Macro reference preliminaries

A tagged paragraph describes each macro. We present coupled pairs together, as with EX and EE. If you require an empty macro argument, specify it as a pair of neutral double quotes (""). Most macro arguments are formatted as text in the output; exceptions are noted.

Document structure macros

Document structure macros organize a man page's content. All of them break the output line. TH (title heading) identifies the document as a man page and configures the page headers and footers. Section headings (SH), one of which is mandatory and many of which are conventionally expected, facilitate location of material by the reader and aid the man page writer to discuss all essential aspects of the topics presented. Subsection headings (SS) are optional and permit sections that grow long to develop in a controlled way. Many technical discussions benefit from examples; lengthy ones, especially those reflecting multiple lines of input to or output from the system, are usefully bracketed by EX and EE. When none of the foregoing meets a structural demand, use RS/RE to inset a region within a (sub)section.

.TH identifier section [footer-middle [footer-inside [header-middle]]]

Break the page, reset the page number to 1 (unless the -rC1 option is given), and use the arguments to populate the page header and footer. Together, identifier and the section of the manual to which it belongs can uniquely identify a man document on the system. See man(1) or intro(1) for the manual sectioning applicable to your system. identifier and section are positioned at the left and right in the header; the latter is set after the former, in parentheses and without space. footer-middle is centered in the footer. By default, footer-inside is positioned at the bottom left. Use of the double-sided layout option -rD1 places footer-inside at the bottom left on recto (odd-numbered) pages, and the bottom right on verso (even-numbered) pages. By default, the outside footer is the page number. Use of the continuous-rendering option -rcR=1 replaces it with identifier and section, as in the header. header-middle is centered in the header. If section is an integer between 1 and 9 (inclusive), there is no need to specify header-middle; an.tmac supplies text for it. If identifier or footer-inside would overrun the space available in the header and/or footer, this package may abbreviate them with ellipses. groff man suppresses headers and footers in HTML output.

A valid man document calls TH only once, early in the file, prior to any other macro calls.

.SH [heading-text]

Set heading-text as a section heading. Given no argument, SH plants a one-line input trap; text on the next line becomes heading-text. The heading text is set in bold (or the font specified by the string HF), and, on typesetters, slightly larger than the base type size. If the heading font \*[HF] is bold, use of an italic style in heading-text is mapped to the bold-italic style if available in the font family. The inset level is reset to 1; see subsection “Horizontal and vertical spacing” below. Text lines after the call are set as an ordinary paragraph (P).

The content of heading-text and ordering of sections follows a set of common practices, as does much of the layout of material within sections. For example, a section called “Name” or “NAME” must exist, must be the first section after the TH call, and must contain only text of the form

.SS [subheading-text]

Set subheading-text as a subsection heading indented between a section heading and an ordinary paragraph (P). Given no argument, SS plants a one-line input trap; text on the next line becomes subheading-text. The subheading text is set in bold (or the font specified by the string HF). If the heading font \*[HF] is bold, use of an italic style in subheading-text is mapped to the bold-italic style if available in the font family. The inset level is reset to 1; see subsection “Horizontal and vertical spacing” below. Text lines after the call are set as an ordinary paragraph (P).

.EX

.EE

Begin and end example. After EX, filling is disabled (and, on typesetters, a monospaced font family is selected). Calling EE enables filling (and restores the previous family).

Ninth Edition Unix introduced the EX and EE extensions. Documenter's Workbench (DWB), Heirloom Doctools, and Plan 9 troffs, and mandoc (since 1.12.2) support them. Solaris troff does not.

.RS [inset-amount]

Start new relative inset. man saves any current inset amount and moves right by: inset-amount, if specified; the indentation amount of the preceding IP, TP, or HP macro call if no (sub-)sectioning or ordinary paragraphing macro has intervened; or the amount of the IN register. RS calls can nest; each increments by 1 the level used by RE. The level prior to any RS call is 1.

.RE [inset-level]

End a relative inset, reducing it to that of inset-level (or by 1 if not specified) and restoring the corresponding inset amount.

Paragraphing macros

These macros break the output line. An ordinary paragraph (P) indents all output lines by the same amount. A hanging paragraph (HP) is a cosmetic variant of P with a hanging indent. Definition lists frequently occur in man pages; these can be set as tagged paragraphs, which have one (TP) or more (TQ) leading tags followed by a paragraph that has an additional indentation. The indented paragraph (IP) macro can continue the indented content of a narrative started with TP, or present an itemized or ordered list. If a paragraphing macro has been called since SH or SS, all except TQ follow the break with vertical space (in an amount configured by the deprecated PD macro); see subsection “Horizontal and vertical spacing” below. Except for TQ, these macros reset the type size, hyphenation, and adjustment to (configured) defaults, and the font style to roman.

.P

.LP

.PP

Begin a new paragraph; these macros are synonymous. Any indentation from use of IP, TP, or HP is cleared. The inset amount, as affected by RS and RE, is not.

.HP [indentation]

Set a paragraph with a hanging indentation. Text on output lines after the first is indented by indentation, if specified, and by the amount of the IN register otherwise.

Caution: A hanging indentation cannot be expressed naturally in (pure) HTML, a hanging paragraph is not distinguishable from an ordinary one if it formats on only one output line, and non-roff-based man page interpreters may treat HP as an ordinary paragraph anyway. Thus, information or distinctions you mean to express with indentation may be lost.

.TP [indentation]

Set an indented paragraph with a leading unindented tag. The macro plants a one-line input trap that honors the \c escape sequence; text on the next line becomes the tag, set without indentation. Text on subsequent lines is indented by indentation, if specified, and by the amount of the IN register otherwise. If the tag, plus the “tag spacing” stored in the TS register (see section “Options” below) is wider than the indentation, the package breaks the line after the tag.

.TQ

Set an additional tag for a paragraph tagged with TP, planting a one-line input trap as with TP.

TQ is a GNU extension supported by Heirloom Doctools troff (since Git snapshot 151218) and mandoc (since 1.14.5) but not by DWB, Plan 9, or Solaris troffs.

.IP [mark [indentation]]

Set an indented paragraph with an optional mark. Arguments, if present, are handled as with TP, except that the mark argument to IP cannot include a macro call, and the tag separation amount stored in the TS register is not enforced.

Synopsis macros

Use SY and YS to summarize syntax using familiar Unix conventions. Heirloom Doctools troff (since Git snapshot 151218) and mandoc (since 1.14.5) support these GNU extensions; DWB, Plan 9, and Solaris troffs do not.

.SY keyword [suffix]

Begin synopsis. Adjustment and automatic hyphenation are disabled. If SY has already been called without a corresponding YS, a break is performed. keyword and any suffix are set in bold. When suffix is present, the package sets the next word after it without intervening space. If a break is required in subsequent text (up to a paragraphing, sectioning, or YS macro call), lines after the first are indented. Unless the previous synopsis's indentation is reused (see YS below), output lines after the first indent by the width of the pending output line up to the end of keyword plus a space, if keyword is the only argument, and up to the end of suffix otherwise.

.YS [reuse-indentation]

End synopsis, breaking the line and restoring indentation, adjustment, and hyphenation to their previous states. If an argument is given, the indentation corresponding to the previous SY call is reused by the next SY call instead of being computed.

Hyperlink macros

Man page cross references are best presented with MR. Mark email addresses with MT/ME and other sorts of URI with UR/UE. To hyperlink text, terminals and pager programs must support ECMA-48 OSC 8 escape sequences (see grotty(1)). When device support is unavailable or disabled with the U register (see section “Options” below), groff man renders these URIs between angle brackets (⟨ ⟩) after the linked text.

MT, ME, UR, and UE are GNU extensions supported by Heirloom Doctools troff (since Git snapshot 151218) and mandoc (UR/UE since 1.12.3; MT/ME since 1.14.2) but not by DWB, Plan 9 (original), or Solaris troffs. Plan 9 from User Space's troff implements MR.

Prepare arguments to MR, MT, and UR for typesetting; they can appear in the output. Use special character escape sequences to encode Unicode basic Latin characters where necessary, particularly the hyphen-minus.

.MR topic [manual-section [trailing-text]]

(since groff 1.23) Set a man page cross reference as “topic(manual-section)”. If manual-section is absent, the package omits the surrounding parentheses. If trailing-text (typically punctuation) is specified, it follows the closing parenthesis without intervening space. Hyphenation is disabled while the cross reference is set. topic is set in the font specified by the MF string. If manual-section is present, the cross reference hyperlinks to a URI of the form “man:topic(manual-section)”.

.MT address

.ME [trailing-text]

Identify address as an RFC 6068 addr-spec for a “mailto:” URI with the text between the two macro calls as the link text. An argument to ME is placed after the link text without intervening space. address may not be visible in the rendered document if hyperlinks are enabled and supported by the output driver. If they are not, address is set in angle brackets after the link text and before trailing-text. If hyperlinking is enabled but there is no link text, address is formatted and hyperlinked without angle brackets, except when address appears as a TP paragraph tag.

.UR uri

.UE [trailing-text]

Identify uri as an RFC 3986 URI hyperlink with the text between the two macro calls as the link text. An argument to UE is placed after the link text without intervening space. uri may not be visible in the rendered document if hyperlinks are enabled and supported by the output driver. If they are not, uri is set in angle brackets after the link text and before trailing-text. If hyperlinking is enabled but there is no link text, uri is formatted and hyperlinked without angle brackets, except when uri appears as a TP paragraph tag.

If a UR/UE or MT/ME pair occurs in a TP tag and hyperlinking is unavailable, groff man sets the link target at the beginning of the indented paragraph, not as part of the tag, unless there is no link text.

Font style macros

The man macro package is limited in its font styling options, offering only bold (B), italic (I), and roman. Italic text may instead render underscored on terminals. SM sets text at a smaller type size, which differs visually from regular-sized text only on typesetters. The macros BI, BR, IB, IR, RB, and RI set their odd- and even-numbered arguments as text in the alternating styles their names indicate, with no space separating them.

The default type size and family for typesetters is 10-point Times, except on the X75-12 and X100-12 devices where the type size is 12 points. The default style is roman.

.B [text]

Set text in bold. Given no argument, B plants a one-line input trap; text on the next line, which can be further formatted with a macro, is set in bold.

.I [text]

Set text in an italic or oblique face. Given no argument, I plants a one-line input trap; text on the next line, which can be further formatted with a macro, is set in an italic or oblique face.

.SM [text]

Set text one point smaller than the default type size on typesetters. Given no argument, SM plants a one-line input trap; text on the next line, which can be further formatted with a macro, is set smaller.

Unlike the above font style macros, the font style alternation macros below set no input traps; they must be given arguments to have effect. They apply italic corrections as appropriate.

.BI bold-text italic-text ...

Set each argument in bold and italics, alternately.

.BR bold-text roman-text ...

Set each argument in bold and roman, alternately.

.IB italic-text bold-text ...

Set each argument in italics and bold, alternately.

.IR italic-text roman-text ...

Set each argument in italics and roman, alternately.

.RB roman-text bold-text ...

Set each argument in roman and bold, alternately.

.RI roman-text italic-text ...

Set each argument in roman and italics, alternately.

Horizontal and vertical spacing

The package sets all text inboard of the left edge of the output medium by the amount of the page offset; see register PO in section “Options” below. Headers, footers (both set with TH), and section headings (SH) lie at the page offset. groff man indents subsection headings (SS) by the amount in the SN register.

Ordinary paragraphs not within an RS/RE inset region are inset by the amount stored in the BP register; see section “Options” below. The IN register configures the default indentation amount used by RS (as the inset-amount), IP, TP, and HP; an overriding argument is a number plus an optional scaling unit. If no scaling unit is given, the man package assumes “n”. An indentation specified in a call to IP, TP, or HP persists until (1) another of these macros is called with an indentation argument, or (2) SH, SS, or P or its synonyms is called; these clear the indentation entirely.

Several macros insert vertical space: SH, SS, TP, P (and its synonyms), IP, and HP. They then enable no-space mode; see groff(7). The default inter-section and inter-paragraph spacing is 1v for terminals and 0.4v for typesetters. (The deprecated macro PD can change this vertical spacing, but we discourage its use.) Between EX and EE calls, the inter-paragraph spacing is 1v regardless of output device.

Registers

Registers are described in section “Options” below. They can be set not only on the command line but in the site man.local file as well; see section “Files” below.

Strings

The following strings are defined for use in man pages. None of these is necessary in a contemporary man page; see groff_man_style(7). groff man supports others for configuration of rendering parameters; see section “Options” below.

\*R

interpolates a special character escape sequence for the “registered sign” glyph, \(rg, if available, and “(Reg.)” otherwise.

\*S

interpolates an escape sequence setting the type size to the document default.

\*(lq

\*(rq

interpolate special character escape sequences for left and right double-quotation marks, \(lq and \(rq, respectively.

\*(Tm

interpolates a special character escape sequence for the “trade mark sign” glyph, \(tm, if available, and “(TM)” otherwise.

Hooks

Two macros, both GNU extensions, are called internally by the groff man package to format page headers and footers and can be redefined by the administrator in a site's man.local file (see section “Files” below). The presentation of TH above describes the default headers and footers. Because these macros are hooks for groff man internals, man pages have no reason to call them. Such hook definitions typically consist of “sp” and “tl” requests. PT furthermore has the responsibility of emitting a PDF bookmark after writing the first page header in a document. Consult the existing implementations in an.tmac when drafting replacements.

.BT

Set the page footer text (“bottom trap”).

.PT

Set the page header text (“page trap”).

To remove a page header or footer entirely, define the appropriate macro as empty rather than deleting it.

Deprecated features

Use of the following in man pages for public distribution is discouraged.

.AT [system [release]]

Alter the footer for use with legacy AT&T man pages, overriding any definition of the footer-inside argument to TH. This macro exists only to render man pages from historical systems.

The inside footer is populated per the value of system.

The optional release argument specifies the release number, as in “System V Release 3”.

.DT

Reset tab stops to the default (every 0.5i).

Use of this presentation-oriented macro is deprecated. It translates poorly to HTML, under which exact space control and tabulation are not readily available. Thus, information or distinctions that you use tab stops to express are likely to be lost. If you feel tempted to change the tab stops such that calling this macro later to restore them is desirable, consider composing a table using gtbl(1) instead.

.OP option-name [option-argument]

Indicate an optional command parameter called option-name, which is set in bold. If the option takes an argument, specify option-argument using a noun, abbreviation, or hyphenated noun phrase. If present, option-argument is preceded by a space and set in italics. Square brackets in roman surround both arguments.

Use of this quasi-semantic macro, an extension whose name originated in DWB troff, is deprecated; groff's interface differs. Neither can easily be used to annotate options that take optional arguments or options whose arguments have internal structure (such as a mixture of literal and variable components). One could work around these limitations with font selection escape sequences, but font style alternation macros are preferable; they are more flexible and perform italic corrections on typesetters.

.PD [vertical-space]

Configure the amount of vertical space between paragraphs or (sub)sections. The optional argument vertical-space specifies the amount; the default scaling unit is “v”. Without an argument, inter-paragraph spacing resets to its default value; see subsection “Horizontal and vertical spacing” above.

Use of this presentation-oriented macro is deprecated. It translates poorly to HTML, under which exact control of inter-paragraph spacing is not readily available. Thus, information or distinctions that you use PD to express are likely to be lost.

.SB [text]

Set text in bold and (on typesetters) one point smaller than the default type size. Given no argument, SB plants a one-line input trap; text on the next line, which can be further formatted with a macro, is set smaller and in bold. Use of this macro, an extension originating in SunOS 4.0 troff, is deprecated. SM without an argument, followed immediately by “B text”, produces the same output more portably. The macros' order is interchangeable; put text with the latter.

.UC [version]

Alter the footer for use with legacy BSD man pages, overriding any definition of the footer-inside argument to TH. This macro exists only to render man pages from historical systems.

The inside footer is populated per the value of version.

History

M. Douglas McIlroy designed, implemented, and documented the AT&T man macros for Unix Version 7 (1979) and employed them to edit Volume 1 of its Programmer's Manual, a compilation of all man pages supplied by the system. The package supported the macros listed in this page not described as extensions, except P and the deprecated AT and UC. It documented no registers and defined only R and S strings.

UC appeared in 3BSD (1980). Unix System III (1980) introduced P and exposed the registers IN and LL, which had been internal to Seventh Edition Unix man. PWB/Unix 2.0 (1980) added the Tm string. 4BSD (1980) added lq and rq strings. SunOS 2.0 (1985) recognized C, D, P, and X registers. 4.3BSD (1986) added AT and P. Ninth Edition Unix (1986) introduced EX and EE. SunOS 4.0 (1988) added SB. Unix System V (1988) incorporated the lq and rq strings.

Except for EX/EE, James Clark implemented the foregoing features in early versions of groff. Later, groff 1.20 (2009) resurrected EX/EE and originated SY/YS, TQ, MT/ME, and UR/UE. Plan 9 from User Space's troff introduced MR in 2020, and incorporated the lq and rq strings in 2025.