GROFF_TMAC
Section: File Formats (5)
Updated: 21 August 2002
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NAME
groff_tmac - macro files in the roff typesetting system
DESCRIPTION
The
roff(7)
type-setting system provides a set of macro packages suitable for
special kinds of documents.
Each macro package stores its macros and definitions in a file called
the package's
tmac file.
The name is deduced from
`
TroffMACros'.
The tmac files are normal roff source documents, except that they
usually contain only definitions and setup commands, but no text.
All tmac files are kept in a single or a small number of directories,
the
tmac
directories.
GROFF MACRO PACKAGES
groff
provides all classical macro packages, some more full packages, and
some secondary packages for special purposes.
Man~Pages
- man
-
This is the classical macro package for UNIX manual pages
(man~pages); it is quite handy and easy to use; see
groff_man(7).
- doc
-
- mdoc
-
An alternative macro package for man~pages mainly used in BSD
systems; it provides many new features, but it is not the standard for
man~pages; see
groff_mdoc(7).
Full Packages
The packages in this section provide a complete set of macros for
writing documents of any kind, up to whole books.
They are similar in functionality; it is a matter of taste which one
to use.
- me
-
The classical
me
macro package; see
groff_me(7).
- mm
-
The semi-classical
mm
macro package; see
groff_mm(7).
- mom
-
The new
mom
macro package, only available in groff.
As this is not based on other packages, it can be freely designed.
So it is expected to become quite a nice, modern macro package.
See
groff_mom(7).
- ms
-
The classical
ms
macro package; see
groff_ms(7).
Special Packages
The macro packages in this section are not intended for stand-alone
usage, but can be used to add special functionality to any other
macro package or to plain groff.
- tty-char
-
Overrides the definition of standard troff characters and some groff
characters for tty devices.
The optical appearance is intentionally inferior compared to that of
normal tty formatting to allow processing with critical equipment.
- www
-
Additions of elements known from the html format, as being used in the
internet (World Wide Web) pages; this includes URL links and mail
addresses; see
groff_www(7).
NAMING
In classical roff systems, there was a funny naming scheme for macro
packages, due to a simplistic design in option parsing.
Macro packages were always included by option
when this option was directly followed by its argument without an
intervening space, this looked like a long option preceded by a single
minus [em] a sensation in the computer stone age.
To make this optically working for macro package names, all classical
macro packages choose a name that started with the letter
which was omitted in the naming of the macro file.
For example, the macro package for the man pages was called
man,
while its macro file
tmac.an.
So it could be activated by the argument
an
to option
or
for short.
For similar reasons, macro packages that did not start with an
had a leading
added in the documentation and in talking; for example, the package
corresponding to
tmac.doc
was called
mdoc
in the documentation, although a more suitable name would be
doc.
For, when omitting the space between the option and its argument, the
command line option for activating this package reads
To cope with all situations, actual versions of
groff(1)
are smart about both naming schemes by providing two macro files
for the inflicted macro packages; one with a leading
the other one without it.
So in
groff,
the
man
macro package may be specified as on of the following four methods:
-
ell_cmd groff~-m~man
ell_cmd groff~-man
ell_cmd groff~-mman
ell_cmd groff~-m~an
Recent packages that do not start with
do not use an additional
in the documentation.
For example, the
www
macro package may be specified only as one of the two methods:
-
ell_cmd groff~-m~www
ell_cmd groff~-mwww
Obviously, variants like
-mmwww
would not make much sense.
A second strange feature of classical troff was to name macro files
according to
Rtmac.name.
In modern operating systems, the type of a file is specified as
postfix, the file name extension.
Again, groff copes with this situation by searching both
anything.tmac
and
tmac.anything
if only
anything
is specified.
The easiest way to find out which macro packages are available on a
system is to check the man~page
groff(1),
or the contents of the
tmac
directories.
In
groff,
most macro packages are described in~man pages called
groff_I]name](7),
with a leading
for the classical packages.
INCLUSION
There are several ways to use a macro package in a document.
The classical way is to specify the troff/groff option
at run-time; this makes the contents of the macro package
name
available.
In groff, the file
name.tmac
is searched within the tmac path; if not found,
tmac.name
will be searched for instead.
Alternatively, it is also possible to include a macro file by adding
the request
filename
into the document; the argument must be the full file name of an
existing file, possibly with the directory where it is kept.
In groff, this was improved by the similar request
package,
which added searching in the tmac path, just like option
does.
Note that in order to resolve the
and
requests, the roff preprocessor
soelim(1)
must be called if the files to be included need preprocessing.
This can be done either directly by a pipeline on the command line or
by using the troff/groff option
man
calls soelim automatically.
For example, suppose a macro file is stored as
/usr/share/groff/1.18.1.4/tmac/macros.tmac
and is used in some document called
docu.roff.
At run-time, the formatter call for this is
-
ell_cmd groff~-m~ macrofile~document.roff
To include the macro file directly in the document either
-
-