groff_ms.man revision 79543
1.ig
2Copyright (C) 1989-1995, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3
4Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of
5this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice
6are preserved on all copies.
7
8Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
9manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the
10entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
11permission notice identical to this one.
12
13Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this
14manual into another language, under the above conditions for modified
15versions, except that this permission notice may be included in
16translations approved by the Free Software Foundation instead of in
17the original English.
18..
19.TH GROFF_MS @MAN7EXT@ "@MDATE@" "Groff Version @VERSION@"
20.SH NAME
21groff_ms \- groff ms macros
22.SH SYNOPSIS
23.B groff
24.B \-ms
25[
26.IR options .\|.\|.
27]
28[
29.IR files .\|.\|.
30]
31.br
32.B groff
33.B \-m\ ms
34[
35.IR options .\|.\|.
36]
37[
38.IR files .\|.\|.
39]
40.SH DESCRIPTION
41This manual page describes the GNU version of the ms macros,
42which is part of the groff document formatting system.
43The groff ms macros are intended to be compatible with the
44documented behaviour of the 4.3
45.SM BSD
46Unix ms macros subject to the following limitations:
47.IP \(bu
48the internals of groff ms are not similar to the internals of Unix ms
49and so documents that depend upon implementation details of Unix ms
50may well not work with groff ms;
51.IP \(bu
52there is no support for typewriter-like devices;
53.IP \(bu
54Berkeley localisms, in particular the
55.B TM
56and
57.B CT
58macros, are not implemented;
59.IP \(bu
60groff ms
61does not provide cut marks;
62.IP \(bu
63multiple line spacing is not allowed
64(use a larger vertical spacing instead);
65.IP \(bu
66groff ms does not work in compatibility mode (eg with the
67.B \-C
68option);
69.IP \(bu
70the error-handling policy of groff ms
71is to detect and report errors,
72rather than silently to ignore them.
73.LP
74The groff ms macros make use of many features of GNU troff
75and therefore cannot be used with any other troff.
76.LP
77Bell Labs localisms are not implemented in either the
78.SM BSD
79ms macros or in the groff ms macros.
80.LP
81Some Unix ms documentation says that the
82.B CW
83and
84.B GW
85number registers can be used to control the column width and
86gutter width respectively.
87This is not the case.
88These number registers are not used in groff ms.
89.LP
90Macros that cause a reset set the indent.
91Macros that change the indent do not increment or decrement
92the indent, but rather set it absolutely.
93This can cause problems for documents that define
94additional macros of their own.
95The solution is to use not the
96.B in
97request but instead the
98.B RS
99and
100.B RE
101macros.
102.LP
103The number register
104.B GS
105is set to 1 by the groff ms macros,
106but is not used by the Unix ms macros.
107It is intended that documents that need to determine whether
108they are being formatted with Unix ms or groff ms make use of this
109number register.
110.LP
111Footnotes are implemented so that they can safely be used within
112keeps and displays.
113Automatically numbered footnotes within floating keeps are
114not recommended.
115It is safe to have another
116.B \e**
117between a
118.B \e**
119and the corresponding
120.BR .FS ;
121it is required only that each
122.B .FS
123occur after the corresponding
124.B \e**
125and that the occurrences of
126.B .FS
127are in the same order as the corresponding occurrences of
128.BR \e** .
129.LP
130The strings
131.B \e*{
132and
133.B \e*}
134can be used to begin and end a superscript.
135.LP
136Some Unix V10 ms features are implemented.
137The
138.BR B ,
139.BR I
140and
141.B BI
142macros can have an optional third argument which will be printed
143in the current font before the first argument.
144There is a macro
145.B CW
146like
147.B B
148that changes to a constant-width font.
149.LP
150The following strings can be redefined to adapt the groff ms macros
151to languages other than English:
152.LP
153.nf
154.ta \w'REFERENCES'u+2n
155String	Default Value
156.sp .3v
157REFERENCES	References
158ABSTRACT	ABSTRACT
159TOC	Table of Contents
160MONTH1	January
161MONTH2	February
162MONTH3	March
163MONTH4	April
164MONTH5	May
165MONTH6	June
166MONTH7	July
167MONTH8	August
168MONTH9	September
169MONTH10	October
170MONTH11	November
171MONTH12	December
172.fi
173.LP
174The font family is reset from the string
175.BR FAM ;
176at initialization if this string is undefined it is set to the current
177font family.
178The point size, vertical spacing, and inter-paragraph spacing for footnotes
179are taken from the number registers
180.BR FPS ,
181.BR FVS ,
182and
183.BR FPD ;
184at initialization these are set to
185.BR \en(PS-2 ,
186.BR \en[FPS]+2 ,
187and
188.B \en(PD/2
189respectively; however, if any of these registers has been defined
190before initialization, it will not be set.
191The hyphenation flags (as set by the
192.B .hy
193request) are set from the
194.B HY
195register;
196if this has not been defined at initialization,
197it will be set to 14.
198.LP
199Right-aligned displays are available with
200.B ".DS R"
201and
202.BR .RD .
203.LP
204The following conventions are used for names of macros, strings and
205number registers.
206External names available to documents that use the groff ms
207macros contain only uppercase letters and digits.
208Internally the macros are divided into modules.
209Names used only within one module are of the form
210.IB module * name\fR.
211Names used outside the module in which they are defined are of the form
212.IB module @ name\fR.
213Names associated with a particular environment are of the form
214.IB environment : name;
215these are used only within the
216.B par
217module,
218and
219.I name
220does not have a module prefix.
221Constructed names used to implement arrays are of the form
222.IB array ! index\fR.
223Thus the groff ms macros reserve the following names:
224.IP \(bu
225names containing
226.BR * ;
227.IP \(bu
228names containing
229.BR @ ;
230.IP \(bu
231names containing
232.BR : ;
233.IP \(bu
234names containing only uppercase letters and digits.
235.SH FILES
236.B @MACRODIR@/ms.tmac
237(a wrapper file for
238.BR s.tmac )
239.br
240.B @MACRODIR@/s.tmac
241.SH "SEE ALSO"
242.BR groff (@MAN1EXT@),
243.BR @g@troff (@MAN1EXT@),
244.BR @g@tbl (@MAN1EXT@),
245.BR @g@pic (@MAN1EXT@),
246.BR @g@eqn (@MAN1EXT@)
247.br
248.BR ms (@MAN7EXT@)
249.
250.\" Local Variables:
251.\" mode: nroff
252.\" End:
253