This section describes the available macros for manual pages.
For further customization, put additional macros and requests into the file
man.local
which will be loaded immediately after the
man
package.
-
- .TH title section [extra1] [extra2] [extra3]
-
Sets the title of the man page to
title
and the section to
section,
which must take on a value between 1 and 8.
The value
section
may also have a string appended, e.g. `.pm', to indicate a specific
subsection of the man pages.
Both
title
and
section
are positioned at the left and right in the header line (with
section
in parentheses immediately appended to
title.
extra1
will be positioned in the middle of the footer line.
extra2
will be positioned at the left in the footer line (resp. at the left on
even pages and at the right on odd pages if double-sided printing is
active).
extra3
is centered in the header line.
-
For HTML output, headers and footers are completely supressed.
-
Additionally, this macro starts a new page; the new line number is 1 again
(except if the `-rC1' option is given on the command line) -- this feature
is intended only for formatting multiple man pages; a single man page should
contain exactly one
TH
macro at the beginning of the file.
-
- .SH [text for a heading]
-
Sets up an unnumbered section heading sticking out to the left.
Prints out all the text following
SH
up to the end of the line (resp. the text in the next input line if there is
no argument to
SH)
in bold face, one size larger than the base document size.
Additionally, the left margin for the following text is reset to its default
value.
-
- .SS [text for a heading]
-
Sets up an secondary, unnumbered section heading.
Prints out all the text following
SS
up to the end of the line (resp. the text in the next input line if there is
no argument to
SS)
in bold face, at the same size as the base document size.
Additionally, the left margin for the following text is reset to its default
value.
-
- .TP [nnn]
-
Sets up an indented paragraph with label.
The indentation is set to
nnn
if that argument is supplied (the default unit is `n' if omitted), otherwise
it is set to the default indentation value.
The first input line of text following this macro is interpreted as a string
to be printed flush-left, as it is appropriate for a label.
It is not interpreted as part of a paragraph, so there is no attempt to fill
the first line with text from the following input lines.
Nevertheless, if the label is not as wide as the indentation, then the
paragraph starts at the same line (but indented), continuing on the
following lines.
If the label is wider than the indentation, then the descriptive part of the
paragraph begins on the line following the label, entirely indented.
Note that neither font shape nor font size of the label is set to a default
value; on the other hand, the rest of the text will have default font
settings.
The
TP
macro is the macro used for the explanations you are just reading.
-
- .LP
-
-
.PP
-
-
.P
- These macros are mutual aliases.
Any of them causes a line break at the current position, followed by a
vertical space downwards by the amount specified by the
PD
macro.
The font size and shape are reset to the default value (10pt resp. Roman).
Finally, the current left margin is restored.
-
- .IP [designator] [nnn]
-
Sets up an indented paragraph, using
designator
as a tag to mark its beginning.
The indentation is set to
nnn
if that argument is supplied (default unit is `n'), otherwise the default
indentation value is used.
Font size and face of the paragraph (but not the designator) are reset to
its default values.
To start an indented paragraph with a particular indentation but without a
designator, use `""' (two doublequotes) as the second argument.
-
For example, the following paragraphs were all set up with bullets as the
designator, using `.IP \(bu 4':
-
- *
-
IP
is one of the three macros used in the
man
package to format lists.
- *
-
HP
is another.
This macro produces a paragraph with a left hanging indentation.
- *
-
TP
is another.
This macro produces an unindented label followed by an indented paragraph.
-
- .HP [nnn]
-
Sets up a paragraph with hanging left indentation.
The indentation is set to
nnn
if that argument is supplied (default unit is `n'), otherwise the default
indentation value is used.
Font size and face are reset to its default values.
The following paragraph illustrates the effect of this macro with hanging
indentation set to 4:
-
-
- This is a paragraph following an invocation of the
HP
macro.
As you can see, it produces a paragraph where all lines but the first are
indented.
-
- .RS [nnn]
-
This macro moves the left margin to the right by the value
nnn
if specified (default unit is `n'); otherwise the default indentation value
is used.
Calls to the
RS
macro can be nested.
-
- .RE [nnn]
-
This macro moves the left margin back to level
nnn;
if no argument is given, it moves one level back.
The first level (i.e., no call to
RS
yet) has number 1, and each call to
RS
increases the level by 1.
To summarize, the following macros cause a line break with the insertion of
vertical space (which amount can be changed with the
PD
macro):
SH,
SS,
TP,
LP
(PP,
P),
IP,
and
HP.
The macros
RS
and
RE
also cause a break but no insertion of vertical space.
Finally, the macros
SH,
SS,
LP
(PP,
P),
and
RS
reset the indentation to its default value.