This manual page describes the GNU version of the
ms
macros,
part of the
groff
typesetting system.
The
ms
macros are mostly compatible with the
documented behavior of the 4.3
BSD
Unix
ms
macros (see
Differences from troff ms
below for details).
The
ms
macros are suitable for reports, letters, books, and
technical documentation.
USAGE
The
ms
macro package expects files to have
a certain amount of structure.
The simplest documents can begin with a paragraph macro
and consist of text separated by paragraph macros
or even blank lines.
Longer documents have a structure as follows:
Document type
If you use the
RP
(report) macro at the beginning of the document,
groff
prints the cover page information on its own page;
otherwise it prints the information on the
first page with your document text immediately following.
Other document formats found in AT&T
troff
are specific to AT&T
or Berkeley, and are not supported in
groff ms.
Format and layout
By setting number registers,
you can change your document's type (font and size),
margins, spacing, headers and footers, and footnotes.
See
Document control registers
below for more details.
Cover page
A cover page consists of a title,
and optionally the author's name and institution,
an abstract, and the date.
See
Cover page macros
below for more details.
Body
Following the cover page is your document.
It consists of paragraphs, headings, and lists.
Table of contents
Longer documents usually include a table of contents,
which you can add by placing the
TC
macro at the end of your document.
Document control registers
The following table lists the document control
number registers.
For the sake of consistency,
set registers related to margins at the beginning of your document,
or just after the
RP
macro.
Margin settings
Reg.
Definition
Effective
Default
PO
Page offset (left margin)
next page
1i
LL
Line length
next para.
6i
LT
Header/footer length
next para.
6i
HM
Top (header) margin
next page
1i
FM
Bottom (footer) margin
next page
1i
Text settings
Reg.
Definition
Effective
Default
PS
Point size
next para.
10p
VS
Line spacing (leading)
next para.
12p
PSINCR
Point size increment
for section headings of
increasing importance
next heading
1p
GROWPS
Heading level
beyond which PSINCR
is ignored
next heading
0
Paragraph settings
Reg.
Definition
Effective
Default
PI
Initial indent
next para.
5n
PD
Space between paragraphs
next para.
0.3v
QI
Quoted paragraph indent
next para.
5n
PORPHANS
Number of initial lines
to be kept together
next para.
1
HORPHANS
Number of initial lines
to be kept with heading
next heading
1
Footnote settings
Reg.
Definition
Effective
Default
FL
Footnote length
next footnote
[rs]n[LL]*5/6
FI
Footnote indent
next footnote
2n
FF
Footnote format
next footnote
0
FPS
Point size
next footnote
[rs]n[PS]-2
FVS
Vert. spacing
next footnote
[rs]n[FPS]+2
FPD
Para. spacing
next footnote
[rs]n[PD]/2
Other settings
Reg.
Definition
Effective
Default
MINGW
Minimum width between columns
next page
2n
Cover page macros
Use the following macros to create a cover page for your document
in the order shown.
.RP [no]
Specifies the report format for your document.
The report format creates a separate cover page.
With no
RP
macro,
groff
prints a subset of the
cover page on page~1 of your document.
If you use the optional
no
argument,
groff
prints a title page but
does not repeat any of the title page information
(title, author, abstract, etc.)
on page~1 of the document.
.P1
(P-one) Prints the header on page~1.
The default is to suppress the header.
.DA [xxx]
(optional) Print the current date,
or the arguments to the macro if any,
on the title page (if specified)
and in the footers.
This is the default for
nroff.
.ND [xxx]
(optional) Print the current date,
or the arguments to the macro if any,
on the title page (if specified)
but not in the footers.
This is the default for
troff.
.TL
Specifies the document title.
Groff
collects text following the
TL
macro into the title, until reaching the author name or abstract.
.AU
Specifies the author's name.
You can specify multiple authors by using an
AU
macro for each author.
.AI
Specifies the author's institution.
You can specify multiple institutions.
.AB [no]
Begins the abstract.
The default is to print the word
ABSTRACT,
centered and in italics, above the text of the abstract.
The option
no
suppresses this heading.
.AE
End the abstract.
Paragraphs
Use the
PP
macro to create indented paragraphs,
and the
LP
macro to create paragraphs with no initial indent.
The
QP
macro indents all text at both left and right margins.
The effect is identical to the HTML
<BLOCKQUOTE>
element.
The next paragraph or heading
returns margins to normal.
The
XP
macro produces an exdented paragraph.
The first line of the paragraph begins at
the left margin,
and subsequent lines are indented
(the opposite of
PP).
For each of the above paragraph types,
and also for any list entry introduced by the
IP
macro
(described later),
the document control register
PORPHANS,
sets the
minimum
number of lines which must be printed,
after the start of the paragraph,
and before any page break occurs.
If there is insufficient space remaining on the current page
to accommodate this number of lines,
then a page break is forced
before
the first line of the paragraph is printed.
Similarly,
when a section heading
(see subsection
Headings
below)
preceeds any of these paragraph types,
the
HORPHANS
document control register specifies the
minimum
number of lines of the paragraph
which must be kept on the same page as the heading.
If insufficient space remains on the current page
to accommodate the heading and this number of lines of paragraph text,
then a page break is forced
before
the heading is printed.
Headings
Use headings to create a hierarchical structure
for your document.
By default,
the
ms
macros print headings in
bold
using the same font family and point size as the body text.
For output devices which support scalable fonts,
this behaviour may be modified,
by defining the document control registers,
GROWPS
and
PSINCR.
The following heading macros are available:
.NH xx
Numbered heading.
The argument
xx
is either a numeric argument to indicate the
level of the heading, or
S xx xx "..."
to set the section number explicitly.
If you specify heading levels out of sequence,
such as invoking
.NH 3
after
.NH 1,
groff
prints a warning on standard error.
If the
GROWPS
register is set to a value
greater than the level of the heading,
then the point size of the heading will be increased by
PSINCR
units over the text size specified by the
PS
register,
for each level by which the heading level is less than
the value of
GROWPS.
For example,
the sequence:
.nr PS 10
.nr GROWPS 3
.nr PSINCR 1.5p
.
.NH 1
Top Level Heading
.
.NH 2
Second Level Heading
.
.NH 3
Third Level Heading
will cause
``1. Top Level Heading''
to be printed in 13pt
bold
text, followed by
``1.1. Second Level Heading''
in 11.5pt
bold
text, while
``1.1.1. Third Level Heading'',
and all more deeply nested heading levels,
will remain in the 10pt
bold
text which is specified by the
PS
register.
Note that the value stored in
PSINCR
is interpreted in
groff
basic units;
the
p
scaling factor should be employed,
when assigning a value specified in points.
After invoking
.NH,
the assigned heading number is available in the strings
SN-DOT
(exactly as it appears in the formatted heading),
and
SN-NO-DOT
(with its final period omitted).
The string
SN
is also defined,
as an alias for
SN-DOT;
if preferred,
the user may redefine it as an alias for
SN-NO-DOT,
by including the initialisation:
.ds SN-NO-DOT
.als SN SN-NO-DOT
before
the first use of
.NH,
or simply:
.als SN SN-NO-DOT
after
the first use of
.NH.
.SH [xx]
Unnumbered subheading.
The use of the optional
xx
argument is a GNU extension,
which adjusts the point size of the unnumbered subheading
to match that of a numbered heading,
introduced using
.NH xx
with the same value of
xx.
For example,
given the same settings for
PS,
GROWPS
and
PSINCR,
as used in the preceeding
.NH
example,
the sequence:
.SH 2
An Unnumbered Subheading
will print
``An Unnumbered Subheading''
in 11.5pt
bold
text.
Highlighting
The
ms
macros provide a variety of methods to highlight
or emphasize text:
.B [txt [post [pre]]]
Sets its first argument in
bold type.
If you specify a second argument,
groff
prints it in the previous font after
the bold text, with no intervening space
(this allows you to set punctuation after
the highlighted text without highlighting
the punctuation).
Similarly, it prints the third argument (if any)
in the previous font
before
the first argument.
For example,
.B foo ) (
prints
(foo).
If you give this macro no arguments,
groff
prints all text following in bold until
the next highlighting, paragraph, or heading macro.
.R [txt [post [pre]]]
Sets its first argument in
roman (or regular) type.
It operates similarly to the
B
macro otherwise.
.I [txt [post [pre]]]
Sets its first argument in
italic type.
It operates similarly to the
B
macro otherwise.
.CW [txt [post [pre]]]
Sets its first argument in a constant width face.
It operates similarly to the
B
macro otherwise.
.BI [txt [post [pre]]]
Sets its first argument in bold italic type.
It operates similarly to the
B
macro otherwise.
.BX [txt]
Prints its argument and draws a box around it.
If you want to box a string that contains spaces,
use a digit-width space ([rs]0).
.UL [txt [post]]
Prints its first argument with an underline.
If you specify a second argument,
groff
prints it in the previous font after
the underlined text, with no intervening space.
.LG
Prints all text following in larger type
(2~points larger than the current point size) until
the next font size, highlighting, paragraph, or heading macro.
You can specify this macro multiple times
to enlarge the point size as needed.
.SM
Prints all text following in
smaller type
(2~points smaller than the current point size) until
the next type size, highlighting, paragraph, or heading macro.
You can specify this macro multiple times
to reduce the point size as needed.
.NL
Prints all text following in
the normal point size
(that is, the value of the
PS
register).
[rs]*{text[rs]*}
Print the enclosed
text
as a superscript.
Indents
You may need to indent sections of text.
A typical use for indents is to create nested lists and sublists.
Use the
RS
and
RE
macros to start and end a section of indented text, respectively.
The
PI
register controls the amount of indent.
You can nest indented sections as deeply as needed by
using multiple, nested pairs of
RS
and
RE.
Lists
The
IP
macro handles duties for all lists.
Its syntax is as follows:
.IP [marker [width]]
The
marker
is usually a bullet character
[rs](bu
for unordered lists,
a number (or auto-incrementing number register) for numbered lists,
or a word or phrase for indented (glossary-style) lists.
The
width
specifies the indent for the body of each list item.
Once specified, the indent remains the same for all
list items in the document until specified again.
Tab stops
Use the
ta
request to set tab stops as needed.
Use the
TA
macro to reset tabs to the default (every 5n).
You can redefine the
TA
macro to create a different set of default tab stops.
Displays and keeps
Use displays to show text-based examples or figures
(such as code listings).
Displays turn off filling, so lines of code can be
displayed as-is without inserting
br
requests in between each line.
Displays can be
kept
on a single page, or allowed to break across pages.
The following table shows the display types available.
Display macro
Type of display
With keep
No keep
.DS L
.LD
Left-justified.
.DS I [indent]
.ID
Indented (default indent in the DI register).
.DS B
.BD
Block-centered (left-justified, longest line centered).
.DS C
.CD
Centered.
.DS R
.RD
Right-justified.
Use the
DE
macro to end any display type.
The macros
Ds
and
De
were formerly provided as aliases for
DS
and
DE,
respectively, but they have been removed, and should no longer be used.
X11 documents which actually use
Ds
and
De
always load a specific macro file from the X11 distribution (macros.t)
which provides proper definitions for the two macros.
To
keep
text together on a page,
such as
a paragraph that refers to a table (or list, or other item)
immediately following, use the
KS
and
KE
macros.
The
KS
macro begins a block of text to be kept on a single page,
and the
KE
macro ends the block.
You can specify a
floating keep
using the
KF
and
KE
macros.
If the keep cannot fit on the current page,
groff
holds the contents of the keep and allows text following
the keep (in the source file) to fill in the remainder of
the current page.
When the page breaks,
whether by an explicit
bp
request or by reaching the end of the page,
groff
prints the floating keep at the top of the new page.
This is useful for printing large graphics or tables
that do not need to appear exactly where specified.
The macros
B1
and
B2
can be used to enclose a text within a box;
.B1
begins the box, and
.B2
ends it.
Text in the box is automatically placed in a diversion
(keep).
Tables, figures, equations, and references
The
-ms
macros support the standard
groff
preprocessors:
tbl,
pic,
eqn,
and
refer.
Mark text meant for preprocessors by enclosing it
in pairs of tags as follows:
.TS [H] and .TE
Denotes a table, to be processed by the
tbl
preprocessor.
The optional
H~argument
instructs
groff
to create a running header with the information
up to the
TH
macro.
Groff
prints the header at the beginning of the table;
if the table runs onto another page,
groff
prints the header on the next page as well.
.PS and .PE
Denotes a graphic, to be processed by the
pic
preprocessor.
You can create a
pic
file by hand, using the
AT&T
pic
manual available on the Web as a reference,
or by using a graphics program such as
xfig.
.EQ [,align/] and .EN
Denotes an equation, to be processed by the
eqn
preprocessor.
The optional
align
argument can be
C,
L,
or~I
to center (the default), left-justify, or indent
the equation.
.[ and .]
Denotes a reference, to be processed by the
refer
preprocessor.
The GNU
refer(1)
manual page provides a comprehensive reference
to the preprocessor and the format of the
bibliographic database.
Footnotes
The
ms
macros provide a flexible footnote system.
You can specify a numbered footnote by using the
[rs]**
escape, followed by the text of the footnote
enclosed by
FS
and
FE
macros.
You can specify symbolic footnotes
by placing the mark character (such as
[rs](dg
for the dagger character) in the body text,
followed by the text of the footnote
enclosed by
FS [rs](dg
and
FE
macros.
You can control how
groff
prints footnote numbers by changing the value of the
FF
register as follows:
0
Prints the footnote number as a superscript; indents the footnote (default).
1
Prints the number followed by a period (like~1.)
and indents the footnote.
2
Like~1, without an indent.
3
Like~1, but prints the footnote number as a hanging paragraph.
You can use footnotes safely within keeps and displays,
but avoid using numbered footnotes within floating keeps.
You can set a second
[rs]**
between a
[rs]**
and its corresponding
.FS;
as long as each
.FS
occurs
after
the corresponding
[rs]**
and the occurrences of
.FS
are in the same order as the corresponding occurrences of
[rs]**.
Headers and footers
There are two ways to define headers and footers:
*
Use the strings
LH,
CH,
and
RH
to set the left, center, and right headers; use
LF,
CF,
and
RF
to set the left, center, and right footers.
This works best for documents that do not distinguish
between odd and even pages.
*
Use the
OH
and
EH
macros to define headers for the odd and even pages; and
OF
and
EF
macros to define footers for the odd and even pages.
This is more flexible than defining the individual strings.
The syntax for these macros is as follows:
.OH 'left'center'right'
You can replace the quote (') marks with any character not
appearing in the header or footer text.
Margins
You control margins using a set of number registers.
The following table lists the register names and defaults:
Reg.
Definition
Effective
Default
PO
Page offset (left margin)
next page
1i
LL
Line length
next para.
6i
LT
Header/footer length
next para.
6i
HM
Top (header) margin
next page
1i
FM
Bottom (footer) margin
next page
1i
Note that there is no right margin setting.
The combination of page offset and line length
provide the information necessary to
derive the right margin.
Multiple columns
The
ms
macros can set text in as many columns as will reasonably
fit on the page.
The following macros are available.
All of them force a page break if a multi-column mode is already set.
However, if the current mode is single-column, starting a multi-column
mode does
not
force a page break.
.1C
Single-column mode.
.2C
Two-column mode.
.MC [width [gutter]]
Multi-column mode.
If you specify no arguments, it is equivalent to the
2C
macro.
Otherwise,
width
is the width of each column and
gutter
is the space between columns.
The
MINGW
number register is the default gutter width.
Creating a table of contents
Wrap text that you want to appear in the
table of contents in
XS
and
XE
macros.
Use the
TC
macro to print the table of contents at the end of the document,
resetting the page number to~i
(Roman numeral~1).
You can manually create a table of contents
by specifying a page number as the first argument to
XS.
Add subsequent entries using the
XA
macro.
For example:
.XS 1
Introduction
.XA 2
A Brief History of the Universe
.XA 729
Details of Galactic Formation
...
.XE
Use the
PX
macro to print a manually-generated table of contents
without resetting the page number.
If you give the argument
no
to either
PX
or
TC,
groff
suppresses printing the title
specified by the
[rs]*[TOC]
string.
Fractional point sizes
Traditionally, the
ms
macros only support integer values for the document's font size and
vertical spacing.
To overcome this restriction, values larger than or equal to 1000 are taken
as fractional values, multiplied by 1000.
For example, `.nr~PS~10250' sets the font size to 10.25 points.
The following four registers accept fractional point sizes:
PS,
VS,
FPS,
and
FVS.
Due to backwards compatibility, the value of
VS
must be smaller than 40000 (this is 40.0 points).
DIFFERENCES FROM troff ms
The
groff ms
macros are a complete re-implementation,
using no original AT&T code.
Since they take advantage of the extended features in
groff,
they cannot be used with AT&T
troff.
Other differences include:
*
The internals of
groff ms
differ from the internals of Unix
ms.
Documents that depend upon implementation details of Unix
ms
may not format properly with
groff ms.
*
The error-handling policy of
groff ms
is to detect and report errors,
rather than silently to ignore them.
*
Bell Labs localisms are not implemented.
*
Berkeley localisms, in particular the
TM
and
CT
macros,
are not implemented.
*
Groff ms
does not work in compatibility mode (e.g., with the
-C
option).
*
There is no support for typewriter-like devices.
*
Groff ms
does not provide cut marks.
*
Multiple line spacing is not supported
(use a larger vertical spacing instead).
*
Some Unix
ms
documentation says that the
CW
and
GW
number registers can be used to control the column width and
gutter width, respectively.
These number registers are not used in
groff ms.
*
Macros that cause a reset
(paragraphs, headings, etc.)
may change the indent.
Macros that change the indent do not increment or decrement
the indent, but rather set it absolutely.
This can cause problems for documents that define
additional macros of their own.
The solution is to use not the
in
request but instead the
RS
and
RE
macros.
*
The number register
GS
is set to~1 by the
groff ms
macros,
but is not used by the Unix
ms
macros.
Documents that need to determine whether
they are being formatted with Unix
ms
or
groff ms
should use this number register.
*
To make
groff ms
use the default page offset (which also specifies the left margin),
the
PO
number register must stay undefined until the first
ms
macro is evaluated.
This implies that
PO
should not be used early in the document, unless it is changed also:
Remember that accessing an undefined register automatically defines it.
Strings
You can redefine the following strings to adapt the
groff ms
macros to languages other than English:
String
Default Value
REFERENCES
References
ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT
TOC
Table of Contents
MONTH1
January
MONTH2
February
MONTH3
March
MONTH4
April
MONTH5
May
MONTH6
June
MONTH7
July
MONTH8
August
MONTH9
September
MONTH10
October
MONTH11
November
MONTH12
December
The
[rs]*-
string produces an em dash [em] like this.
Use
[rs]*Q
and
[rs]*U
to get a left and right typographer's quote,
respectively, in
troff
(and plain quotes in
nroff).
Text Settings
The
FAM
string sets the default font family.
If this string is undefined at initialization,
it is set to Times.
The point size, vertical spacing, and inter-paragraph spacing for footnotes
are controlled by the number registers
FPS,
FVS,
and
FPD;
at initialization these are set to
[rs]n(PS-2,
[rs]n[FPS]+2,
and
[rs]n(PD/2,
respectively.
If any of these registers are defined before initialization,
the initialization macro does not change them.
The hyphenation flags (as set by the
hy
request) are set from the
HY
register;
the default is~14.
Improved accent marks
(as originally defined in Berkeley's
ms
version)
are available by specifying the
AM
macro at the beginning of your document.
You can place an accent over most characters
by specifying the string defining the accent
directly after the character.
For example,
n[rs]*~
produces an n with a tilde over it.
NAMING CONVENTIONS
The following conventions are used for names of macros, strings and
number registers.
External names available to documents that use the
groff ms
macros contain only uppercase letters and digits.
Internally the macros are divided into modules;
naming conventions are as follows:
*
Names used only within one module are of the form
module*name.
*
Names used outside the module in which they are defined are of the form
module@name.
*
Names associated with a particular environment are of the form
environment:name;
these are used only within the
par
module.
*
name
does not have a module prefix.
*
Constructed names used to implement arrays are of the form
array!index.
Thus the groff ms macros reserve the following names:
*
Names containing the characters
*,
@,
and~:.
*
Names containing only uppercase letters and digits.
FILES
/usr/share/tmac/ms.tmac
(a wrapper file for
s.tmac)
/usr/share/tmac/s.tmac
SEE ALSO
groff(1),
troff(1),
tbl(1),
pic(1),
eqn(1),
refer(1),
Groff: The GNU Implementation of troff
by Trent Fisher and Werner Lemberg.
AUTHOR
Original manual page by James Clark
et al;
rewritten by Larry Kollar
(lkollar@despammed.com).