This section describes the available macros for manual pages. For further customization, put additional macros and requests into the file
man.local which will be loaded immediately after the
man package.
.TH title section [extra1] [extra2] [extra3]
Set the title of the n page to title and the section to section, which must take on a value between 1 and 8. The value section may also have a string appended, e.g. `.pm', to indicate a specific subsection of the man pages. Both title and section are positioned at the left and right in the header line (with section in parentheses immediately appended to title. extra1 will be positioned in the middle of the footer line. extra2 will be positioned at the left in the footer line (or at the left on even pages and at the right on odd pages if double-sided printing is active). extra3 is centered in the header line.
For HTML output, headers and footers are completely supressed.
Additionally, this macro starts a new page; the new line number is 1 again (except if the `-rC1' option is given on the command line) -- this feature is intended only for formatting multiple man pages; a single man page should contain exactly one TH macro at the beginning of the file.
.SH [text for a heading]
Set up an unnumbered section heading sticking out to the left. Prints out all the text following SH up to the end of the line (or the text in the next input line if there is no argument to SH) in bold face (or the font specified by the string HF), one size larger than the base document size. Additionally, the left margin and the indentation for the following text is reset to the default values.
.SS [text for a heading]
Set up a secondary, unnumbered section heading. Prints out all the text following SS up to the end of the line (or the text in the next input line if there is no argument to SS) in bold face (or the font specified by the string HF), at the same size as the base document size. Additionally, the left margin and the indentation for the following text is reset to the default values.
.TP [nnn]
Set up an indented paragraph with label. The indentation is set to nnn if that argument is supplied (the default unit is `n' if omitted), otherwise it is set to the previous indentation value specified with TP, IP, or HP (or to the default value if none of them have been used yet).
The first input line of text following this macro is interpreted as a string to be printed flush-left, as it is appropriate for a label. It is not interpreted as part of a paragraph, so there is no attempt to fill the first line with text from the following input lines. Nevertheless, if the label is not as wide as the indentation the paragraph starts at the same line (but indented), continuing on the following lines. If the label is wider than the indentation the descriptive part of the paragraph begins on the line following the label, entirely indented. Note that neither font shape nor font size of the label is set to a default value; on the other hand, the rest of the text will have default font settings.
The TP macro is the macro used for the explanations you are just reading.
.LP
.PP .P These macros are mutual aliases. Any of them causes a line break at the current position, followed by a vertical space downwards by the amount specified by the PD macro. The font size and shape are reset to the default value (10pt resp. Roman). Finally, the current left margin and the indentation are restored.
.IP [designator] [nnn]
Set up an indented paragraph, using designator as a tag to mark its beginning. The indentation is set to nnn if that argument is supplied (the default unit is `n' if omitted), otherwise it is set to the previous indentation value specified with TP, IP, or HP (or to the default value if none of them have been used yet). Font size and face of the paragraph (but not the designator) are reset to its default values.
To start an indented paragraph with a particular indentation but without a designator, use `""' (two doublequotes) as the second argument.
For example, the following paragraphs were all set up with bullets as the designator, using `.IP \(bu 4'. The whole block has been enclosed with `.RS' and `.RE' to set the left margin temporarily to the current indentation value.
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IP is one of the three macros used in the man package to format lists.
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HP is another. This macro produces a paragraph with a left hanging indentation.
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TP is another. This macro produces an unindented label followed by an indented paragraph.
.HP [nnn]
Set up a paragraph with hanging left indentation. The indentation is set to nnn if that argument is supplied (the default unit is `n' if omitted), otherwise it is set to the previous indentation value specified with TP, IP, or HP (or to the default value if none of them have been used yet). Font size and face are reset to its default values. The following paragraph illustrates the effect of this macro with hanging indentation set to 4 (enclosed by .RS and .RE to set the left margin temporarily to the current indentation):
This is a paragraph following an invocation of the HP macro. As you can see, it produces a paragraph where all lines but the first are indented.
.RS [nnn]
This macro moves the left margin to the right by the value nnn if specified (default unit is `n'); otherwise it is set to the previous indentation value specified with TP, IP, or HP (or to the default value if none of them have been used yet). The indentation value is then set to the default.
Calls to the RS macro can be nested.
.RE [nnn]
This macro moves the left margin back to level nnn, restoring the previous left margin. If no argument is given, it moves one level back. The first level (i.e., no call to RS yet) has number 1, and each call to RS increases the level by 1.
To summarize, the following macros cause a line break with the insertion of vertical space (which amount can be changed with the PD macro): SH, SS, TP, LP (PP, P), IP, and HP. The macros RS and RE also cause a break but no insertion of vertical space.