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groff_char(7) Miscellaneous Information Manual groff_char(7)
groff_char - GNU roff special character and glyph repertoire
The GNU roff typesetting system has a large glyph repertoire
suitable for production of varied literary, professional,
technical, and mathematical documents. groff works with
characters; an output device renders glyphs. groff’s input
character set is restricted to that defined by the ISO Latin‐1
(ISO 8859‐1) standard. For ease of document maintenance in UTF‐8
environments, it is advisable to use only the Unicode basic Latin
code points; these correspond to ISO 646:1991 IRV (US‐ASCII), a
subset of all of the foregoing which has only 94 visible,
printable code points. In groff, these are termed ordinary
characters. Often, many more are desired in output.
AT&T troff in the 1970s faced a similar problem: the available
typesetter’s glyph repertoire differed from that of the computers
that controlled it. troff’s solution was a form of escape
sequence known as a special character to access several dozen
additional glyphs available in the fonts prepared for mounting in
the phototypesetter. These glyphs were mapped onto a two‐
character name space for a degree of mnemonic convenience; for
example, the escape sequence \(aa encoded an acute accent and \(sc
a section sign.
groff has lifted historical roff limitations on special character
name lengths, but recognizes and retains compatibility with the
historical names. groff expands the lexicon of glyphs available
by name and permits users to define their own special character
escape sequences with the char request. Special character names
are groff identifiers; see section “Identifiers” in groff(7). Our
discussion uses the terms “glyph name” and “special character
name” interchangeably; we assume no character translations or
redefinitions.
This document lists all of the glyph names predefined by groff’s
font description files and presents the systematic notation by
which it enables access to arbitrary Unicode code points and
construction of composite glyphs. Glyphs listed may be
unavailable, or may vary in appearance, depending on the output
device and font chosen when the page was formatted. This page was
rendered for device utf8 primarily using font R.
A few escape sequences that are not groff special characters also
produce glyphs; these exist for syntactical or historical reasons.
\', \`, \-, and \_ are translated on input to the special
character escape sequences \[aa], \[ga], \[-], and \[ul],
respectively. Others include \\, \. (backslash‐dot), and \e; see
groff(7). A small number of special characters represent glyphs
that are not encoded in Unicode; examples include the baseline
rule \[ru] and the Bell System logo \[bs].
In groff, test support for any character (ordinary or special)
with the conditional expression operator “c”.
.ie c \[bs] \{Welcome to the \[bs] Bell System;
did you get the Wehrmacht helmet or the Death Star?\}
.el No Bell System logo.
While groff accepts eight‐bit encoded input, not all such code
points are valid as input. Character codes 0, 11, 13–31, and
128–159 are invalid. (This is all C0 and C1 controls except for
SOH through LF [Control+A to Control+J], and FF [Control+L].)
Some of these code points are used by groff for internal purposes,
which is one reason it does not support UTF‐8 natively.
Fundamental character set
The ordinary characters catalogued above, plus the space, tab,
newline, and leader (Control+A), form the fundamental character
set for groff input; anything in the language, even over one
million code points in Unicode, can be expressed using it. Code
points in the range 33–126 comprise a common set of printable
glyphs in all of the aforementioned ISO character encoding
standards. It is this character set and (with some noteworthy
exceptions) the corresponding glyph repertoire for which AT&T
troff was implemented.
All of the following characters map to glyphs as you would expect.
┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ ! # $ % & ( ) * + , . / 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 : ; < = > ? @ │
│ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z [ ] _ │
│ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z { | } │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
The remaining ordinary characters surprise computing professionals
and others intimately familiar with the ISO character encodings.
The developers of AT&T troff chose mappings for them that would be
useful for typesetting technical literature in a broad range of
scientific disciplines: Bell Labs used the system to prepare
AT&T’s patent filings with the U.S. government. Further, the
prevailing character encoding standard in the 1970s,
USAS X3.4‐1968 (ASCII), deliberately supported semantic ambiguity
at some code points, and outright substitution at several others,
to suit the localization demands of various national standards
bodies.
The table below presents the seven exceptional code points with
their typical keycap engravings, their glyph mappings and
semantics in roff systems, and the escape sequences producing the
Unicode basic Latin character they replace. The first, the
neutral double quote, is a partial exception because it does
represent itself, but since the roff language also uses it to
quote macro arguments, groff supports a special character escape
sequence as an alternative form so that the glyph can be easily
included in macro arguments without requiring the user to master
the quoting rules that AT&T troff required in that context. (Some
requests, like ds, also treat " non‐literally at the beginning of
an argument.) Furthermore, not all of the special character
escape sequences are portable to AT&T troff and all of its
descendants; these groff extensions are presented using its
special character form \[], whereas portable special character
escape sequences are shown in the traditional \( form. \- and \e
are portable to all known troffs. \e means “the glyph of the
current escape character”; it therefore can produce unexpected
output if the ec request is used. On devices with a limited glyph
repertoire, glyphs in the “keycap” and “appearance” columns on the
same row of the table may look identical; except for the neutral
double quote, this will not be the case on more‐capable devices.
Review your document using as many different output devices as
possible.
┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Keycap Appearance and meaning Special character and meaning │
├───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ " " neutral double quote \[dq] neutral double quote │
│ ' ’ closing single quote \[aq] neutral apostrophe │
│ - ‐ hyphen \- or \[-] minus sign/Unix dash │
│ \ (escape character) \e or \[rs] reverse solidus │
│ ^ ˆ modifier circumflex \[ha] circumflex/caret/“hat” │
│ ` ‘ opening single quote \(ga grave accent │
│ ~ ˜ modifier tilde \[ti] tilde │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
The hyphen‐minus is a particularly unfortunate case of
overloading. Its awkward name in ISO 8859 and later standards
reflects the many distinguishable purposes to which it had already
been put by the 1980s, including a hyphen, a minus sign, and
(alone or in repetition) dashes of varying widths. For best
results in roff systems, use the “-” character in input outside an
escape sequence only to mean a hyphen, as in the phrase “long‐
term”. For a minus sign in running text or a Unix file name or
command‐line option dash, use \- (or \[-] in groff if you find it
helps the clarity of the source document). (Another minus sign,
for use in mathematical expressions, is available as \(mi.) AT&T
troff supported em‐dashes as \(em, as does groff.
The special character escape sequence for the apostrophe as a
neutral single quote is typically needed only in technical
content; typing words like “can’t” and “Anne’s” in a natural way
will render correctly, because in ordinary prose an apostrophe is
typeset either as a closing single quotation mark or as a neutral
single quote, depending on the capabilities of the output device.
By contrast, special character escape sequences should be used for
quotation marks unless portability to limited or historical troff
implementations is necessary; on those systems, the input
convention is to pair the grave accent with the apostrophe for
single quotes, and to double both characters for double quotes.
AT&T troff defined no special characters for quotation marks or
the apostrophe. Repeated single quotes (‘‘thus’’) will be
visually distinguishable from double quotes (“thus”) on terminal
devices, and perhaps on others (depending on the font selected and
its kerning configuration).
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ AT&T troff input recommended groff input │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ A Winter's Tale A Winter's Tale │
│ `U.K. outer quotes' \[oq]U.K. outer quotes\[cq] │
│ `U.K. ``inner'' quotes' \[oq]U.K. \[lq]inner\[rq] quotes\[cq] │
│ ``U.S. outer quotes'' \[lq]U.S. outer quotes\[rq] │
│ ``U.S. `inner' quotes'' \[lq]U.S. \[oq]inner\[cq] quotes\[rq] │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
If you frequently require quotation marks in your document, see if
the macro package you’re using supplies strings or macros to
facilitate quotation, or define them yourself (except in man
pages).
Using Unicode basic Latin characters to compose boxes and lines is
ill‐advised. roff systems have dedicated features for drawing
horizontal and vertical lines, the \l, \L, and \D escape
sequences. Also see subsection “Rules and lines” below.
Preprocessors like tbl(1) and pic(1) draw boxes and will produce
the best possible output for the device, falling back to basic
Latin glyphs only when necessary.
Eight‐bit encodings and Latin‐1 supplement
ISO 646 is a seven‐bit code encoding 128 code points; eight‐bit
codes are twice the size. ISO Latin‐1 (8859‐1) allocated the
additional space to what Unicode calls “C1 controls” (control
characters) and the “Latin‐1 supplement”. The C1 controls are
neither printable nor usable as GNU troff input.
GNU troff handles two Latin‐1 supplement characters specially, and
never produces them as output.
NBSP encodes a no‐break space; it maps to \~, the adjustable
non‐breaking space escape sequence.
SHY encodes a soft hyphen; it maps to \%, the hyphenation
control escape sequence.
The remaining characters in the Latin‐1 supplement represent
themselves. Although they can be specified directly with the
keyboard on systems configured to use Latin‐1 as the character
encoding, it is more portable, both to other roff systems and to
UTF‐8 environments, to use their special character escape
sequences, shown below. The glyph descriptions we use are non‐
standard in some cases, for brevity.
¡ \[r!] inverted exclamation mark Ñ \[~N] N tilde
¢ \[ct] cent sign Ò \[`O] O grave
£ \[Po] pound sign Ó \['O] O acute
¤ \[Cs] currency sign Ô \[^O] O circumflex
¥ \[Ye] yen sign Õ \[~O] O tilde
¦ \[bb] broken bar Ö \[:O] O dieresis
§ \[sc] section sign × \[mu] multiplication sign
¨ \[ad] dieresis accent Ø \[/O] O slash
© \[co] copyright sign Ù \[`U] U grave
ª \[Of] feminine ordinal indicator Ú \['U] U acute
« \[Fo] left double chevron Û \[^U] U circumflex
¬ \[no] logical not Ü \[:U] U dieresis
® \[rg] registered sign Ý \['Y] Y acute
¯ \[a-] macron accent Þ \[TP] uppercase thorn
° \[de] degree sign ß \[ss] lowercase sharp s
± \[+-] plus‐minus à \[`a] a grave
² \[S2] superscript two á \['a] a acute
³ \[S3] superscript three â \[^a] a circumflex
´ \[aa] acute accent ã \[~a] a tilde
µ \[mc] micro sign ä \[:a] a dieresis
¶ \[ps] pilcrow sign å \[oa] a ring
· \[pc] centered period æ \[ae] ae ligature
¸ \[ac] cedilla accent ç \[,c] c cedilla
¹ \[S1] superscript one è \[`e] e grave
º \[Om] masculine ordinal indicator é \['e] e acute
» \[Fc] right double chevron ê \[^e] e circumflex
¼ \[14] one quarter symbol ë \[:e] e dieresis
½ \[12] one half symbol ì \[`i] i grave
¾ \[34] three quarters symbol í \['i] e acute
¿ \[r?] inverted question mark î \[^i] i circumflex
À \[`A] A grave ï \[:i] i dieresis
Á \['A] A acute ð \[Sd] lowercase eth
 \[^A] A circumflex ñ \[~n] n tilde
à \[~A] A tilde ò \[`o] o grave
Ä \[:A] A dieresis ó \['o] o acute
Å \[oA] A ring ô \[^o] o circumflex
Æ \[AE] AE ligature õ \[~o] o tilde
Ç \[,C] C cedilla ö \[:o] o dieresis
È \[`E] E grave ÷ \[di] division sign
É \['E] E acute ø \[/o] o slash
Ê \[^E] E circumflex ù \[`u] u grave
Ë \[:E] E dieresis ú \['u] u acute
Ì \[`I] I grave û \[^u] u circumflex
Í \['I] I acute ü \[:u] u dieresis
Î \[^I] I circumflex ý \['y] y acute
Ï \[:I] I dieresis þ \[Tp] lowercase thorn
Ð \[-D] uppercase eth ÿ \[:y] y dieresis
Special character escape forms
Glyphs that lack a character code in the basic Latin repertoire to
directly represent them are entered by one of several special
character escape forms. Such glyphs can be simple or composite,
and accessed either by name or numerically by code point. Code
points and combining properties are determined by character
encoding standards, whereas glyph names as used here originated in
AT&T troff special character escape sequences. Predefined glyph
names use only characters in the basic Latin repertoire.
\(gl is a special character escape sequence for the glyph with
the two‐character name gl. This is the original syntax
form supported by AT&T troff. The acute accent, \(aa, is
an example.
\C'glyph‐name'
is a special character escape sequence for glyph‐name,
which can be of arbitrary length. The delimiter, shown
here as a neutral apostrophe, can be any character not
occurring in glyph‐name. This syntax form was introduced
in later versions of AT&T device‐independent troff. The
foregoing acute accent example can be expressed as \C'aa'.
\[glyph‐name]
is a special character escape sequence for glyph‐name,
which can be of arbitrary length but must not contain a
closing square bracket “]”. (No glyph names predefined by
groff employ “]”.) The foregoing acute accent example can
be expressed in in GNU troff as \[aa].
\C'c' and \[c] are not synonyms for the ordinary character “c”,
but request the special character named “\c”. For example, “\[a]”
is not “a”, but rather a special character with the internal glyph
name (used in font description files and diagnostic messages) \a,
which is typically undefined. The only such glyph name groff
predefines is the minus sign, which can therefore be accessed as
\C'-' or \[-].
\[base‐char composite‐1 composite‐2 ... composite‐n]
is a composite glyph. Glyphs like a lowercase “e” with an
acute accent, as in the word “café”, can be expressed as
\[e aa].
Normally, the formatter advances the drawing position after
setting a special character, as it does for ordinary ones.
groff’s composite request designates a special character as
combining, suppressing advancement.
You can obtain a report of mappings defined by the composite
request on the standard error stream with the pcomposite request.
The composite.tmac macro file, loaded automatically by the default
troffrc, maps certain special characters to combining characters
as shown in subsection “Accents” below.
Unicode encodes far more characters than groff has names for;
special character escape forms based on numerical code points
enable access to any of them. Frequently used glyphs or glyph
combinations can be stored in strings, and new glyph names can be
created ad hoc with the char request; see groff(7).
\[unnnn[n[n]]]
is a Unicode numeric special character escape sequence.
Any Unicode code point can be accessed with four to six
hexadecimal digits, with hexadecimal letters accepted in
uppercase form only. Thus, \[u02DA] accesses the (spacing)
ring accent, producing “˚”.
Unicode code points can be composed as well; when they are, GNU
troff requires NFD (Normalization Form D), where all Unicode
glyphs are maximally decomposed. (Exception: precomposed
characters in the Latin‐1 supplement described above are also
accepted. Do not count on this exception remaining in a future
GNU troff that accepts UTF‐8 input directly.) Thus, GNU troff
accepts “caf\['e]”, “caf\[e aa]”, and “caf\[u0065_0301]”, as ways
to input “café”. (Due to its legacy 8‐bit encoding compatibility,
at present it also accepts “caf\[u00E9]” on ISO Latin‐1 systems.)
\[ubase‐char[_combining‐component]...]
constructs a composite glyph from Unicode numeric special
character escape sequences. The code points of the base
glyph and the combining components are each expressed in
hexadecimal, with an underscore (_) separating each
component. Thus, \[u006E_0303] produces “ñ”.
\[charnnn]
expresses an eight‐bit code point where nnn is the code
point of the character, a decimal number between 0 and 255
without leading zeroes. This legacy numeric special
character escape sequence is used to map characters onto
glyphs via the trin request in macro files loaded by
grotty(1).
In this section, groff’s glyph name repertoire is presented in
tabular form. The meanings of the columns are as follows.
Output shows the glyph as it appears on the device used to render
this document; although it can have a notably different
shape on other devices (and is subject to user‐directed
translation and replacement), groff attempts reasonable
equivalency on all output devices.
Input shows the groff character (ordinary or special) that
normally produces the glyph. Some code points have
multiple glyph names.
Unicode
is the code point notation for the glyph or combining glyph
sequence as described in subsection “Special character
escape forms” above. It corresponds to the standard
notation for Unicode short identifiers such that groff’s
unnnn is equivalent to Unicode’s U+nnnn.
Notes describes the glyph, elucidating the mnemonic value of the
glyph name where possible.
A plus sign “+” indicates that the glyph name appears in
the AT&T troff user’s manual, CSTR #54 (1992 revision).
When using the AT&T special character syntax \(xx,
widespread portability can be expected from such names.
Entries marked with “***” denote glyphs used for
mathematical purposes. On typesetting devices, such glyphs
are typically drawn from a special font (see
groff_font(5)). Often, such glyphs lack bold or italic
style forms or have metrics that look incongruous in
ordinary prose. A few that are not uncommon in running
text have “text variants”, which should work better in that
context. Conversely, a handful of glyphs that are normally
drawn from a text font may be required in mathematical
expressions. Both sets of exceptions are noted in the
tables where they appear (“Logical symbols” and
“Mathematical symbols”).
Basic Latin
Apart from basic Latin characters with special mappings, described
in subsection “Fundamental character set” above, a few others in
that range have special character glyph names. These were defined
for ease of input on non‐U.S. keyboards lacking keycaps for them,
or for symmetry with other special character glyph names serving a
similar purpose.
The vertical bar is overloaded; the \[ba] and \[or] escape
sequences may render differently. See subsection “Mathematical
symbols” below for unstyled variants of the plus, minus, and
equals signs normally drawn from this range.
Output Input Unicode Notes
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
" \[dq] u0022 neutral double quote
# \[sh] u0023 number sign
$ \[Do] u0024 dollar sign
' \[aq] u0027 apostrophe, neutral single quote
/ \[sl] u002F slash, solidus +
@ \[at] u0040 at sign
[ \[lB] u005B left square bracket
\ \[rs] u005C reverse solidus
] \[rB] u005D right square bracket
^ \[ha] u005E circumflex, caret, “hat”
{ \[lC] u007B left brace
| | u007C bar +
| \[ba] u007C bar
| \[or] u007C bitwise or +
} \[rC] u007D right brace
~ \[ti] u007E tilde
Supplementary Latin letters
Historically, \[ss] developed from a ligature of “sz”. An
uppercase form is available as \[u1E9E], but in the German
language it is of specialized use; ß does not normally uppercase‐
transform to it, but rather to “SS”. “Lowercase f with hook” is
also used as a function symbol; see subsection “Mathematical
symbols” below.
Output Input Unicode Notes
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Ð \[-D] u00D0 uppercase eth
ð \[Sd] u00F0 lowercase eth
Þ \[TP] u00DE uppercase thorn
þ \[Tp] u00FE lowercase thorn
ß \[ss] u00DF lowercase sharp s
ı \[.i] u0131 i without tittle
ȷ \[.j] u0237 j without tittle
ƒ \[Fn] u0192 lowercase f with hook, function
Ł \[/L] u0141 L with stroke
ł \[/l] u0142 l with stroke
Ø \[/O] u00D8 O with stroke
ø \[/o] u00F8 o with stroke
Ligatures and digraphs
Output Input Unicode Notes
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
ff \[ff] u0066_0066 ff ligature +
fi \[fi] u0066_0069 fi ligature +
fl \[fl] u0066_006C fl ligature +
ffi \[Fi] u0066_0066_0069 ffi ligature +
ffl \[Fl] u0066_0066_006C ffl ligature +
Æ \[AE] u00C6 AE ligature
æ \[ae] u00E6 ae ligature
Π\[OE] u0152 OE ligature
œ \[oe] u0153 oe ligature
IJ \[IJ] u0132 IJ digraph
ij \[ij] u0133 ij digraph
Accents
The non‐combining code point in parentheses is used when the
special character occurs in isolation (compare “caf\[e aa]” and
“caf\[aa]e”).
Output Input Unicode Notes
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
˝ \[a"] u030B (u02DD) double acute accent
¯ \[a-] u0304 (u00AF) macron accent
˙ \[a.] u0307 (u02D9) dot accent
^ \[a^] u0302 (u005E) circumflex accent
´ \[aa] u0301 (u00B4) acute accent +
` \[ga] u0300 (u0060) grave accent +
˘ \[ab] u0306 (u02D8) breve accent
¸ \[ac] u0327 (u00B8) cedilla accent
¨ \[ad] u0308 (u00A8) dieresis accent
ˇ \[ah] u030C (u02C7) caron accent
˚ \[ao] u030A (u02DA) ring accent
~ \[a~] u0303 (u007E) tilde accent
˛ \[ho] u0328 (u02DB) hook accent
Accented characters
All of these glyphs can be composed using combining glyph names as
described in subsection “Special character escape forms” above;
the names below are short aliases for convenience.
Output Input Unicode Notes
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Á \['A] u0041_0301 A acute
Ć \['C] u0043_0301 C acute
É \['E] u0045_0301 E acute
Í \['I] u0049_0301 I acute
Ó \['O] u004F_0301 O acute
Ú \['U] u0055_0301 U acute
Ý \['Y] u0059_0301 Y acute
á \['a] u0061_0301 a acute
ć \['c] u0063_0301 c acute
é \['e] u0065_0301 e acute
í \['i] u0069_0301 i acute
ó \['o] u006F_0301 o acute
ú \['u] u0075_0301 u acute
ý \['y] u0079_0301 y acute
Ä \[:A] u0041_0308 A dieresis
Ë \[:E] u0045_0308 E dieresis
Ï \[:I] u0049_0308 I dieresis
Ö \[:O] u004F_0308 O dieresis
Ü \[:U] u0055_0308 U dieresis
Ÿ \[:Y] u0059_0308 Y dieresis
ä \[:a] u0061_0308 a dieresis
ë \[:e] u0065_0308 e dieresis
ï \[:i] u0069_0308 i dieresis
ö \[:o] u006F_0308 o dieresis
ü \[:u] u0075_0308 u dieresis
ÿ \[:y] u0079_0308 y dieresis
 \[^A] u0041_0302 A circumflex
Ê \[^E] u0045_0302 E circumflex
Î \[^I] u0049_0302 I circumflex
Ô \[^O] u004F_0302 O circumflex
Û \[^U] u0055_0302 U circumflex
â \[^a] u0061_0302 a circumflex
ê \[^e] u0065_0302 e circumflex
î \[^i] u0069_0302 i circumflex
ô \[^o] u006F_0302 o circumflex
û \[^u] u0075_0302 u circumflex
À \[`A] u0041_0300 A grave
È \[`E] u0045_0300 E grave
Ì \[`I] u0049_0300 I grave
Ò \[`O] u004F_0300 O grave
Ù \[`U] u0055_0300 U grave
à \[`a] u0061_0300 a grave
è \[`e] u0065_0300 e grave
ì \[`i] u0069_0300 i grave
ò \[`o] u006F_0300 o grave
ù \[`u] u0075_0300 u grave
à \[~A] u0041_0303 A tilde
Ñ \[~N] u004E_0303 N tilde
Õ \[~O] u004F_0303 O tilde
ã \[~a] u0061_0303 a tilde
ñ \[~n] u006E_0303 n tilde
õ \[~o] u006F_0303 o tilde
Š \[vS] u0053_030C S caron
š \[vs] u0073_030C s caron
Ž \[vZ] u005A_030C Z caron
ž \[vz] u007A_030C z caron
Ç \[,C] u0043_0327 C cedilla
ç \[,c] u0063_0327 c cedilla
Å \[oA] u0041_030A A ring
å \[oa] u0061_030A a ring
Quotation marks
The neutral double quote, useful in documenting programming
languages, is also available as a special character for convenient
embedding in macro arguments; see subsection “Fundamental
character set” above.
Output Input Unicode Notes
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
„ \[Bq] u201E low double comma quote
‚ \[bq] u201A low single comma quote
“ \[lq] u201C left double quote
” \[rq] u201D right double quote
‘ \[oq] u2018 single opening (left) quote
’ \[cq] u2019 single closing (right) quote
' \[aq] u0027 apostrophe, neutral single quote
" " u0022 neutral double quote
" \[dq] u0022 neutral double quote
« \[Fo] u00AB left double chevron
» \[Fc] u00BB right double chevron
‹ \[fo] u2039 left single chevron
› \[fc] u203A right single chevron
Punctuation
The Unicode name for U+00B7 is “middle dot”, which is
unfortunately confusable with the groff mnemonic for the visually
similar but semantically distinct multiplication dot; see
subsection “Mathematical symbols” below.
Output Input Unicode Notes
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
¡ \[r!] u00A1 inverted exclamation mark
¿ \[r?] u00BF inverted question mark
· \[pc] u00B7 centered period
— \[em] u2014 em‐dash +
– \[en] u2013 en‐dash
‐ - u2010 hyphen +
‐ \[hy] u2010 hyphen +
Brackets
On typesetting devices, the bracket extensions are font‐invariant
glyphs; that is, they are rendered the same way regardless of font
(with a drawing escape sequence). On terminals, they are not
font‐invariant; groff maps them arbitrarily to U+23AA (“curly
bracket extension”). In AT&T troff, only one glyph was available
to vertically extend brackets, braces, and parentheses: \(bv.
Not all devices supply bracket pieces that can be piled up with \b
due to the restrictions of the formatter’s piling algorithm. The
following macro offers a more general bracket‐building solution.
.\" Make a pile centered vertically 0.5em above the baseline.
.\" The first argument is placed at the top.
.\" The pile is returned in string 'pile'.
.eo
.de pile-make
. nr pile-wd 0
. nr pile-ht 0
. ds pile-args
.
. nr pile-# \n[.$]
. while \n[pile-#] \{\
. nr pile-wd (\n[pile-wd] >? \w'\$[\n[pile-#]]')
. nr pile-ht +(\n[rst] - \n[rsb])
. as pile-args \v'\n[rsb]u'\"
. as pile-args \Z'\$[\n[pile-#]]'\"
. as pile-args \v'-\n[rst]u'\"
. nr pile-# -1
. \}
.
. ds pile \v'(-0.5m + (\n[pile-ht]u / 2u))'\"
. as pile \*[pile-args]\"
. as pile \v'((\n[pile-ht]u / 2u) + 0.5m)'\"
. as pile \h'\n[pile-wd]u'\"
..
.ec
Further complicating matters is that some glyphs representing
bracket pieces in AT&T troff can be used for other mathematical
symbols as well; for example, \(lf and \(rf provide the floor
operator. Some output devices, such as dvi, don’t unify such
glyphs. For this reason, the glyphs \[lf], \[rf], \[lc], and
\[rc] are not unified with similar‐looking bracket pieces. In
groff, only glyphs with long names are guaranteed to pile up
correctly for all devices—provided those glyphs are available.
Output Input Unicode Notes
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
[ [ u005B left square bracket
[ \[lB] u005B left square bracket
] ] u005D right square bracket
] \[rB] u005D right square bracket
{ { u007B left brace
{ \[lC] u007B left brace
} } u007D right brace
} \[rC] u007D right brace
⟨ \[la] u27E8 left angle bracket
⟩ \[ra] u27E9 right angle bracket
⎪ \[bv] u23AA brace vertical extension + ***
⎪ \[braceex] u23AA brace vertical extension
⎡ \[bracketlefttp] u23A1 left square bracket top
⎢ \[bracketleftex] u23A2 left square bracket extension
⎣ \[bracketleftbt] u23A3 left square bracket bottom
⎤ \[bracketrighttp] u23A4 right square bracket top
⎥ \[bracketrightex] u23A5 right square bracket extension
⎦ \[bracketrightbt] u23A6 right square bracket bottom
⎧ \[lt] u23A7 left brace top +
⎨ \[lk] u23A8 left brace middle +
⎩ \[lb] u23A9 left brace bottom +
⎧ \[bracelefttp] u23A7 left brace top
⎨ \[braceleftmid] u23A8 left brace middle
⎩ \[braceleftbt] u23A9 left brace bottom
⎪ \[braceleftex] u23AA left brace extension
⎫ \[rt] u23AB right brace top +
⎬ \[rk] u23AC right brace middle +
⎭ \[rb] u23AD right brace bottom +
⎫ \[bracerighttp] u23AB right brace top
⎬ \[bracerightmid] u23AC right brace middle
⎭ \[bracerightbt] u23AD right brace bottom
⎪ \[bracerightex] u23AA right brace extension
⎛ \[parenlefttp] u239B left parenthesis top
⎜ \[parenleftex] u239C left parenthesis extension
⎝ \[parenleftbt] u239D left parenthesis bottom
⎞ \[parenrighttp] u239E right parenthesis top
⎟ \[parenrightex] u239F right parenthesis extension
⎠ \[parenrightbt] u23A0 right parenthesis bottom
Arrows
Output Input Unicode Notes
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
← \[<-] u2190 horizontal arrow left +
→ \[->] u2192 horizontal arrow right +
↔ \[<>] u2194 bidirectional horizontal arrow
↓ \[da] u2193 vertical arrow down +
↑ \[ua] u2191 vertical arrow up +
↕ \[va] u2195 bidirectional vertical arrow
⇐ \[lA] u21D0 horizontal double arrow left
⇒ \[rA] u21D2 horizontal double arrow right
⇔ \[hA] u21D4 bidirectional horizontal double arrow
⇓ \[dA] u21D3 vertical double arrow down
⇑ \[uA] u21D1 vertical double arrow up
⇕ \[vA] u21D5 bidirectional vertical double arrow
⎯ \[an] u23AF horizontal arrow extension
Rules and lines
On typesetting devices, the font‐invariant glyphs (see subsection
“Brackets” above) \[br], \[ul], and \[rn] form corners when
adjacent; they can be used to build boxes. On terminal devices,
they are mapped as shown in the table. The Unicode‐derived names
of these three glyphs are approximations.
The ordinary character _ accesses the underscore glyph in a font;
\[ul], by contrast, may be font‐invariant on typesetting devices.
The baseline rule \[ru] is a font‐invariant glyph, namely a rule
of one‐half em.
In AT&T troff, \[rn] also served as a one en extension of the
square root symbol. groff favors \[radicalex] for this purpose;
see subsection “Mathematical symbols” below.
Output Input Unicode Notes
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
| | u007C bar
| \[ba] u007C bar
│ \[br] u2502 box rule +
_ _ u005F underscore, low line +
_ \[ul] ‐‐‐ underrule +
‾ \[rn] u203E overline +
_ \[ru] ‐‐‐ baseline rule +
¦ \[bb] u00A6 broken bar
/ / u002F slash, solidus +
/ \[sl] u002F slash, solidus +
\ \[rs] u005C reverse solidus
Text markers
Output Input Unicode Notes
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
○ \[ci] u25CB circle +
• \[bu] u2022 bullet +
† \[dg] u2020 dagger +
‡ \[dd] u2021 double dagger +
◊ \[lz] u25CA lozenge, diamond
□ \[sq] u25A1 square +
¶ \[ps] u00B6 pilcrow sign
§ \[sc] u00A7 section sign +
☜ \[lh] u261C hand pointing left +
☞ \[rh] u261E hand pointing right +
@ @ u0040 at sign
@ \[at] u0040 at sign
# # u0023 number sign
# \[sh] u0023 number sign
↵ \[CR] u21B5 carriage return
✓ \[OK] u2713 check mark
Legal symbols
The Bell System logo is not supported in groff.
Output Input Unicode Notes
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
© \[co] u00A9 copyright sign +
® \[rg] u00AE registered sign +
™ \[tm] u2122 trade mark sign
\[bs] ‐‐‐ Bell System logo +
Currency symbols
Output Input Unicode Notes
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
$ $ u0024 dollar sign
$ \[Do] u0024 dollar sign
¢ \[ct] u00A2 cent sign +
€ \[eu] u20AC Euro sign
€ \[Eu] u20AC variant Euro sign
¥ \[Ye] u00A5 yen sign
£ \[Po] u00A3 pound sign
¤ \[Cs] u00A4 currency sign
Units
Output Input Unicode Notes
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
° \[de] u00B0 degree sign +
‰ \[%0] u2030 per thousand, per mille sign
′ \[fm] u2032 arc minute sign, foot mark +
″ \[sd] u2033 arc second sign
µ \[mc] u00B5 micro sign
ª \[Of] u00AA feminine ordinal indicator
º \[Om] u00BA masculine ordinal indicator
Logical symbols
The variants of the not sign may differ in appearance or spacing
depending on the device and font selected. Unicode does not
encode a discrete “bitwise or” sign: on typesetting devices, it is
drawn shorter than the bar, about the same height as a capital
letter. Terminal devices unify \[ba] and \[or].
Output Input Unicode Notes
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
∧ \[AN] u2227 logical and
∨ \[OR] u2228 logical or
¬ \[no] u00AC logical not + ***
¬ \[tno] u00AC text variant of \[no]
∃ \[te] u2203 there exists
∀ \[fa] u2200 for all
∋ \[st] u220B such that
∴ \[3d] u2234 therefore
∴ \[tf] u2234 therefore
| | u007C bar +
| \[or] u007C bitwise or +
Mathematical symbols
\[Fn] also appears in subsection “Supplementary Latin letters”
above. The plus‐minus, multiplication, and division signs, \[+-],
\[mu], and \[di], are normally drawn from the special font, but
have text font variants. The plus, minus, and equals signs are
normally drawn from text fonts, but have special font variants.
Variants may differ in appearance or spacing depending on the
device and font selected.
In AT&T troff, \(rn (“root en extender”) served as the horizontal
extension of the radical (square root) sign, \(sr, and was drawn
at the maximum height of the typeface’s bounding box, enabling it
to double as an overline (see subsection “Rules and lines” above).
A contemporary font’s radical sign might not ascend to such an
extreme. In groff, you can instead use \[radicalex] to continue
the radical sign \[sr]; these special characters are intended for
use with text fonts. \[sqrt] and \[sqrtex] are their unstyled
counterparts.
Output Input Unicode Notes
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
½ \[12] u00BD one half symbol +
¼ \[14] u00BC one quarter symbol +
¾ \[34] u00BE three quarters symbol +
⅛ \[18] u215B one eighth symbol
⅜ \[38] u215C three eighths symbol
⅝ \[58] u215D five eighths symbol
⅞ \[78] u215E seven eighths symbol
¹ \[S1] u00B9 superscript one
² \[S2] u00B2 superscript two
³ \[S3] u00B3 superscript three
+ + u002B plus
+ \[pl] u002B special variant of plus + ***
- \[-] u002D minus
− \[mi] u2212 special variant of minus + ***
∓ \[-+] u2213 minus‐plus
± \[+-] u00B1 plus‐minus + ***
± \[t+-] u00B1 text variant of \[+-]
⋅ \[md] u22C5 multiplication dot
× \[mu] u00D7 multiplication sign + ***
× \[tmu] u00D7 text variant of \[mu]
⊗ \[c*] u2297 circled times
⊕ \[c+] u2295 circled plus
÷ \[di] u00F7 division sign, obelus + ***
÷ \[tdi] u00F7 text variant of \[di]
⁄ \[f/] u2044 fraction slash
* * u002A asterisk
∗ \[**] u2217 mathematical asterisk +
≤ \[<=] u2264 less than or equal to +
≥ \[>=] u2265 greater than or equal to +
≪ \[<<] u226A much less than
≫ \[>>] u226B much greater than
= = u003D equals
= \[eq] u003D special variant of equals + ***
≠ \[!=] u003D_0338 not equals +
≡ \[==] u2261 equivalent +
≢ \[ne] u2261_0338 not equivalent
≅ \[=~] u2245 approximately equal to
≃ \[|=] u2243 asymptotically equal to +
~ \[ti] u007E tilde +
∼ \[ap] u223C similar to, tilde operator +
≈ \[~~] u2248 almost equal to
≈ \[~=] u2248 almost equal to
∝ \[pt] u221D proportional to +
∅ \[es] u2205 empty set +
∈ \[mo] u2208 element of a set +
∉ \[nm] u2208_0338 not element of set
⊂ \[sb] u2282 proper subset +
⊄ \[nb] u2282_0338 not subset
⊃ \[sp] u2283 proper superset +
⊅ \[nc] u2283_0338 not superset
⊆ \[ib] u2286 subset or equal +
⊇ \[ip] u2287 superset or equal +
∩ \[ca] u2229 intersection, cap +
∪ \[cu] u222A union, cup +
∠ \[/_] u2220 angle
⊥ \[pp] u22A5 perpendicular
∫ \[is] u222B integral +
∫ \[integral] u222B integral ***
∑ \[sum] u2211 summation ***
∏ \[product] u220F product ***
∐ \[coproduct] u2210 coproduct ***
∇ \[gr] u2207 gradient +
√ \[sr] u221A radical sign, square root +
‾ \[rn] u203E overline +
‾ \[radicalex] ‐‐‐ radical extension
√ \[sqrt] u221A radical sign, square root ***
‾ \[sqrtex] ‐‐‐ radical extension ***
⌈ \[lc] u2308 left ceiling +
⌉ \[rc] u2309 right ceiling +
⌊ \[lf] u230A left floor +
⌋ \[rf] u230B right floor +
∞ \[if] u221E infinity +
ℵ \[Ah] u2135 aleph symbol
ƒ \[Fn] u0192 lowercase f with hook, function
ℑ \[Im] u2111 blackletter I, imaginary part
ℜ \[Re] u211C blackletter R, real part
℘ \[wp] u2118 Weierstrass p
∂ \[pd] u2202 partial differential
ℏ \[-h] u210F h bar
ℏ \[hbar] u210F h bar
Greek glyphs
These glyphs are intended for technical use, not for typesetting
Greek language text; normally, the uppercase letters have upright
shape, and the lowercase ones are slanted. For the latter, we
include in parentheses under “Unicode” more appropriate code
points from the Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols block of the
Supplementary Multilingual Plane.
Output Input Unicode Notes
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Α \[*A] u0391 uppercase alpha +
Β \[*B] u0392 uppercase beta +
Γ \[*G] u0393 uppercase gamma +
Δ \[*D] u0394 uppercase delta +
Ε \[*E] u0395 uppercase epsilon +
Ζ \[*Z] u0396 uppercase zeta +
Η \[*Y] u0397 uppercase eta +
Θ \[*H] u0398 uppercase theta +
Ι \[*I] u0399 uppercase iota +
Κ \[*K] u039A uppercase kappa +
Λ \[*L] u039B uppercase lambda +
Μ \[*M] u039C uppercase mu +
Ν \[*N] u039D uppercase nu +
Ξ \[*C] u039E uppercase xi +
Ο \[*O] u039F uppercase omicron +
Π \[*P] u03A0 uppercase pi +
Ρ \[*R] u03A1 uppercase rho +
Σ \[*S] u03A3 uppercase sigma +
Τ \[*T] u03A4 uppercase tau +
Υ \[*U] u03A5 uppercase upsilon +
Φ \[*F] u03A6 uppercase phi +
Χ \[*X] u03A7 uppercase chi +
Ψ \[*Q] u03A8 uppercase psi +
Ω \[*W] u03A9 uppercase omega +
α \[*a] u03B1 (u1D6FC) lowercase alpha +
β \[*b] u03B2 (u1D6FD) lowercase beta +
γ \[*g] u03B3 (u1D6FE) lowercase gamma +
δ \[*d] u03B4 (u1D6FF) lowercase delta +
ε \[*e] u03B5 (u1D700) lowercase epsilon +
ζ \[*z] u03B6 (u1D701) lowercase zeta +
η \[*y] u03B7 (u1D702) lowercase eta +
θ \[*h] u03B8 (u1D703) lowercase theta +
ι \[*i] u03B9 (u1D704) lowercase iota +
κ \[*k] u03BA (u1D705) lowercase kappa +
λ \[*l] u03BB (u1D706) lowercase lambda +
μ \[*m] u03BC (u1D707) lowercase mu +
ν \[*n] u03BD (u1D708) lowercase nu +
ξ \[*c] u03BE (u1D709) lowercase xi +
ο \[*o] u03BF (u1D70A) lowercase omicron +
π \[*p] u03C0 (u1D70B) lowercase pi +
ρ \[*r] u03C1 (u1D70C) lowercase rho +
σ \[*s] u03C3 (u1D70E) lowercase sigma +
τ \[*t] u03C4 (u1D70F) lowercase tau +
υ \[*u] u03C5 (u1D710) lowercase upsilon +
ϕ \[*f] u03D5 (u1D717) lowercase phi +
χ \[*x] u03C7 (u1D712) lowercase chi +
ψ \[*q] u03C8 (u1D713) lowercase psi +
ω \[*w] u03C9 (u1D714) lowercase omega +
ϵ \[+e] u03F5 (u1D716) variant epsilon (lunate)
ϑ \[+h] u03D1 (u1D717) variant theta (cursive form)
ϖ \[+p] u03D6 (u1D717) variant pi (similar to omega)
φ \[+f] u03C6 (u1D71B) variant phi (curly shape)
ς \[ts] u03C2 (u1D70D) terminal lowercase sigma +
Playing card symbols
Output Input Unicode Notes
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
♣ \[CL] u2663 solid club suit
♠ \[SP] u2660 solid spade suit
♥ \[HE] u2665 solid heart suit
♦ \[DI] u2666 solid diamond suit
A consideration of the typefaces originally available to AT&T
nroff and troff illuminates many conventions that one might regard
as idiosyncratic fifty years afterward. (See section “History” of
roff(7) for more context.) The face used by the Teletype Model 37
terminals of the Murray Hill Unix Room was based on ASCII, but
assigned multiple meanings to several code points, as suggested by
that standard. Decimal 34 (") served as a dieresis accent and
neutral double quotation mark; decimal 39 (') as an acute accent,
apostrophe, and closing (right) single quotation mark; decimal 45
(-) as a hyphen and a minus sign; decimal 94 (^) as a circumflex
accent and caret; decimal 96 (`) as a grave accent and opening
(left) single quotation mark; and decimal 126 (~) as a tilde
accent and (with a half‐line motion) swung dash. The Model 37
bore an optional extended character set offering upright Greek
letters and several mathematical symbols; these were documented as
early as the kbd(VII) man page of the (First Edition) Unix
Programmer’s Manual.
At the time Graphic Systems delivered the C/A/T phototypesetter to
AT&T, the ASCII character set was not considered a standard basis
for a glyph repertoire by traditional typographers. In the stock
Times roman, italic, and bold styles available, several ASCII
characters were not present at all, nor was most of the Teletype’s
extended character set. AT&T commissioned a “special” font to
retain their accustomed repertoire.
A representation of the coverage of the C/A/T’s text fonts
follows. The glyph resembling an underscore is a baseline rule,
and that resembling a vertical line is a box rule. In italics,
the box rule was not slanted. We also observe that the hyphen and
minus sign were already “de‐unified” by the fonts provided; a
decision whither to map an input “-” therefore had to be taken.
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z │
│ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z │
│ 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 fi fl ffi ffl │
│ ! $ % & ( ) ‘ ’ * + - . , / : ; = ? [ ] │ │
│ • □ — ‐ _ ¼ ½ ¾ ° † ′ ¢ ® © │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
The special font supplied the missing ASCII and Teletype extended
glyphs, among several others. The plus, minus, and equals signs
appeared in the special font despite availability in text fonts
“to insulate the appearance of equations from the choice of
standard [read: text] fonts”—a priority since troff was turned to
the task of mathematical typesetting as soon as it was developed.
We note that AT&T took the opportunity to de‐unify the
apostrophe/right single quotation mark from the acute accent (a
choice ISO later duplicated in its 8859 series of standards). A
slash intended to be mirror‐symmetric with the backslash was also
included, as was the Bell System logo; we do not attempt to depict
the latter.
┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ α β γ δ ε ζ η θ ι κ λ μ ν ξ ο π ρ σ ς τ υ ϕ χ ψ ω │
│ Γ Δ Θ Λ Ξ Π Σ Υ Φ Ψ Ω │
│ " ´ \ ^ _ ` ~ / < > { } # @ + − = ∗ │
│ ≥ ≤ ≡ ≈ ∼ ≠ ↑ ↓ ← → × ÷ ± ∞ ∂ ∇ ¬ ∫ ∝ √ ‾ ∪ ∩ ⊂ ⊃ ⊆ ⊇ ∅ ∈ │
│ § ‡ ☜ ☞ | ○ ⎧ ⎩ ⎫ ⎭ ⎨ ⎬ ⎪ ⌊ ⌋ ⌈ ⌉ │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
One ASCII character as rendered by the Model 37 was apparently
abandoned. That device printed decimal 124 (|) as a broken
vertical line, like Unicode U+00A6 (¦). No equivalent was
available on the C/A/T; the box rule \[br], brace vertical
extension \[bv], and “or” operator \[or] were used as contextually
appropriate.
Devices supported by AT&T device‐independent troff exhibited some
differences in glyph detail. For example, on the Autologic APS‐5
phototypesetter, the square \(sq became filled in the Times bold
face.
The files below are loaded automatically by the default troffrc.
/usr/local/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/composite.tmac
assigns alternate mappings for identifiers after the first
in a composite special character escape sequence. See
subsection “Accents” above.
/usr/local/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/fallbacks.tmac
defines fallback mappings for Unicode code points such as
the increment sign (U+2206) and upper‐ and lowercase Roman
numerals.
This document was written by James Clark ⟨jjc@jclark.com⟩, with
additions by Werner Lemberg ⟨wl@gnu.org⟩ and Bernd Warken
⟨groff-bernd.warken-72@web.de⟩, revised to use tbl(1) by Eric S.
Raymond ⟨esr@thyrsus.com⟩, and largely rewritten by 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. Section “Using
Symbols” may be of particular note. You can browse it
interactively with “info '(groff) Using Symbols'”.
“An extension to the troff character set for Europe”, E.G. Keizer,
K.J. Simonsen, J. Akkerhuis; EUUG Newsletter, Volume 9, No. 2,
Summer 1989
The Unicode Standard ⟨http://www.unicode.org⟩
“7‐bit Character Sets”
⟨https://www.aivosto.com/articles/charsets-7bit.html⟩ by Tuomas
Salste documents the inherent ambiguity and configurable code
points of the ASCII encoding standard.
“Nroff/Troff User’s Manual” by Joseph F. Ossanna, 1976, AT&T Bell
Laboratories Computing Science Technical Report No. 54, features
two tables that throw light on the glyph repertoire available to
“typesetter roff” when it was first written. Be careful of re‐
typeset versions of this document that can be found on the
Internet. Some do not accurately represent the original document:
several glyphs are obviously missing. More subtly, lowercase
Greek letters are rendered upright, not slanted as they appeared
in the C/A/T’s special font and as expected by troff users.
groff_rfc1345(7) describes an alternative set of special character
glyph names, which extends and in some cases overrides the
definitions listed above.
groff(1), troff(1), groff(7)
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_char(7)
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