For a man page written in POD (perlpod) I had the effect that the SYNOPSIS was left-adjusted on the text terminal, but the PostScript output (read: troff) adjusted the text to both borders. So I tried to embed formatting commands in the POD source. However, even when specifying .nh some words like "[--[no-]check-grace-logins]" were hyphenated at a minus. That made me wonder whether the man -l command disobeys the .nh command. The manual page for roff(7) says: > .nh No hyphenation. Here is the relevant part of the roff man page: ~~~lang-roff .\" ======================================================================== .\" .IX Title "LDAP-USER-CHECK 8" .TH LDAP-USER-CHECK 8 "2024-08-14" "0.0.0.0.20n" "System Administration" .\" For nroff, turn off justification. Always turn off hyphenation; it makes .\" way too many mistakes in technical documents. .if n .ad l .nh .SH "NAME" ldap\-user\-check \- check LDAP account status .SH "SYNOPSIS" .IX Header "SYNOPSIS" .\" BEGIN roff .\" save adjustment, then left-adjust .ds _A \n[.j] .ad l .\" save hyphenation, then disable .ds _H \n[.hy] .nh .\" END roff \&\fBldap-user-check\fR [\fB\-\-account\-context=\fR\fIcontext\fR] [\fB\-\-account\-filter=\fR\fIfilter\fR] [\fB\-\-add\-notification\-bcc\-address=\fR\fIemail-spec\fR]... [\fB\-\-add\-notification\-cc\-address=\fR\fIemail-spec\fR]... [\fB\-\-default\-default\-ppolicy=\fR\fIdn\fR] [\fB\-\-default\-language=\fR\fIlang\fR] [\fB\-\-default\-notification\-email\-address=\fR\fIemail-spec\fR]... [\fB\-\-ca\-certs\-path=\fR\fIpath\fR] [\fB\-\-\fR[\fBno\-\fR]\fBcheck-auth-failure\fR] [\fB\-\-\fR[\fBno\-\fR]\fBcheck-grace-logins\fR] [\fB\-\-\fR[\fBno\-\fR]\fBcheck-inconsistent-accounts\fR] [\fB\-\-\fR[\fBno\-\fR]\fBcheck-locked-accounts\fR] [\fB\-\-\fR[\fBno\-\fR]\fBcheck-password-policy\fR] [\fB\-\-\fR[\fBno\-\fR]\fBcheck-pp-override\fR] [\fB\-\-\fR[\fBno\-\fR]\fBcheck-shadow-password\fR] [\fB\-\-credentials\-file\-name=\fR\fIfilename\fR] [\fB\-\-instance\-string=\fR\fIinstance\fR] [\fB\-\-ldap\-size\-limit=\fR\fInumber\fR] \&\fB\-\-ldap\-suffix=\fR\fIsuffix\fR [\fB\-\-ldap\-time\-limit=\fR\fInumber\fR] \&\fB\-\-ldap\-uri=\fR\fI\s-1URI\s0\fR \&\fB\-\-notification\-template=\fR\fIfilename\fR [\fB\-\-override\-default\-ppolicy=\fR\fIdn\fR] [\fB\-\-override\-expiration\-warning\-time=\fR\fInumber\fR] [\fB\-\-override\-from\-email\-address=\fR\fIemail-spec\fR] [\fB\-\-override\-notification\-email\-address=\fR\fIemail-spec\fR]... [\fB\-\-ppolicy\-context=\fR\fIcontext\fR] [\fB\-\-set\-notification\-reply\-to\-address=\fR\fIemail-spec\fR] [\fB\-\-verbosity=\fR\fIlevel\fR] [\fB\-\-wrap\-template=\fR\fIlen\fR] .\" BEGIN roff .\" restore saved hyphenation and adjustment .hy \*(_H .ad \*(_A .\" END roff .SH "DESCRIPTION" .IX Header "DESCRIPTION" ~~~ And here is what I see on a 80-character wide terminal: WHen converting that manual page using groff -man -Tps the .nh seems to be ignored as well: Programs being used are perl 5.18.2, groff-1.22, both from SLES12 SP5.

I'm on Linux Mint 21 (Ubuntu based). Just noted man pages internal search (/) does not find a word if split between two lines (the word is whole in the source of the page, displayed with a hyphen and indentation). I was very surprised. Any remedies? Web search did not find this issue in top results, maybe it is rare, even a glitch on my system? Could I disable word splitting as a workaround? Completely? If not, for specific lines in roff code? E.g. man mpv.1 (sup‐ ported.) > DESCRIPTION > mpv is a media player based on MPlayer and mplayer2. It supports a wide variety of video file formats, audio and video codecs, > and subtitle types. Special input URL > types are available to read input from a variety of sources other than disk files. Depending on platform, a variety of different > video and audio output methods are sup‐ > ported. Source: > \fBmpv\fP is a media player based on MPlayer and mplayer2. It supports > a wide variety of video file formats, audio and video codecs, and > subtitle types. Special input URL types are available to read input > from a variety of sources other than disk files. Depending on > platform, a variety of different video and audio output methods are > supported. Edit: edited /etc/groff/man.local .\" -*- nroff -*- .\" .\" This file is loaded after an-old.tmac. .\" Put any local modifications to an-old.tmac here. . . \" Disable hyphenation. .nr HY 0 . .if n \{\ etc...

I have my partially complete PhD thesis in TROFF format (?) - so it would laser print from the unix station back then. It has had a layer of Atari 1stWord encapsulation, which may still be at the header, but is essentially irrelevant as it was just a text editor to work on at home - away from the university's Sun workstations. Can anyone help me convert this to wysiwyg format of any sort please? pdf? docx? ¬066010303050000132002006006010000 ¬1¬¬¬1 ¬2¬#¬¬1 ¬F0110000001 ¬9[............................................................]0010 Ç .\" pic .\" tbl .\" eqn .\" roff -ms .\" .EQ delim $$ global .EN .ND .nr PO 1.5i .nr LL 6.0i .nr PS 9 .nr VS 18 .fp 1 H .TL .ps 14 CHAPTER 7 .AU .ps 14 KNOWLEDGE ENGINEERING .PP .ps 9 .NH Introduction .PP In the previous chapter we outlined a system which may be used to handle uncertainty in a domain, using probabilities on a causal network. In this chapter we will to discuss how the knowledge within a domain may be acquired and manipulated into the form of a probabilistic causal network - with specific reference to the two domains which represent the process of dating timber-framed buildings, using (i) architectural/historical and (ii) dendrochronological evidence. Our ultimate goal here is to ascertain, as best we may, the correct date of construction of vernacular buildings. As mentioned in Chapter 2, one of the main problems we face is the resolution of the potential conflict between dendrochronological and archaeological predictions for the date of a building. If the two bodies of knowledge produce results which are totally in agreement, we are left with no other conclusion than that the predicted date-range/period is the correct one, however there is rarely complete agreement and this disagreement may be very difficult to resolve. .PP We will derive networks on the two domains and give numerical Çexamples of propagation of evidence through these networks, closing the chapter with a short exposition of how we may use probabilistic methods in conjunction with causal networks to resolve this mentioned conflict. This use of probabilistic methods is contrary to widely adhered to notions concerning the unsuitability of this approach - from the general concerns over the epistemological adequacy of probabilistic methods in artificial intelligence expressed by McCarthy and Hayes (1969 p.490), to recent doubts about the implementational mechanics of probabilistic formalisms to be found in Graham and Llewelyn-Jones (1988 p.88 et seqq.).

I'm new to groff, so excuse me if it's a silly question. I can't find an appropriate solution for have two-columned content with one-columned footnotes. I've messed with .1C and .2C macros to get the desired result, but in vain. Is there a nice way to have your footnotes be in one column regardless of other content?

I have a table that containes some data and I need to delete the columns that contains only number (Nr.,Cod,Tiraj): Nr. Autor Titlu Cod Tiraj Tara 1 Gauss Carl Aritmetica 1 297485 11454 Germania 2 Gauss Carl Aritmatica 2 297484 10254 Germania 3 Gauss Carl Aritmetica 3 297455 45872 Germania The results should be like this: Autor Titlu Tara Gauss Carl Aritmetica 1 Germania Gauss Carl Aritmatica 2 Germania Gauss Carl Aritmetica 3 Germania The columns are separated by TAB I created the table using this: .TS tab(@); c c c c c c . Nr.@Autor@Titlu@Cod@Tiraj@Tara 1@Gauss Carl@Aritmetica 1@297485@11454@Germania 2@Gauss Carl@Aritmatica 2@297484@10254@Germania 3@Gauss Carl@Aritmetica 3@297455@45872@Germania .TE

I have to create a table and I tried doing this using tbl This is how the table should look: But I can't find a way how to use the tbl command to create this table in a file called authors.

I've just been looking through a few man pages for a few different commands including grep and ifconfig. I've noticed over a few pages, the content uses a strange syntax to notate what i think are quotations (back-tick followed by a single or double quote): `text' Why can't they use ' or " to open _and_ close quotations? **Update** I now realise that this should be bolding out the characters instead of noting quotes. Is there any reason my system is ignoring these when formatting? I'm using OSX.

A set of commonly used symbols to represent that a variable belongs to a given real coordinate space are ∈ ("ELEMENT OF", Unicode U+2208) and ℝ ("DOUBLE-STRUCK CAPITAL R", Unicode U+211D). Are those two symbols available in eqn, troff, and/or groff? I can not find them in the documentation. *Edit:* I have tested provided answer and I can get symbol ∈ ("ELEMENT OF", Unicode U+2208), but not symbol ℝ ("DOUBLE-STRUCK CAPITAL R", Unicode U+211D). Specifically, if I do: .TL Test .NH Introduction .LP Given an input in subspace \[u211D]: .EQ x \[mo] \[u211D] sup 2 .EN with output estimated value: .EQ y hat .EN I get the following error: cat test.ms | eqn | groff -ms > test.ps troff: :8: warning: can't find special character 'u211D' As it can be seen in the PS output ∈ is shown, but ℝ is not: I am using FreeBSD 12 eqn and groff.

I'm building a resource that references man pages, and I'm wondering if anyone knows of a way to access man pages as **structured** data? My current approach is to do a *lot* if REGEXing, but this is tedious and prone to errors. I'm not an expert on *nix, but what I understand about man pages is that they are basically text files with a particular syntax that is parsable by the man command. This makes me a little skeptical that there might be an easy way to, say, access a list of the options or flags. But maybe there's a way to do it that I don't know.

Given a pic figure: .PS circle "Foo" arrow box "Bar" arrow box dashed "Foo" "Dashed" .PE Is it possible to scale the whole diagram element's widths and heights? I have tried scale = 2 without success.

I would like to reuse the output from eqn to get PS or EPS files which contains just the equation and not a complete A4 with the equation. If I try: $ cat test.eqn .EQ For ~ y=1 ~ -> ~ L( y hat , y) = -log( y hat ) ~ -> ~ if ~ y hat approx 1 ~ then ~ L( y hat , y ) approx 0 .EN $ cat test.eqn | eqn | groff -Tps > test.ps I get test.ps generated and I can see the equation properly formatted, but it is displayed as part of a complete page (either A4 or letter size). What shall be done to get just a document which contains just the required size to contain the equation? i.e. the whole page would had been cropped to the necessary space to contain the equation. Additionally, if I try to use troff instead of groff I can not manage to get PS code, why? (FreeBSD 12).

While using groff and pic it is possible to do: $ cat test.ms .TL Test .NH 1 Test Header .PS circle arrow box .PE $ cat test.ms | groff -ms -p > test.ps Which generates a valid test.ps file containing the processed figure in pic. In larger documents, for mainteinability, it might be desirable to keep the picture pic description in a separate file and invoke such file from the main .ms file. While trying to get this working I have found that .so can source an external file, but I am finding issues to set up this configuration of embeding external .pic files into the main .ms file as shown here: $ cat test2.pic .PS circle arrow box .PE $ cat test2.ms .TL Test .NH 1 Test Header .so test2.pic $ cat test2.ms | groff -ms -p > test2.ps test2.pic:1: macro error: bad arguments to PS (not preprocessed with pic?) $ Which would be the way to achieve this inclusion of .pic code in the main macro .ms files as external files?

How can I insert today's date in groff? I know I can type today's date directly, but I would like the date to dynamically be produced, so that a document could be recompiled with a new date without any change to the groff source. Specifically, I would like the date to appear in "\, \ \" format, for example, March 7, 2021. I am using the mom macros. I don't know if inserting today's date is something that is macro-dependent or macro-independent.

## Context: Let's say I am trying to write a macro in groff in order to draw a rectangle given some arguments (like width and height for example). For this I need to perform some simple arithmetic, that I would like to store in registers for readability. ## How to reproduce In any normal groff document I can just use:

.nr a 1  \"creates a number register with the name a and the value 1
\n[a]      \"prints the content of register a

which prints 1 on the document However when I place it in a macro MACRO and call it like so:

.de MACRO  \"defines a new macro with name MACRO
.nr a 1    \"creates a number register with the name a and the value 1
\n[a]        \"prints the content of register a
..         \"end of MACRO definition
.MACRO     \"calls MACRO

It prints 0, which is the default value for new registers, according to the documentation (man groff, man 7 groff, and info groff). ## How it is compiled I compile it using this script:

groff -kep "$file" -Tpdf > "$file.pdf"

What am I doing wrong? Is it even possible to use registers inside of a macro? How should I do it?

I have groff file to generate a pdf in the format: .TL Article title .AU Author name .AI Publication title .SH .LP First paragraph .PP More paragraphs I'm then running groff -ms a.ms -T pdf > a.pdf to generate a pdf. I like how groff makes formatting easy but I'm wondering if it would be possible to include an ascii diagram. For example the following: +-------------------------+ +-----------------+ | | | | | Hello | | | | +-------------+ | | | | | +-------------------------+ +-----------------+ If input as a normal paragraph turns into: Is there anyway I can insert a section into groff that will preserve the spaces so these kind of diagrams can be used? Looking at the manual for groff_ms I see: > .PS and .PE Denotes a graphic, to be processed by the pic > preprocessor. You can create a pic file by hand, using the AT&T pic > manual available on the Web as a reference, or by using a graphics > program such as xfig. But this seems to only accept pic language markup . Is there anyway I can insert assci drawings into groff?

Title says it all. I'm just trying to avoid awkward line breaks between words. I read somewhere that in {,t,g}roff using ~ in place of a space should do it, but that doesn't seem to work for man pages (I get a literal ~ instead).

I found that I can save man page into ps format: man -t man > file.ps or to pdf: man -t man | ps2pdf - file.pdf Apart from the man page itself, the export includes man version, page numbers and date. 2.6.2 2012-06-18 1 How can I remove the date ? How can I configure what is added ?

In the groff mission statement it says that Groff will be moving to an improved formatting algorithm. Considering that the mission statement was written in 2014; I was wondering where this was at development wise. There is nothing I've seen in the git logs that might indicate this has been worked on/completed, but there is a mailing list archive that shows some development. Thank you very much in advance for any help

I'm translating man pages, and have run in to a few problems with Emacs. 1. How do you specify language? (With man, it looks like this man -Lsv shutdown for the Swedish "sv" subdirectory, if available.) 2. In the Emacs man mode, you can use **N** or **P** to jump forward or backward according to headers (in roff, they look like this: .SH). But, this doesn't work if the header includes one (or more) of the three special Swedish characters: Å, Ä, and Ö. It doesn't matter if I escape them (like this \(:A). (But they are correctly displayed.) 3. To view a work in project, I use for example M-x man RET ./ls.1 (that is, the absolute path). This is great, because it is the same man mode as for viewing "real" manpages (those in /usr/share/man). Only, when I do some changes in the document, how do I refresh the manpage? revert-buffer says the buffer is not associated with a file (not true, but OK, I get it); M-x load-file RET seems to have lost track of the file; ... Ideas? By the way, translating is a lot of fun! **EDIT:** (see the first comment) 

Troff supports both macro definitions using .de and branching using .if (see pages 5 and 6 of the [Troff user's manual](https://www.troff.org/54.pdf)) . In these two respects, it is very much like TeX. However, I don't know of highly complex programs written in Troff (unlike say TikZ for TeX). Is Troff Turing complete?