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Name | Description | Macro packages | Naming | Inclusion | Writing macros | Authors | See also | COLOPHON |
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groff_tmac(5) File Formats Manual groff_tmac(5)
groff_tmac - macro files in the GNU roff typesetting system
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.
Some macro packages assume responsibility for page layout and
other critical functions (“major” or “full-service”); others do
not (“supplemental” or “auxiliary”). 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 additional 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.
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 “ñ” occurs in loan words. The
latin1.tmac and latin9.tmac macro files define a hyphenation code
for “ñ” and make “Ñ” equivalent to it. The English localization
file en.tmac furthermore makes “ñ” equivalent to “n”. In Spanish
(es.tmac), however, “ñ” 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, 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:///usr/local/share/doc/groff-1.23.0/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).
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.
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.)
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
• 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[.$] == 0) \
. return
. nop \&\\$*\&
..
• 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.
• Comment lengthy macro definitions.
• Use empty requests, and indentation after control characters,
to clarify a macro's structure.
This document was written by Werner Lemberg ⟨wl@gnu.org⟩ and G.
Branden Robinson ⟨g.branden.robinson@gmail.com⟩.
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.
This page is part of the groff (GNU troff) project. Information
about the project can be found at
⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/groff/⟩. If you have a bug report for
this manual page, see ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/groff/⟩. This
page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/groff.git⟩ on 2025-08-11. (At
that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
the repository was 2025-08-09.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
man-pages@man7.org
groff 1.23.0.3821-a8b3f 2025-08-09 groff_tmac(5)
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HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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