@(#)ms 8.2 (Berkeley) 06/01/94
.EH 'USD:17-%''Using the -ms Macros with Troff and Nroff' .OH 'Using the -ms Macros with Troff and Nroff''USD:17-%' .RP
....TM 76-1274-16 39199 39199-11 ....ND October 8, 1976 .nr CW 2.85i .nr GW .3i Typing Documents on the UNIX System:
\!.br Using the -ms Macros with Troff and Nroff .AU "MH 2C-572" 6377 M. E. Lesk .AI .MH .OK \"Text Formatting \"Phototypesetting .AB This document describes a set of easy-to-use macros for preparing documents on the UNIX system. Documents may be produced on either the phototypesetter or a on a computer terminal, without changing the input.
The macros provide facilities for paragraphs, sections (optionally with automatic numbering), page titles, footnotes, equations, tables, two-column format, and cover pages for papers.
This memo includes, as an appendix, the text of the ``Guide to Preparing Documents with -ms'' which contains additional examples of features of -ms.
This manual is a revision of, and replaces, ``Typing Documents on UNIX,'' dated November 22, 1974. .AE .CS 6 6 12 1 0 8 .bd I 3
Introduction. .R This memorandum describes a package of commands to produce papers using the .bd I troff .R and nroff formatting programs on the UNIX system. As with other roff -derived programs, text is prepared interspersed with formatting commands. However, this package, which itself is written in troff commands, provides higher-level commands than those provided with the basic troff program. The commands available in this package are listed in Appendix A. .bd I 3
Text. .R Type normally, except that instead of indenting for paragraphs, place a line reading ``.PP'' before each paragraph. This will produce indenting and extra space.
Alternatively, the command .LP that was used here will produce a left-aligned (block) paragraph. The paragraph spacing can be changed: see below under ``Registers.''
Beginning. .R For a document with a paper-type cover sheet, the input should start as follows: L [optional overall format .RP - see below] .TL Title of document (one or more lines) .AU Author(s) (may also be several lines) .AI Author's institution(s) .AB Abstract; to be placed on the cover sheet of a paper. Line length is 5/6 of normal; use .ll here to change. .AE (abstract end) text ... (begins with .PP, which see) To omit some of the standard headings (e.g. no abstract, or no author's institution) just omit the corresponding fields and command lines. The word ABSTRACT can be suppressed by writing ``.AB no'' for ``.AB''. Several interspersed .AU and .AI lines can be used for multiple authors. The headings are not compulsory: beginning with a .PP command is perfectly OK and will just start printing an ordinary paragraph. Warning: You can't just begin a document with a line of text. Some -ms command must precede any text input. When in doubt, use .LP to get proper initialization, although any of the commands .PP, .LP, .TL, .SH, .NH is good enough. Figure 1 shows the legal arrangement of commands at the start of a document.
Cover Sheets and First Pages. .R The first line of a document signals the general format of the first page. In particular, if it is ".RP" a cover sheet with title and abstract is prepared. The default format is useful for scanning drafts.
In general -ms is arranged so that only one form of a document need be stored, containing all information; the first command gives the format, and unnecessary items for that format are ignored.
Warning: don't put extraneous material between the .TL and .AE commands. Processing of the titling items is special, and other data placed in them may not behave as you expect. Don't forget that some -ms command must precede any input text.
Page headings. .R The -ms macros, by default, will print a page heading containing a page number (if greater than 1). A default page footer is provided only in nroff , where the date is used. The user can make minor adjustments to the page headings/footings by redefining the strings LH, CH, and RH which are the left, center and right portions of the page headings, respectively; and the strings LF, CF, and RF, which are the left, center and right portions of the page footer. For more complex formats, the user can redefine the macros PT and BT, which are invoked respectively at the top and bottom of each page. The margins (taken from registers HM and FM for the top and bottom margin respectively) are normally 1 inch; the page header/footer are in the middle of that space. The user who redefines these macros should be careful not to change parameters such as point size or font without resetting them to default values.
.2C Multi-column formats. .R If you place the command ``.2C'' in your document, the document will be printed in double column format beginning at that point. This feature is not too useful in computer terminal output, but is often desirable on the typesetter. The command ``.1C'' will go back to one-column format and also skip to a new page. The ``.2C'' command is actually a special case of the command L .MC [column width [gutter width]] which makes multiple columns with the specified column and gutter width; as many columns as will fit across the page are used. Thus triple, quadruple, ... column pages can be printed. Whenever the number of columns is changed (except going from full width to some larger number of columns) a new page is started.
Headings. .R To produce a special heading, there are two commands. If you type L .NH type section heading here may be several lines you will get automatically numbered section headings (1, 2, 3, ...), in boldface. For example, L .NH Care and Feeding of Department Heads produces
Care and Feeding of Department HeadsAlternatively, L .SH Care and Feeding of Directors will print the heading with no number added:
Care and Feeding of DirectorsEvery section heading, of either type, should be followed by a paragraph beginning with .PP or .LP, indicating the end of the heading. Headings may contain more than one line of text.
The .NH command also supports more complex numbering schemes. If a numerical argument is given, it is taken to be a ``level'' number and an appropriate sub-section number is generated. Larger level numbers indicate deeper sub-sections, as in this example: L .NH Erie-Lackawanna .NH 2 Morris and Essex Division .NH 3 Gladstone Branch .NH 3 Montclair Branch .NH 2 Boonton Line generates:
Erie-Lackawanna Morris and Essex Division Gladstone Branch Montclair Branch Boonton LineAn explicit ``.NH 0'' will reset the numbering of level 1 to one, as here: L .NH 0 Penn Central 1. Penn Central
Indented paragraphs. .R (Paragraphs with hanging numbers, e.g. references.) The sequence L .IP [1] Text for first paragraph, typed normally for as long as you would like on as many lines as needed. .IP [2] Text for second paragraph, ... produces
A series of indented paragraphs may be followed by an ordinary paragraph beginning with .PP or .LP, depending on whether you wish indenting or not. The command .LP was used here.
More sophisticated uses of .IP are also possible. If the label is omitted, for example, a plain block indent is produced. L .IP This material will just be turned into a block indent suitable for quotations or such matter. .LP will produce
This material will just be turned into a block indent suitable for quotations or such matter.If a non-standard amount of indenting is required, it may be specified after the label (in character positions) and will remain in effect until the next .PP or .LP. Thus, the general form of the .IP command contains two additional fields: the label and the indenting length. For example, L .IP first: 9 Notice the longer label, requiring larger indenting for these paragraphs. .IP second: And so forth. .LP produces this:
It is also possible to produce multiple nested indents; the command .RS indicates that the next .IP starts from the current indentation level. Each .RE will eat up one level of indenting so you should balance .RS and .RE commands. The .RS command should be thought of as ``move right'' and the .RE command as ``move left''. As an example L .IP 1. Bell Laboratories .RS .IP 1.1 Murray Hill .IP 1.2 Holmdel .IP 1.3 Whippany .RS .IP 1.3.1 Madison .RE .IP 1.4 Chester .RE .LP will result in
All of these variations on .LP leave the right margin untouched. Sometimes, for purposes such as setting off a quotation, a paragraph indented on both right and left is required. .QP A single paragraph like this is obtained by preceding it with .QP. More complicated material (several paragraphs) should be bracketed with .QS and .QE.
Emphasis. .R To get italics (on the typesetter) or underlining (on the terminal) say L .I as much text as you want can be typed here .R .bd I
as was done for these three words. .R The .R command restores the normal (usually Roman) font. If only one word is to be italicized, it may be just given on the line with the .I command,
.bd I 3 .I word and in this case no .R is needed to restore the previous font. Boldface .R can be produced by L .B Text to be set in boldface goes here .R and also will be underlined on the terminal or line printer. As with .I, a single word can be placed in boldface by placing it on the same line as the .B command.
A few size changes can be specified similarly with the commands .LG (make larger), .SM (make smaller), and .NL (return to normal size). The size change is two points; the commands may be repeated for increased effect (here one .NL canceled two .SM commands).
If actual underlining as opposed to italicizing is required on the typesetter, the command .UL word will underline a word. There is no way to underline multiple words on the typesetter.
Footnotes. .R Material placed between lines with the commands .FS (footnote) and .FE (footnote end) will be collected, remembered, and finally placed at the bottom of the current page*. By default, footnotes are 11/12th the length of normal text, but this can be changed using the FL register (see below). .FS * Like this. .FE
Displays and Tables. .R To prepare displays of lines, such as tables, in which the lines should not be re-arranged, enclose them in the commands .DS and .DE L .DS table lines, like the examples here, are placed between .DS and .DE .DE By default, lines between .DS and .DE are indented and left-adjusted. You can also center lines, or retain the left margin. Lines bracketed by .DS C and .DE commands are centered (and not re-arranged); lines bracketed by .DS L and .DE are left-adjusted, not indented, and not re-arranged. A plain .DS is equivalent to .DS I, which indents and left-adjusts. Thus, C these lines were preceded by .DS C and followed by a .DE command; whereas L these lines were preceded by .DS L and followed by a .DE command. Note that .DS C centers each line; there is a variant .DS B that makes the display into a left-adjusted block of text, and then centers that entire block. Normally a display is kept together, on one page. If you wish to have a long display which may be split across page boundaries, use .CD, .LD, or .ID in place of the commands .DS C, .DS L, or .DS I respectively. An extra argument to the .DS I or .DS command is taken as an amount to indent. Note: it is tempting to assume that .DS R will right adjust lines, but it doesn't work.
Boxing words or lines. .R To draw rectangular boxes around words the command L .BX word will print word as shown. The boxes will not be neat on a terminal, and this should not be used as a substitute for italics. 1 Longer pieces of text may be boxed by enclosing them with .B1 and .B2: L .B1 text... .B2 as has been done here. 2
Keeping blocks together. .R If you wish to keep a table or other block of lines together on a page, there are ``keep - release'' commands. If a block of lines preceded by .KS and followed by .KE does not fit on the remainder of the current page, it will begin on a new page. Lines bracketed by .DS and .DE commands are automatically kept together this way. There is also a ``keep floating'' command: if the block to be kept together is preceded by .KF instead of .KS and does not fit on the current page, it will be moved down through the text until the top of the next page. Thus, no large blank space will be introduced in the document.
Nroff/Troff commands. .R Among the useful commands from the basic formatting programs are the following. They all work with both typesetter and computer terminal output: L .bp - begin new page. .br - ``break'', stop running text from line to line. .sp n - insert n blank lines. .na - don't adjust right margins.
Date. .R By default, documents produced on computer terminals have the date at the bottom of each page; documents produced on the typesetter don't. To force the date, say ``.DA''. To force no date, say ``.ND''. To lie about the date, say ``.DA July 4, 1776'' which puts the specified date at the bottom of each page. The command L .ND May 8, 1945 in ".RP" format places the specified date on the cover sheet and nowhere else. Place this line before the title.
Signature line. .R You can obtain a signature line by placing the command .SG in the document. The authors' names will be output in place of the .SG line. An argument to .SG is used as a typing identification line, and placed after the signatures. The .SG command is ignored in released paper format.
Registers. .R Certain of the registers used by -ms can be altered to change default settings. They should be changed with .nr commands, as with .nr PS 9 .bd I to make the default point size 9 point. If the effect is needed immediately, the normal troff .R command should be used in addition to changing the number register.
.vs 10p
| Register Defines Takes Default |
| effect |
| PS point size next para. 10 |
| VS line spacing next para. 12 pts |
| LL line length next para. 6\(fm\(fm |
| LT title length next para. 6\(fm\(fm |
| PD para. spacing next para. 0.3 VS |
| PI para. indent next para. 5 ens |
| FL footnote length next FS 11/12 LL |
| CW column width next 2C 7/15 LL |
| GW intercolumn gap next 2C 1/15 LL |
| PO page offset next page 26/27\(fm\(fm |
| HM top margin next page 1\(fm\(fm |
| FM bottom margin next page 1\(fm\(fm |
Accents. .R To simplify typing certain foreign words, strings representing common accent marks are defined. They precede the letter over which the mark is to appear. Here are the strings:
| Input Output Input Output |
| \e*\(fme \*'e \e*~a \*~a |
| \e*\(gae \*`e \e*Ce \h'0.15m'\v'-0.6m'\s6\zv\s0\v'0.6m'\h'-0.15m'e |
| \e*:u \*:u \e*,c \*,c |
| \e*^e \o'^e' |
Use. .R After your document is prepared and stored on a file, you can print it on a terminal with the command* .bd I .FS * If .2C was used, pipe the nroff output through col; make the first line of the input ``.pi /usr/bin/col.''
.FE L nroff -ms file .R and you can print it on the typesetter with the command L troff -ms file .R (many options are possible). In each case, if your document is stored in several files, just list all the filenames where we have used ``file''. If equations or tables are used, eqn .R and/or tbl .R must be invoked as preprocessors.
.bd I 3
References and further study. .R If you have to do Greek or mathematics, see eqn [1] for equation setting. To aid eqn users, -ms provides definitions of .EQ and .EN which normally center the equation and set it off slightly. An argument on .EQ is taken to be an equation number and placed in the right margin near the equation. In addition, there are three special arguments to EQ: the letters C, I, and L indicate centered (default), indented, and left adjusted equations, respectively. If there is both a format argument and an equation number, give the format argument first, as in .bd I .EQ L (1.3a) for a left-adjusted equation numbered (1.3a).
Similarly, the macros .TS and .TE are defined to separate tables (see [2]) from text with a little space. A very long table with a heading may be broken across pages by beginning it with .TS H instead of .TS, and placing the line .TH in the table data after the heading. If the table has no heading repeated from page to page, just use the ordinary .TS and .TE macros.
To learn more about troff see [3] for a general introduction, and [4] for the full details (experts only). Information on related UNIX commands is in [5]. For jobs that do not seem well-adapted to -ms, consider other macro packages. It is often far easier to write a specific macro packages for such tasks as imitating particular journals than to try to adapt -ms.
.bd I 3 Acknowledgment. .R Many thanks are due to Brian Kernighan for his help in the design and implementation of this package, and for his assistance in preparing this manual. .bd I
References
Appendix A
List of Commands
| 1C Return to single column format. LG Increase type size. |
| 2C Start double column format. LP Left aligned block paragraph. |
| AB Begin abstract. |
| AE End abstract. |
| AI Specify author's institution. |
| AU Specify author. ND Change or cancel date. |
| B Begin boldface. NH Specify numbered heading. |
| DA Provide the date on each page. NL Return to normal type size. |
| DE End display. PP Begin paragraph. |
| DS Start display (also CD, LD, ID). |
| EN End equation. R Return to regular font (usually Roman). |
| EQ Begin equation. RE End one level of relative indenting. |
| FE End footnote. RP Use released paper format. |
| FS Begin footnote. RS Relative indent increased one level. |
| SG Insert signature line. |
| I Begin italics. SH Specify section heading. |
| SM Change to smaller type size. |
| IP Begin indented paragraph. TL Specify title. |
| KE Release keep. |
| KF Begin floating keep. UL Underline one word. |
| KS Start keep. |
Register Names
The following register names are used by -ms internally. Independent use of these names in one's own macros may produce incorrect output. Note that no lower case letters are used in any -ms internal name.
| Number registers used in -ms |
| : DW GW HM IQ LL NA OJ PO T. TV |
| #T EF H1 HT IR LT NC PD PQ TB VS |
| .T FC H2 IF IT MF ND PE PS TC WF |
| 1T FL H3 IK KI MM NF PF PX TD YE |
| AV FM H4 IM L1 MN NS PI RO TN YY |
| CW FP H5 IP LE MO OI PN ST TQ ZN |
| String registers used in -ms |
| \(fm A5 CB DW EZ I KF MR R1 RT TL |
| \(ga AB CC DY FA I1 KQ ND R2 S0 TM |
| ^ AE CD E1 FE I2 KS NH R3 S1 TQ |
| ~ AI CF E2 FJ I3 LB NL R4 S2 TS |
| : AU CH E3 FK I4 LD NP R5 SG TT |
| , B CM E4 FN I5 LG OD RC SH UL |
| 1C BG CS E5 FO ID LP OK RE SM WB |
| 2C BT CT EE FQ IE ME PP RF SN WH |
| A1 C D EL FS IM MF PT RH SY WT |
| A2 C1 DA EM FV IP MH PY RP TA XD |
| A3 C2 DE EN FY IZ MN QF RQ TE XF |
| A4 CA DS EQ HO KE MO R RS TH XK |
2 Figure 1: Order of Commands in Input
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