(6)MAN(6)

NAME

man – macros to typeset manual

SYNOPSIS

nroff -man file ...

troff -man file ...

DESCRIPTION

These macros are used to format pages of this manual.

Except in .LR and .RL requests, any text argument denoted t in the request summary may be zero to six words. Quotes " ... " may be used to include blanks in a ‘word’. If t is empty, the special treatment is applied to the next text input line (the next line that doesn’t begin with dot). In this way, for example, .I may be used to italicize a line of more than 6 words, or .SM followed by .B to make small letters in ‘bold’ font.

A prevailing indent distance is remembered between successive indented paragraphs, and is reset to default value upon reaching a non-indented paragraph. Default units for indents i are ens.

The fonts are

roman, the main font, preferred for diagnostics  

italic, preferred for parameters, short names of commands, names of manual pages, and naked function names  

‘bold’, actually the constant width font, preferred for examples, file names, declarations, keywords, names of struct members, and literals (numbers are rarely literals)  

also the constant width font. In troff L=B; in nroff arguments of the macros .L, .LR, and .RL are printed in quotes; preferred only where quotes really help (e.g. lower-case literals and punctuation).  

Type font and size are reset to default values before each paragraph, and after processing font- or size-setting macros.

The -man macros admit equations and tables in the style of eqn(1) and tbl(1), but do not support arguments on .EQ and .TS macros.

These strings are predefined by -man:

‘\*R’, ‘(Reg)’ in nroff.
 

unhandled troff command .ns

Change to default type size.  

FILES

/sys/lib/tmac/tmac.an

SEE

troff(1), man(1)

REQUESTS

unhandled troff command .di

\ka

unhandled troff command .di

unhandled troff command .in

unhandled troff command .ti0

Request Cause If no Explanation

unhandled troff command .ti0

Break Argument

unhandled troff command .ti0

.B t no t=n.t.l.* Text t is ‘bold’.

unhandled troff command .ti0

.BI t no t=n.t.l. Join words of t alternating bold and italic.

unhandled troff command .ti0

.BR t no t=n.t.l. Join words of t alternating bold and Roman.

unhandled troff command .ti0

.DT no Restore default tabs.

unhandled troff command .ti0

.EE yes End displayed example

unhandled troff command .ti0

.EX yes Begin displayed example

unhandled troff command .ti0

.HP i yes i=p.i.* Set prevailing indent to i. Begin paragraph with hanging indent.

unhandled troff command .ti0

.I t no t=n.t.l. Text t is italic.

unhandled troff command .ti0

.IB t no t=n.t.l. Join words of t alternating italic and bold.

unhandled troff command .ti0

.IP x i yes x="" Same as .TP with tag x.

unhandled troff command .ti0

.IR t no t=n.t.l. Join words of t alternating italic and Roman.

unhandled troff command .ti0

.L t no t=n.t.l. Text t is literal.

unhandled troff command .ti0

.LP yes Same as .PP.

unhandled troff command .ti0

.LR t no Join 2 words of t alternating literal and Roman.

unhandled troff command .ti0

.PD d no d=.4v Interparagraph distance is d.

unhandled troff command .ti0

.PP yes Begin paragraph. Set prevailing indent to default.

unhandled troff command .ti0

.RE yes End of relative indent. Set prevailing indent to amount of starting .RS.

unhandled troff command .ti0

.RI t no t=n.t.l. Join words of t alternating Roman and italic.

unhandled troff command .ti0

.RL t no Join 2 or 3 words of t alternating Roman and literal.

unhandled troff command .ti0

.RS i yes i=p.i. Start relative indent, move left margin in distance i. Set prevailing indent to default for nested indents.

unhandled troff command .ti0

.SH t yes t="" Subhead; reset paragraph distance.

unhandled troff command .ti0

.SM t no t=n.t.l. Text t is small.

unhandled troff command .ti0

.SS t no t="" Secondary subhead.

unhandled troff command .ti0

.TF s yes Prevailing indent is wide as string s in font L; paragraph distance is 0.

unhandled troff command .ti0

.TH n c x yes Begin page named n of chapter c; x is extra commentary, e.g. ‘local’, for page head. Set prevailing indent and tabs to default.

unhandled troff command .ti0

.TP i yes i=p.i. Set prevailing indent to i. Restore default indent if i=0. Begin indented paragraph with hanging tag given by next text line. If tag doesn’t fit, place it on separate line.

unhandled troff command .ti0

.1C yes Equalize columns and return to 1-column output

unhandled troff command .ti0

.2C yes Start 2-column nofill output

unhandled troff command .ti0

* n.t.l. = next text line; p.i. = prevailing indent

BUGS

There’s no way to fool troff into handling literal double quote marks in font-alternation macros, such as .BI.
There is no direct way to suppress column widows in 2-column output; the column lengths may be adjusted by inserting .sp requests before the closing .1C.