4.3.5.3 Highlighting

The ms macros provide a variety of methods to highlight or emphasize text:

Macro: .B [txt [post [pre]]]

Sets its first argument in bold type. If you specify a second argument, groff prints it in the previous font after the bold text, with no intervening space (this allows you to set punctuation after the highlighted text without highlighting the punctuation). Similarly, it prints the third argument (if any) in the previous font before the first argument. For example,

.B foo ) (

prints (foo).

If you give this macro no arguments, groff prints all text following in bold until the next highlighting, paragraph, or heading macro.

Macro: .R [txt [post [pre]]]

Sets its first argument in roman (or regular) type. It operates similarly to the B macro otherwise.

Macro: .I [txt [post [pre]]]

Sets its first argument in italic type. It operates similarly to the B macro otherwise.

Macro: .CW [txt [post [pre]]]

Sets its first argument in a constant width face. It operates similarly to the B macro otherwise.

Macro: .BI [txt [post [pre]]]

Sets its first argument in bold italic type. It operates similarly to the B macro otherwise.

Macro: .BX [txt]

Prints its argument and draws a box around it. If you want to box a string that contains spaces, use a digit-width space (\0).

Macro: .UL [txt [post]]

Prints its first argument with an underline. If you specify a second argument, groff prints it in the previous font after the underlined text, with no intervening space.

Macro: .LG

Prints all text following in larger type (two points larger than the current point size) until the next font size, highlighting, paragraph, or heading macro. You can specify this macro multiple times to enlarge the point size as needed.

Macro: .SM

Prints all text following in smaller type (two points smaller than the current point size) until the next type size, highlighting, paragraph, or heading macro. You can specify this macro multiple times to reduce the point size as needed.

Macro: .NL

Prints all text following in the normal point size (that is, the value of the PS register).

String: \*[{]

String: \*[}]

Text enclosed with \*{ and \*} is printed as a superscript.