groff_ms(7)

📦
version 1.24.2 · 18 versions
, in alpine 3.24

💖 NAME 💖

okay bestie, welcome to groff_ms(7): groff_ms - GNU roff manuscript macro package for formatting documents. that's the name section, short and iconic. 🎀

🌟 SYNOPSIS 🌟

two ways to summon it, fr fr:

groff -ms [option ...] [file ...]
groff -m ms [option ...] [file ...]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

The GNU implementation of the ms macro package is part of the groff document formatting system. The ms package is suitable for the composition of letters, memoranda, reports, and books.

These groff macros support cover page and table of contents generation, automatically numbered headings, several paragraph styles, a variety of text styling options, footnotes, and multi-column page layouts. ms supports the tbl(1), eqn(1), pic(1), and refer(1) preprocessors for inclusion of tables, mathematical equations, diagrams, and consistently formatted bibliographic citations.

groff ms is mostly compatible with the documented interface and behavior of AT&T Unix Version 7 ms. It recreates most extensions from 4.2BSD (Berkeley) and Research Tenth Edition Unix. history bestie, but make it groff. ✨

📚 DOCUMENT STRUCTURE 📚

The ms macro package expects a certain amount of structure: a well-formed document contains at least one paragraphing or heading macro call. To compose a simple document from scratch, begin it by calling LP or PP. Organize longer documents as follows. 🫶

📄 Document type 📄

Calling the RP macro at the beginning of your document puts the document description (see below) on a cover page. Otherwise, ms places this information on the first page, followed immediately by the body text. Some document types found in other ms implementations are specific to AT&T or Berkeley, and are not supported in groff ms. not supported, bestie — don't come for groff with those. 💅

🎨 Format and layout 🎨

By setting registers and strings, you can configure your document's typeface, margins, spacing, headers and footers, and footnote arrangement. See subsection “Document control settings” below.

🏷️ Document description 🏷️

A document description consists of any of: a title, one or more authors' names and affiliated institutions, an abstract, and a date or other identifier. See subsection “Document description macros” below.

📝 Body text 📝

The main matter of your document follows its description (if any). ms supports highly structured text consisting of paragraphs interspersed with multi-level headings (chapters, sections, subsections, and so forth) and augmented by lists, footnotes, tables, diagrams, and similar material. The preponderance of subsections below covers these matters.

🗂️ Table of contents 🗂️

Macros enable the collection of entries for a table of contents (or index) as the material they discuss appears in the document. A macro call at the end of the document emits the collected entries. This material necessarily follows the rest of the text since GNU troff is a single-pass formatter; it cannot determine the page number of a division of the text until it has been set and output. Since ms output was designed for the production of hard copy, the traditional procedure was to manually relocate the pages containing the table of contents between the cover page and the body text. Today, page resequencing is more often done in the digital domain. An index works similarly, but because it typically needs to be sorted after collection, its preparation requires separate processing. single-pass formatter stays single-pass, no cap. 😭

🎛️ Document control settings 🎛️

The following tables list the document control registers, strings, and special characters. For any parameter whose default is unsatisfactory, define it before calling any ms macro other than RP.

🌸 Margin settings 🌸

  • \n[PO] — Page offset (left margin); effective: next page; default: 1i (0).
  • \n[LL] — Line length; effective: next paragraph; default: 6.5i (65n).
  • \n[LT] — Title line length; effective: next paragraph; default: 6.5i (65n).
  • \n[HM] — Top (header) margin; effective: next page; default: 1i.
  • \n[FM] — Bottom (footer) margin; effective: next page; default: 1i.

👑 Titles (headers, footers) 👑

  • \*[LH] — Left header text; effective: next header; default: empty.
  • \*[CH] — Center header text; effective: next header; default: -\n[%]-.
  • \*[RH] — Right header text; effective: next header; default: empty.
  • \*[LF] — Left footer text; effective: next footer; default: empty.
  • \*[CF] — Center footer text; effective: next footer; default: empty.
  • \*[RF] — Right footer text; effective: next footer; default: empty.

✨ Text settings ✨

  • \n[PS] — Point (type) size; effective: next paragraph; default: 10p.
  • \n[VS] — Vertical spacing (leading); effective: next paragraph; default: 12p.
  • \n[HY] — Hyphenation mode; effective: next paragraph; default: 6.
  • \*[FAM] — Font family; effective: next paragraph; default: T.

🎀 Paragraph settings 🎀

  • \n[PI] — Indentation; effective: next paragraph; default: 5n.
  • \n[PD] — Paragraph distance (spacing); effective: next paragraph; default: 0.3v (1v).
  • \n[QI] — Quotation indentation; effective: next paragraph; default: 5n.
  • \n[PORPHANS] — # of initial lines kept; effective: next paragraph; default: 1.

🦋 Heading settings 🦋

  • \n[PSINCR] — Point (type) size increment; effective: next heading; default: 1p.
  • \n[GROWPS] — Size increase depth limit; effective: next heading; default: 0.
  • \n[HORPHANS] — # of following lines kept; effective: next heading; default: 1.
  • \*[SN-STYLE] — Numbering style (alias); effective: next heading; default: \*[SN-DOT].

\*[SN-STYLE] can alternatively be made an alias of \*[SN-NO-DOT] with the als request. tiny alias glow-up, iykyk. ✨

🫶 Footnote settings 🫶

  • \n[FI] — Indentation; effective: next footnote; default: 2n.
  • \n[FF] — Format; effective: next footnote; default: 0.
  • \n[FPS] — Point (type) size; effective: next footnote; default: \n[PS]-2p.
  • \n[FVS] — Vertical spacing (leading); effective: next footnote; default: \n[FPS]+2p.
  • \n[FPD] — Paragraph distance (spacing); effective: next footnote; default: \n[PD]/2.
  • \*[FR] — Line length ratio; effective: special; default: 11/12.

🌈 Display settings 🌈

  • \n[DD] — Display distance (spacing); effective: special; default: 0.5v (1v).
  • \n[DI] — Display indentation; effective: special; default: 0.5i.

⭐ Other settings ⭐

  • \n[MINGW] — Minimum gutter width; effective: next page; default: 2n.
  • \n[TC-MARGIN] — TOC page number margin width; effective: next PX call; default: \w'000'.
  • \[TC-LEADER] — TOC leader character; effective: next PX call; default: .\h'1m'.

For entries marked “special” in the “Effective” column, peek at the discussion in the matching section below, bestie. The PO, LL, and LT register defaults vary by output device and paper format; the values shown are for typesetters using U.S. letter paper, and then terminals. See section “Paper format” of groff(1). The PD and DD registers use the larger value if the vertical motion quantum of the output device is too coarse for the smaller one; usually, this is the case only for output to terminals. The “gutter” affected by \n[MINGW] is the gap between columns in multiple-column page arrangements. The TC-MARGIN register and TC-LEADER special character affect the formatting of tables of contents assembled by the XS, XA, and XE macros.

🗂️ Document description macros ✨

Okay so you define information describing the document by calling the macros below in the order shown; DA or ND can be called to set the document date (or other identifier) at any time before (a) the abstract, if present, or (b) its information is required in a header or footer. Use of these macros is optional, except that TL is mandatory if any of RP, AU, AI, or AB is called, and AE is mandatory if AB is called.

  • .RP [no-repeat-info] [no-renumber] — Use the “report” (AT&T: “released paper”) format for your document, creating a separate cover page. The default arrangement is to place most of the document description (title, author names and institutions, and abstract, but not the date) at the top of the first page. If the optional no-repeat-info argument is given, ms produces a cover page but does not repeat any of its information subsequently (but see the DA macro below regarding the date). Normally, RP sets the page number following the cover page to 1. Specifying the optional no-renumber argument suppresses this alteration. Optional arguments can occur in any order. ms recognizes no as a synonym of no-repeat-info to maintain AT&T compatibility. Options other than no are GNU extensions.
  • .TL — Specify the document title. ms collects text on input lines following this call into the title until reaching AU, AB, or a heading or paragraphing macro call.
  • .AU — Specify an author's name. ms collects text on input lines following this call into the author's name until reaching AI, AB, another AU, or a heading or paragraphing macro call. Call it repeatedly to specify multiple authors.
  • .AI — Specify the preceding author's institutional affiliation. An AU call is usefully followed by at most one AI call; if there are more, the last AI call controls. ms collects text on input lines following this call into the author's institution until reaching AU, AB, or a heading or paragraphing macro call.
  • .DA [x ...] — Typeset the current date, or any arguments x, in the center footer, and, if RP is also called, left-aligned at the end of the document description on the cover page.
  • .ND [x ...] — Typeset the current date, or any arguments x, if RP is also called, left-aligned at the end of the document description on the cover page. This is groff ms's default.
  • .AB [no] — Begin the abstract. ms collects text on input lines following this call into the abstract until reaching an AE call. By default, ms places the word “ABSTRACT” centered and in italics above the text of the abstract. The optional argument “no” suppresses this heading.
  • .AE — End the abstract.

🎨 Text settings 💖

The FAM string, a GNU extension, sets the font family for body text; the default is “T”. The PS and VS registers set the type size and vertical spacing (distance between text baselines), respectively. The font family and type size are ignored on terminals. Set these parameters before the first call of a heading, paragraphing, or (non-date) document description macro to apply them to headers, footers, and (for FAM) footnotes.

The HY register defines the automatic hyphenation mode used with the hy request. Setting \n[HY] to 0 disables automatic hyphenation. This is a Research Tenth Edition Unix extension.

🔣 Typographical symbols ✨

ms provides a few strings to obtain typographical symbols not easily entered with the keyboard. These and many others are available as special character escape sequences—see groff_char(7).

  • \*[-] — Interpolate an em dash.
  • \*[Q], \*[U] — Interpolate typographer's quotation marks where available, and neutral double quotes otherwise. \*[Q] is the left quote and \*[U] the right.

📝 Paragraphs 💬

Paragraphing macros break, or terminate, any pending output line so that a new paragraph can begin. Several paragraph types are available, differing in how indentation applies to them: to left, right, or both margins; to the first output line of the paragraph, all output lines, or all but the first. These calls insert vertical space in the amount stored in the PD register, except at page or column breaks, or adjacent to displays.

The PORPHANS register defines the minimum number of initial lines of any paragraph that must be kept together to avoid isolated lines at the bottom of a page. If a new paragraph starts close to the bottom of a page, and there is insufficient space to accommodate \n[PORPHANS] lines before an automatic page break, groff ms forces a page break before formatting the paragraph. This is a GNU extension.

  • .LP — Set a paragraph without any (additional) indentation.
  • .PP — Set a paragraph with a first-line left indentation in the amount stored in the PI register.
  • .IP [mark [width]] — Set a paragraph with a left indentation. The optional mark is not indented, is useful in the construction of lists, and is empty by default. width overrides the indentation amount in \n[PI]; its default unit is “n”. Once specified, width applies to further IP calls until specified again or a heading or different paragraphing macro is called.
  • .QP — Set a paragraph indented from both left and right margins by \n[QI].
  • .QS, .QE — Begin (QS) and end (QE) a region where each paragraph is indented from both margins by \n[QI]. The text between QS and QE can be structured further by use of other paragraphing macros.
  • .XP — Set an “exdented” paragraph—one with a left indentation of \n[PI] on every line except the first (also known as a hanging indent). This is a Berkeley extension.

👑 Headings 🔥

Use headings to create a hierarchical structure for your document. The ms macros print headings in bold using the same font family and, by default, type size as the body text. Headings are available with and without automatic numbering. Text on input lines following the macro call becomes the heading's title. Call a paragraphing macro to end the heading text and start the section's content.

  • .NH [depth] — Set an automatically numbered heading. ms produces a numbered heading in the form a.b.c..., to any level desired, with the numbering of each depth increasing automatically and being reset to zero when a more significant depth is increased. “1” is the most significant or coarsest division of the document. Only non-zero values are output. If depth is omitted, ms assumes “1”. If you specify depth such that an ascending gap occurs relative to the previous NH call—that is, you “skip a depth”, as by .NH 1 and then .NH 3, groff ms emits a warning on the standard error stream.
  • .NH S heading-depth-index ... — Alternatively, you can give NH a first argument of “S”, followed by integers to number the heading depths explicitly. Further automatic numbering, if used, resumes using the specified indices as their predecessors. This feature is a Berkeley extension.

After NH is called, the assigned number is made available in the strings SN-DOT (as it appears in a printed heading with default formatting, followed by a terminating period) and SN-NO-DOT (with the terminating period omitted). These, and SN-STYLE, are GNU extensions.

You can control the style used to print numbered headings by defining an appropriate alias for the string SN-STYLE. By default, \*[SN-STYLE] is aliased to \*[SN-DOT]. If you prefer to omit the terminating period from numbers appearing in numbered headings, you may alias it to \*[SN-NO-DOT]. Any such change in numbering style becomes effective from the next use of NH following redefinition of the alias for \*[SN-STYLE]. The formatted number of the current heading is available in \*[SN] (a feature first documented by Berkeley); this string facilitates its inclusion in, for example, table captions, equation labels, and XS/XA/XE table of contents entries.

  • .SH [depth] — Set an unnumbered heading. The optional depth argument is a GNU extension indicating the heading depth corresponding to the depth argument of NH. It matches the type size at which the heading is set to that of a numbered heading at the same depth when the \n[GROWPS] and \n[PSINCR] heading size adjustment mechanism is in effect.

The PSINCR register defines an increment in type size to be applied to a heading at a lesser depth than that specified in \n[GROWPS]. The value of \n[PSINCR] should be specified in points with the “p” scaling unit and may include a fractional component.

The GROWPS register defines the heading depth above which the type size increment set by \n[PSINCR] becomes effective. For each heading depth less than the value of \n[GROWPS], the type size is increased by \n[PSINCR]. Setting \n[GROWPS] to a value less than 2 disables the incremental heading size feature.

In other words, if the value of GROWPS register is greater than the depth argument to an NH or SH call, the type size of a heading produced by these macros increases by \n[PSINCR] units over \n[PS] multiplied by the difference of \n[GROWPS] and depth. GROWPS and PSINCR are GNU extensions.

okay so, real talk: in groff ms, the NH and SH macros consult the HORPHANS register to prevent the output of isolated headings at the bottom of a page 👑 it specifies the minimum number of lines of the subsequent paragraph that 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, groff ms forces a page break before setting the heading. Any display macro call or tbl, pic, or eqn region between the heading and the subsequent paragraph suppresses this grouping. This is a GNU extension, iykyk ✨

✨ Typeface and decoration ✨

The ms macros provide a variety of ways to style text. Bestie, attend closely to the ordering of arguments labeled pre and post, which is not intuitive 😭 Support for pre arguments is a GNU extension.

  • .B [text [post [pre]]] — Style text in bold, followed by post in the previous font style without intervening space, and preceded by pre similarly. Without arguments, ms styles subsequent text in bold until the next paragraphing, heading, or no-argument typeface macro call.
  • .R [text [post [pre]]] — As B, but use the roman style (upright text of normal weight) instead of bold. Argument recognition is a GNU extension.
  • .I [text [post [pre]]] — As B, but use an italic or oblique style instead of bold.
  • .BI [text [post [pre]]] — As B, but use a bold italic or bold oblique style instead of upright bold. This is a Research Tenth Edition Unix extension.
  • .CW [text [post [pre]]] — As B, but use a constant-width (monospaced) roman typeface instead of bold. This is a Research Tenth Edition Unix extension.
  • .BX [text] — Typeset text and draw a box around it. On terminals, reverse video is used instead. If you want text to contain space, use unbreakable space or horizontal motion escape sequences (\~, \space, \^, \|, \0, or \h).
  • .UL [text [post]] — Typeset text with an underline. On terminals, text is bracketed with underscores (“_”). post, if present, is set after text with no intervening space.
  • .LG — Set subsequent text in larger type (2 points larger than the current size) until the next type size, paragraphing, or heading macro call. Call the macro multiple times to enlarge the type size further.
  • .SM — Set subsequent text in smaller type (2 points smaller than the current size) until the next type size, paragraphing, or heading macro call. Call the macro multiple times to reduce the type size further.
  • .NL — Set subsequent text at the normal type size (\n[PS]).

When pre is used, a hyphenation control escape sequence \% that would ordinarily start text must start pre instead 🫶

groff ms also offers strings to begin and end super- and subscripting. These are GNU extensions.

  • \*{, \*} — Begin and end superscripting, respectively.
  • \*<, \*> — Begin and end subscripting, respectively.

🌸 Indented regions 🌸

You can indent a region of text while otherwise formatting it normally. Such indented regions can be nested 🧚

  • .RS — Begin a region where headings, paragraphs, and displays are indented (further) by \n[PI].
  • .RE — End the (next) most recent indented region.

💖 Keeps, boxed keeps, and displays 💖

On occasion, you may want to keep several lines of text, or a region of a document, together on a single page, preventing an automatic page break within certain boundaries. This can cause a page break to occur earlier than it normally would 👀

You can alternatively specify a floating keep: if a keep cannot fit on the current page, ms holds it, allowing text following the keep (in the source document) to fill in the remainder of the current page. When the page breaks by reaching its bottom or by bp request, ms puts the floating keep at the beginning of the next page.

  • .KS — Begin a keep.
  • .KF — Begin a floating keep.
  • .KE — End (floating) keep.

As an alternative to the keep mechanism, the ne request forces a page break if there is not at least the amount of vertical space specified in its argument remaining on the page.

A boxed keep has a frame drawn around it.

  • .B1 — Begin a keep with a box drawn around it.
  • .B2 — End boxed keep.

Boxed keep macros cause breaks; to box words within a line, recall BX in section “Highlighting” above. ms draws box lines close to the text they enclose so that they are usable within paragraphs. When boxing entire paragraphs thus, you may improve their appearance by calling B1 after the first paragraphing macro, and invoking the sp request before calling B2 💅

If you want a boxed keep to float, enclose the B1 and B2 calls within a pair of KF and KE calls.

Displays turn off filling; lines of verse or program code are shown with their lines broken as in the source document without requiring br requests between lines. Displays can be kept on a single page or allowed to break across pages. The DS macro begins a kept display of the layout specified in its first argument; non-kept displays are begun with dedicated macros corresponding to their layout.

  • .DS L, .LD — Begin (DS: kept) left-aligned display.
  • .DS [I [indent]], .ID [indent] — Begin (DS: kept) display indented by indent if specified, \n[DI] otherwise.
  • .DS B, .BD — Begin (DS: kept) block display: the entire display is left-aligned, but indented such that the longest line in the display is centered on the page.
  • .DS C, .CD — Begin (DS: kept) centered display: each line in the display is centered.
  • .DS R, .RD — Begin (DS: kept) right-aligned display. This is a GNU extension.
  • .DE — End any display.

groff ms inserts the distance stored in \n[DD] before and after each pair of display macros; this is a Berkeley extension. This distance replaces any adjacent inter-paragraph distance or subsequent spacing prior to a section heading. The DI register is a GNU extension; its value is an indentation applied to displays created with DS and ID without arguments, to .DS I without an indentation argument, and to equations set with .EQ I. Changes to either register take effect at the next display boundary ⭐

🦋 Tables, figures, equations, and references 🦋

ms often sees use with the tbl, pic, eqn, and refer preprocessors. groff ms applies the \n[DD] distance to regions of the document preprocessed with eqn, pic, and tbl. Mark text meant for preprocessors by enclosing it in pairs of tokens as follows, with nothing between the dot and the macro name. Preprocessors match these tokens only at the start of an input line. The formatter interprets them as macro calls.

  • .TS [H], .TE — Demarcate a table to be processed by the tbl preprocessor. The optional H argument instructs ms to repeat table rows (often column headings) at the top of each new page the table spans, if applicable; calling the TH macro marks the end of such rows. tbl(1) provides a comprehensive reference to the preprocessor and offers examples of its use.
  • .PS h v, .PE, .PF — PS marks the start of a pic(1) preprocessor diagram; either of PE or PF ends it, the latter with “flyback” to the vertical position at its top. h and v are the horizontal and vertical dimensions of the picture; pic supplies them automatically.
  • .EQ [align [label]], .EN — Demarcate mathematics to be processed by the eqn preprocessor. ms centers the equation by default; align can be C, L, or I to (explicitly) center, left-align, or indent it by \n[DI], respectively. ms right-aligns any label. See eqn(1).
  • .[, .] — Demarcate a bibliographic citation to be processed by the refer preprocessor. refer(1) provides a comprehensive reference to the preprocessor and the format of its bibliographic database.

When refer emits collected references (as might be done on a “Works Cited” page), it interpolates the string \*[REFERENCES] as an unnumbered heading (.SH).

⚠️ Attempting to place a multi-page table inside a keep can lead to unpleasant results, particularly if the tbl “allbox” option is used. Not cute, bestie 💀

🎀 Footnotes 🎀

A footnote is typically anchored to a place in the text with a mark, which is a small integer, a symbol, or arbitrary user-specified text.

  • \** — Place an automatic number, an automatically generated numeric footnote mark, in the text. Each time this string is interpolated, the number it produces increments by one. Automatic numbers start at 1. This is a Berkeley extension.

Enclose the footnote text in FS and FE macro calls to set it at the nearest available “foot”, or bottom, of a text column or page.

  • .FS [mark] — Begin a footnote. The FS-MARK hook (see below) is called with any supplied mark argument, which is then also placed at the beginning of the footnote text. If mark is omitted, the next pending automatic number enqueued by interpolation of the * string is used, and if none exists, nothing is prefixed.
  • .FE — End footnote text.

groff ms provides a hook macro, FS-MARK, for user-determined operations to be performed when the FS macro is called. It is passed the same arguments as FS itself. By default, this macro has an empty definition. FS-MARK is a GNU extension 🌈

Footnote text is formatted as paragraphs are, using analogous parameters. The registers FI, FPD, FPS, and FVS correspond to PI, PD, PS, and VS, respectively; FPD, FPS, and FVS are GNU extensions.

The FF register controls the formatting of automatically numbered footnote paragraphs, and those for which FS is given a mark argument, at the bottom of a column or page as follows.

  • 0 — Set an automatic number, or a specified FS mark argument, as a superscript (on typesetters) or surrounded by square brackets (on terminals). The footnote paragraph is indented as with PP if there is an FS argument or an automatic number, and as with LP otherwise. This is the default.
  • 1 — As 0, but set mark as regular text, and follow an automatic number with a period.
  • 2 — As 1, but without indentation (like LP).
  • 3 — As 1, but set the footnote paragraph with mark hanging (like IP).

🌍 Language and localization

okay so groff ms provides several strings that you can customize for your own purposes, or redefine to adapt the macro package to languages other than English. It is already localized for Czech, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Polish, Russian, and Swedish. Load the desired localization macro package after ms; see groff_tmac(5).

Here’s the string lineup, bestie — defaults included, no cap:

  • \*[REFERENCES] — References
  • \*[ABSTRACT] — \f[I]ABSTRACT\f[]
  • \*[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 default for \*[ABSTRACT] includes font selection escape sequences to set the word in italics. cute, right? 💅

🎀 Headers and footers

There are multiple ways to produce headers and footers. One is to define the strings LH, CH, and RH to set the left, center, and right headers, respectively; and LF, CF, and RF to set the left, center, and right footers. This approach suffices for documents that do not distinguish odd- and even-numbered pages.

Another method is to call macros that set headers or footers for odd- or even-numbered pages. Each such macro takes a delimited argument separating the left, center, and right header or footer texts from each other. You can replace the neutral apostrophes (') shown below with any character not appearing in the header or footer text. These macros are Berkeley extensions.

.OH 'left'center'right'
.OF 'left'center'right'
.EH 'left'center'right'
.EF 'left'center'right'
  • .OH and .EH — define headers for odd- (recto) and even-numbered (verso) pages, respectively.
  • .OF and .EF — define footers for them.

With either method, a percent sign % in header or footer text is replaced by the current page number. By default, ms places no header on a page numbered “1” (regardless of its number format).

  • .P1 — typeset the header even on page 1. To be effective, this macro must be called before the header trap is sprung on any page numbered “1”. This is a Berkeley extension.

For even greater flexibility, ms is designed to permit the redefinition of the macros that are called when formatter traps that ordinarily cause the headers and footers to be output are sprung. PT (“page trap”) is called by ms when the header is to be written, and BT (“bottom trap”) when the footer is to be. The groff page location trap that ms sets up to format the header also calls the (normally undefined) HD macro after PT; you can define HD if you need additional processing after setting the header. The HD hook is a Berkeley extension. Any such macros you (re)define must implement any desired specialization for odd-, even-, or first numbered pages.

🌸 Tab stops

Use the ta request to set tab stops as needed.

  • .TA — reset the tab stops to the ms default (every 5 ens). Redefine this macro to create a different set of default tab stops.

🦋 Margins

Control margins using the registers summarized in the “Margins” portion of the table in section “Document control settings” above. There is no setting for the right margin; the combination of page offset \n[PO] and line length \n[LL] determines it.

🌈 Multiple columns

ms can set text in as many columns as reasonably fit on the page. The following macros force a page break if a multi-column layout is active when they are called. \n[MINGW] is the default minimum gutter width; it is a GNU extension. When multiple columns are in use, keeps and the HORPHANS and PORPHANS registers work with respect to column breaks instead of page breaks.

  • .1C — arrange page text in a single column (the default).
  • .2C — arrange page text in two columns.
  • .MC [column-width [gutter-width]] — arrange page text in multiple columns. If you specify no arguments, it is equivalent to the 2C macro. Otherwise, column-width is the width of each column and gutter-width is the minimum distance between columns.

🎀 Creating a table of contents

Define an entry to appear in the table of contents by bracketing its text between calls to the XS and XE macros. A typical application is to call them immediately after NH or SH and repeat the heading text within them. The XA macro, used within XS/XE pairs, supplements an entry—for instance, when it requires multiple output lines, whether because a heading is too long to fit or because style dictates that page numbers not be repeated. You may wish to indent the text thus wrapped to correspond to its heading depth; this can be done in the entry text by prefixing it with tabs or horizontal motion escape sequences, or by providing a second argument to the XA macro. XS and XA automatically associate the page number where they are called with the text following them, but they accept arguments to override this behavior. At the end of the document, call TC or PX to emit the table of contents; TC resets the page number to i (Roman numeral one), and then calls PX. All of these macros are Berkeley extensions.

  • .XS [page-number], .XA [page-number [indentation]], .XE — begin, supplement, and end a table of contents entry. Each entry is associated with page-number (otherwise the current page number); a page-number of no prevents a leader and page number from being emitted for that entry. Use of XA within XS/XE is optional; it can be repeated. If indentation is present, a supplemental entry is indented by that amount; ens are assumed if no unit is indicated. Text on input lines between XS and XE is stored for later recall by PX.
  • .PX [no] — switch to single-column layout. Unless no is specified, center and interpolate \*[TOC] in bold and two points larger than the body text. Emit the table of contents entries.
  • .TC [no] — set the page number to 1, the page number format to lowercase Roman numerals, and call PX (with a no argument, if present).

The remaining features in this subsection are GNU extensions. groff ms obviates the need to repeat heading text after XS calls. Call XN and XH after NH and SH, respectively. Text to be appended to the formatted section heading, but not to appear in the table of contents entry, can follow these calls.

  • .XN heading-text — format heading-text and create a corresponding table of contents entry; the indentation is computed from the depth argument of the preceding NH call.
  • .XH depth heading-text — as XN, but use depth to determine the indentation.

groff ms encourages customization of table of contents entry production. (Re-)define any of the following macros as desired.

  • .XN-REPLACEMENT heading-text, .XH-REPLACEMENT depth heading-text — these hook macros implement XN and XH, and call XN-INIT and XH-INIT, respectively, then call XH-UPDATE-TOC with the arguments given them.
  • .XH-INIT, .XN-INIT — these hook macros do nothing by default.
  • .XH-UPDATE-TOC depth heading-text — bracket heading-text with XS and XE calls, indenting it by 2 ens per level of depth beyond the first.

You can customize the style of the leader that bridges each table of contents entry with its page number; define the TC-LEADER special character by using the char request. A typical leader combines the dot glyph “.” with a horizontal motion escape sequence to spread the dots. The width of the page number field is stored in the TC-MARGIN register.

💅 Differences from AT&T ms 💅

The groff ms macros are an independent reimplementation, using no AT&T code. Since they take advantage of the extended features of groff, they cannot be used with AT&T troff. groff ms supports features described above as Berkeley and Research Tenth Edition Unix extensions, and adds several of its own.

  • The internals of groff ms differ from those of AT&T ms. Documents that depend upon implementation details of AT&T ms may not format properly with groff ms. Such details include macros whose function was not documented in the AT&T ms manual (“Typing Documents on the UNIX System: Using the -ms Macros with Troff and Nroff”, M. E. Lesk, Bell Laboratories, 1978).
  • The error-handling policy of groff ms is to detect and report errors, rather than to ignore them silently.
  • Research Tenth Edition Unix supported P1/P2 macros to bracket code examples; groff ms does not.
  • groff ms does not work in GNU troff's AT&T compatibility mode. If loaded when that mode is enabled, it aborts processing with a diagnostic message.
  • Multiple line spacing is not supported. Use a larger vertical spacing instead.
  • groff ms uses the same header and footer defaults in both nroff and troff modes as AT&T ms does in troff mode; AT&T's default in nroff mode is to put the date, in U.S. traditional format (e.g., “January 1, 2021”), in the center footer (the CF string).
  • Many groff ms macros, including those for paragraphs, headings, and displays, cause a reset of paragraph rendering parameters, and may change the indentation; they do so not by incrementing or decrementing it, but by setting it absolutely. This can cause problems for documents that define additional macros of their own that manipulate indentation. Use RS and RE instead of the in request.
  • AT&T ms interpreted the values of the registers PS and VS in points, and did not support the use of scaling units with them. groff ms interprets values of the registers PS, VS, FPS, and FVS, equal to or larger than 1,000 (one thousand) as decimal fractions multiplied by 1,000. (Register values are converted to and stored as basic units. See “Measurements” in the groff Texinfo manual or in groff(7)). This threshold makes use of a scaling unit with these parameters practical for high-resolution devices while preserving backward compatibility. It also permits expression of non-integral type sizes. For example, groff -rPS=10.5p at the shell prompt is equivalent to placing .nr PS 10.5p at the beginning of the document.
  • AT&T ms's AU macro supported arguments whose values were used with some non-RP document types; that of groff ms does not.
  • Right-aligned displays are available. The AT&T ms manual observes that “it is tempting to assume that .DS R will right adjust lines, but it doesn't work”. In groff ms, it does.
  • To make groff ms use the default page offset (which also specifies the left margin), the PO register must stay undefined until the first ms macro is called. This implies that \n[PO] should not be used early in the document, unless it is changed also: accessing an undefined register automatically defines it.
  • groff ms supports the PN register, but it is not necessary; you can access the page number via the usual % register and invoke the af request to assign a different format to it if desired. (If you redefine the ms PT macro and desire special treatment of certain page numbers—like “1”—you may need to handle a non-Arabic page number format, as groff ms's PT does; see the macro package source. groff ms aliases the PN register to %.)
  • The AT&T ms manual documents registers CW and GW as setting the default column width and “intercolumn gap”, respectively, and which applied when MC was called with fewer than two arguments. groff ms instead treats MC without arguments as synonymous with 2C; there is thus no occasion for a default column width register. Further, the MINGW register and the second argument to MC specify a minimum space between columns, not the fixed gutter width of AT&T ms.
  • The AT&T ms manual did not document the QI register; Berkeley and groff ms do.
  • groff ms sets the register GS to 1; the AT&T ms package does not use it. A document can test its value to determine whether it is being formatted with groff ms or another implementation.

💀 Unix Version 7 macros unimplemented by groff ms 💀

Several macros described in the Unix Version 7 ms documentation are unimplemented by groff ms because they are specific to the requirements of documents produced internally by Bell Laboratories, some of which also require a glyph for the Bell System logo that groff does not support. These macros implemented several document type formats (EG, IM, MF, MR, TM, TR), were meaningful only in conjunction with the use of certain document types (AT, CS, CT, OK, SG), stored the postal addresses of Bell Labs sites (HO, IH, MH, PY, WH), or lacked a stable definition over time (UX).

🎀 Legacy features 🎀

groff ms retains some legacy features solely to support formatting of historical documents; contemporary ones should not use them because they can render poorly. See groff_char(7) instead.

💋 AT&T ms accent mark strings 💋

AT&T ms defined accent mark strings as follows.

  • \*['] — Apply acute accent to subsequent glyph.
  • \*[`] — Apply grave accent to subsequent glyph.
  • \*[:] — Apply dieresis (umlaut) to subsequent glyph.
  • \*[^] — Apply circumflex accent to subsequent glyph.
  • \*[~] — Apply tilde accent to subsequent glyph.
  • \*[C] — Apply caron to subsequent glyph.
  • \*[,] — Apply cedilla to subsequent glyph.

🦋 Berkeley ms accent mark and glyph strings 🦋

Berkeley ms offered an AM macro; calling it redefined the AT&T accent mark strings (except for \*C), applied them to the preceding glyph, and defined additional strings, some for spacing glyphs.

  • .AM — Enable alternative accent mark and glyph-producing strings.
  • \*['] — Apply acute accent to preceding glyph.
  • \*[`] — Apply grave accent to preceding glyph.
  • \*[:] — Apply dieresis (umlaut) to preceding glyph.
  • \*[^] — Apply circumflex accent to preceding glyph.
  • \*[~] — Apply tilde accent to preceding glyph.
  • \*[,] — Apply cedilla to preceding glyph.
  • \*[/] — Apply stroke (slash) to preceding glyph.
  • \*[v] — Apply caron to preceding glyph.
  • \*[_] — Apply macron to preceding glyph.
  • \*[.] — Apply underdot to preceding glyph.
  • \*[o] — Apply ring accent to preceding glyph.
  • \*[?] — Interpolate inverted question mark.
  • \*[!] — Interpolate inverted exclamation mark.
  • \*[8] — Interpolate small letter sharp s.
  • \*[q] — Interpolate small letter o with hook accent (ogonek).
  • \*[3] — Interpolate small letter yogh.
  • \*[d-] — Interpolate small letter eth.
  • \*[D-] — Interpolate capital letter eth.
  • \*[th] — Interpolate small letter thorn.
  • \*[TH] — Interpolate capital letter thorn.
  • \*[ae] — Interpolate small ae ligature.
  • \*[AE] — Interpolate capital ae ligature.
  • \*[oe] — Interpolate small oe ligature.
  • \*[OE] — Interpolate capital oe ligature.

🧚 Naming conventions 🧚

External names available to documents that use the groff ms macros contain only uppercase letters and digits. The package reserves for internal use the following identifiers:

  • those containing the characters *, @, and :; and
  • those containing only uppercase letters and digits.

When selecting a name for your document's own macros, strings, and registers, avoid those reserved by groff ms and those defined by GNU troff. See groff(7) for complete lists thereof.

groff ms organizes most of its internal names into modules. The naming convention is 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.
  • Names constructed to implement arrays are of the form array!index.

📁 Files 📁

  • /usr/share/groff/1.24.2/tmac/s.tmac — implements the package.
  • /usr/share/groff/1.24.2/tmac/refer-ms.tmac — implements refer(1) support for ms.
  • /usr/share/groff/1.24.2/tmac/ms.tmac — is a wrapper enabling the package to be loaded with the option -m ms.

👑 Authors 👑

The GNU version of the ms macro package was written by James Clark and contributors. This document was written by Clark, Larry Kollar, and G. Branden Robinson.

🌈 See also 🌈

A manual is available in source and rendered form. On your system, it may be compressed and/or available in additional formats.

  • /usr/share/doc/groff-1.24.2/ms.ms
  • /usr/share/doc/groff-1.24.2/ms.ps — “Using groff with the ms Macro Package”; Larry Kollar and G. Branden Robinson.
  • /usr/share/doc/groff-1.24.2/msboxes.ms
  • /usr/share/doc/groff-1.24.2/msboxes.pdf — “Using PDF boxes with groff and the ms macros”; Deri James. BOXSTART and BOXSTOP macros are available via the sboxes extension package, enabling colored, bordered boxes when the pdf output device is used.

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”.

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