GROFF_MS

groff_ms ? groff ms macros

groff ?ms [ options... ] [ files... ]

This manual page describes the GNU version of the ms macros, which is part of the groff document formatting system. The groff ms macros are intended to be compatible with the documented behaviour of the 4.3 BSD Unix ms macros subject to the following limitations:

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the internals of groff ms are not similar to the internals of Unix ms and so documents that depend upon implementation details of Unix ms may well not work with groff ms;

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there is no support for typewriter-like devices;

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Berkeley localisms, in particular the TM and CT macros, are not implemented;

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groff ms does not provide cut marks;

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multiple line spacing is not allowed (use a larger vertical spacing instead);

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groff ms does not work in compatibility mode (eg with the ?C option);

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the error-handling policy of groff ms is to detect and report errors, rather than silently to ignore them.

The groff ms macros make use of many features of GNU troff and therefore cannot be used with any other troff.

Bell Labs localisms are not implemented in either the BSD ms macros or in the groff ms macros.

Some Unix ms documentation says that the CW and GW number registers can be used to control the column width and gutter width respectively. This is not the case. These number registers are not used in groff ms.

Macros that cause a reset set 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. It is intended that documents that need to determine whether they are being formatted with Unix ms or groff ms make use of this number register.

Footnotes are implemented so that they can safely be used within keeps and displays. Automatically numbered footnotes within floating keeps are not recommended. It is safe to have another \** between a \** and the corresponding .FS; it is required only that each .FS occur after the corresponding \** and that the occurrences of .FS are in the same order as the corresponding occurrences of \**.

The strings \*{ and \*} can be used to begin and end a superscript.

Some Unix V10 ms features are implemented. The B, I and BI macros can have an optional third argument which will be printed in the current font before the first argument. There is a macro CW like B that changes to a constant-width font.

The following strings can be redefined to adapt the groff ms macros to languages other than English:

REFERENCES

References

ABSTRACT

ABSTRACT

TOC

Table of Contents

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January

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February

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March

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April

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December

The font family is reset from the string FAM; at initialization if this string is undefined it is set to the current font family. The point size, vertical spacing, and inter-paragraph spacing for footnotes are taken from the number registers FPS, FVS, and FPD; at initialization these are set to \n(PS-2, \n[FPS]+2, and \n(PD/2 respectively; however, if any of these registers has been defined before initialization, it will not be set. The hyphenation flags (as set by the .hy request) are set from the HY register; if this has not been defined at initialization, it will be set to 14.

Right-aligned displays are available with .DS R and .RD.

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. 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, and 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:

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names containing *;

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names containing @;

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names containing :;

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names containing only uppercase letters and digits.

/usr/lib/groff/tmac/tmac.s

groff(1), troff(1), tbl(1), pic(1), eqn(1)
ms(7)