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This section describes the available macros for manual pages. For further customization, put additional macros and requests into the file man.local, which is loaded immediately after the man package.
Set the title of the man page to title and the section to section, which must have a value between 1 and 8. The value of 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 is positioned in the middle of the footer line. extra2 is 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 and XHTML output, headers and footers are completely suppressed.
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.
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 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 its default value.
Set up an unnumbered (sub)section heading. Prints out all the text
following SS up to the end of the line (or the text in the next
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 its default value.
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 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 has default font settings.
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 roman if no -rS option is given
on the command line). Finally, the current left margin and the
indentation is restored.
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 (default unit is ‘n’), otherwise it is set to the previous
indentation value specified with TP, IP, or HP (or
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 their
default values.
To start an indented paragraph with a particular indentation but without
a designator, use ‘""’ (two double quotes) as the first argument of
IP.
For example, to start a paragraph with bullets as the designator and 4 en indentation, write
.IP \(bu 4
Set up a paragraph with hanging left indentation. The indentation is
set to nnn if that argument is supplied (default unit is
‘n’), otherwise it is set to the previous indentation value
specified with TP, IP, or HP (or the default value
if non of them have been used yet). Font size and face are reset to
their default values.
Move 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.
Move 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 do not insert
vertical space.
Finally, the macros SH, SS, LP (PP,
P), and RS reset the indentation to its default value.
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