Provided by: groff_1.23.0-5_amd64 bug

Name

       groff - GNU roff language reference

Description

       groff  is short for GNU roff, a free reimplementation of the AT&T device-independent troff
       typesetting system.  See roff(7) for a survey of and background on roff systems.

       This document is intended as a reference.   The  primary  groff  manual,  Groff:  The  GNU
       Implementation  of  troff, by Trent A. Fisher and Werner Lemberg, is a better resource for
       learners, containing many examples and much discussion.  It is written in Texinfo; you can
       browse  it  interactively  with  “info  groff”.  Additional formats, including plain text,
       HTML, DVI, and PDF, may be available in /usr/share/doc/groff-base.

       groff is also a name for an extended dialect of the  roff  language.   We  use  “roff”  to
       denote  features  that  are universal, or nearly so, among implementations of this family.
       We apply the term “groff” to the language documented here, the GNU implementation  of  the
       overall system, the project that develops that system, and the command of that name.

       GNU  troff,  installed  on this system as troff(1), is the formatter: a program that reads
       device and font descriptions (groff_font(5)), interprets the groff language  expressed  in
       text  input  files,  and  translates  that  input  into a device-independent output format
       (groff_out(5)) that is  usually  then  post-processed  by  an  output  driver  to  produce
       PostScript, PDF, HTML, DVI, or terminal output.

Input format

       Input  to  GNU  troff  is  organized  into  lines  separated by the Unix newline character
       (U+000A), and must be in one of two character encodings it can recognize:  IBM  code  page
       1047 on EBCDIC systems, and ISO Latin-1 (8859-1) otherwise.  Use of ISO 646-1991:IRV (“US-
       ASCII”)  or  (equivalently)  the  “Basic  Latin”  subset  of  ISO  10646  (“Unicode”)   is
       recommended;  see  groff_char(7).  The preconv(1) preprocessor transforms other encodings,
       including UTF-8, to satisfy troff's requirements.

Syntax characters

       Several input characters are syntactically significant to groff.

       .   A dot at the beginning of an input line marks it as  a  control  line.   It  can  also
           follow  the .el and .nop requests, and the condition in .if, .ie, and .while requests.
           The control character invokes requests and calls macros by the name that  follows  it.
           The .cc request can change the control character.

       '   The neutral apostrophe is the no-break control character, recognized where the control
           character is.  It suppresses the (first) break implied by the .bp, .cf, .fi, .fl, .in,
           .nf,  .rj,  .sp,  .ti, and .trf requests.  The requested operation takes effect at the
           next break.  It makes .br nilpotent.  The no-break control character  can  be  changed
           with the .c2 request.  When formatted, “'” may be typeset as a typographical quotation
           mark; use the \[aq] special character escape sequence to format a  neutral  apostrophe
           glyph.

       "   The  neutral  double quote can be used to enclose arguments to macros and strings, and
           is required if those arguments contain space or tab characters.   In  the  .ds,  .ds1,
           .as,  and  .as1  requests,  an  initial neutral double quote in the second argument is
           stripped off to allow embedding of leading spaces.  To include a double quote inside a
           quoted argument, use the \[dq] special character escape sequence (which also serves to
           typeset the glyph in text).

       \   A backslash introduces an escape sequence.  The escape character can be  changed  with
           the  .ec  request;  .eo  disables  escape sequence recognition.  Use the \[rs] special
           character escape sequence to format a backslash glyph, and \e to typeset the glyph  of
           the current escape character.

       (   An  opening  parenthesis is special only in certain escape sequences; when recognized,
           it introduces an argument of exactly two characters.  groff offers the  more  flexible
           square bracket syntax.

       [   An  opening  bracket  is special only in certain escape sequences; when recognized, it
           introduces an argument (list) of any length, not including a closing bracket.

       ]   A closing bracket is special only when an escape sequence using an opening bracket  as
           an argument delimiter is being interpreted.  It ends the argument (list).

       Additionally,  the  Control+A  character  (U+0001) in text is interpreted as a leader (see
       below).

       Horizontal white space characters are significant to groff, but trailing  spaces  on  text
       lines are ignored.

       space   Space  characters  separate  arguments  in  request  invocations, macro calls, and
               string interpolations.  In text, they separate  words.   Multiple  adjacent  space
               characters  in  text  cause  groff  to  attempt  end-of-sentence  detection on the
               preceding word (and trailing punctuation).  The amount of space between words  and
               sentences  is  controlled  by  the  .ss  request.   When  filling  is enabled (the
               default), a line may be broken at  a  space.   When  adjustment  is  enabled  (the
               default),  inter-word  spaces  are  expanded  until  the  output  line reaches the
               configured length.  An adjustable but non-breaking space is available with \~.  To
               get  a  space  of  fixed  width,  use one of the escape sequences ‘\ ’ (the escape
               character followed by a space), \0, \|, \^, or \h; see section “Escape  sequences”
               below.

       newline In  text,  a  newline  puts an inter-word space onto the output and, if filling is
               enabled, triggers end-of-sentence recognition on the preceding text.  See  section
               “Line continuation” below.

       tab     A tab character in text causes the drawing position to advance to the next defined
               tab stop.

Tabs and leaders

       The formatter interprets input horizontal tab characters (“tabs”) and Control+A characters
       (“leaders”)  into  movements to the next tab stop.  Tabs simply move to the next tab stop;
       leaders place enough periods to fill the space.  Tab stops are by  default  located  every
       half  inch  measured from the drawing position corresponding to the beginning of the input
       line; see section “Page geometry” of roff(7).  Tabs and leaders do not  cause  breaks  and
       therefore  do not interrupt filling.  Tab stops can be configured with the ta request, and
       tab and leader glyphs with the tc and lc requests, respectively.

Line continuation

       When filling is enabled, input and output line breaks generally do  not  correspond.   The
       roff language therefore distinguishes input and output line continuation.

       A  backslash  \  immediately  followed  by  a  newline,  sometimes  discussed as \newline,
       suppresses the effects of that newline on the input.  The next input line thus retains the
       classification  of  its  predecessor  as  a  control or text line.  \newline is useful for
       managing line lengths in the input during document maintenance; you  can  break  an  input
       line  in  the  middle of a request invocation, macro call, or escape sequence.  Input line
       continuation is invisible to the formatter, with two exceptions: the | operator recognizes
       the new input line, and the input line counter register .c is incremented.

       The  \c  escape  sequence continues an output line.  Nothing on the input line after it is
       formatted.  In contrast to \newline, a line after \c is treated as a new input line, so  a
       control  character  is  recognized at its beginning.  The visual results depend on whether
       filling is enabled.  An intervening  control  line  that  causes  a  break  overrides  \c,
       flushing  out  the  pending  output  line  in the usual way.  The register .int contains a
       positive value if the last output line was continued with \c;  this  datum  is  associated
       with the environment.

Colors

       groff  supports color output with a variety of color spaces and up to 16 bits per channel.
       Some devices, particularly terminals, may be more limited.  When color support is enabled,
       two  colors  are  current  at  any  given time: the stroke color, with which glyphs, rules
       (lines), and geometric objects like circles and polygons are drawn, and  the  fill  color,
       which  can  be  used  to  paint  the  interior  of  a closed geometric figure.  The color,
       defcolor, gcolor, and fcolor requests; \m and \M escape sequences; and .color, .m, and  .M
       registers exercise color support.

       Each  output  device  has  a color named “default”, which cannot be redefined.  A device's
       default stroke and fill colors are not necessarily the same.  For the dvi, html, pdf,  ps,
       and xhtml output devices, troff automatically loads a macro file defining many color names
       at startup.  By the same mechanism, the devices supported by grotty(1) recognize the eight
       standard ISO 6429/ECMA-48 color names (also known vulgarly as “ANSI colors”).

Measurements

       Numeric  parameters  that  specify  measurements  are  expressed  as  integers  or decimal
       fractions with an optional scaling unit  suffixed.   A  scaling  unit  is  a  letter  that
       immediately  follows  the  last  digit  of  a  number.  Digits after the decimal point are
       optional.

       Measurements are scaled by the scaling unit and stored  internally  (with  any  fractional
       part  discarded)  in  basic  units.   The  device  resolution can therefore be obtained by
       storing a value of “1i” to a register.  The only constraint on the basic unit is  that  it
       is at least as small as any other unit.

       u      Basic unit.
       i      Inch; defined as 2.54 centimeters.
       c      Centimeter.
       p      Point; a typesetter's unit used for measuring type size.  There are 72 points to an
              inch.
       P      Pica; another typesetter's unit.  There are 6 picas to an inch and 12 points  to  a
              pica.
       s, z   Scaled  points  and  multiplication  by  the  output  device's sizescale parameter,
              respectively.
       f      Multiplication by 65,536; scales decimal fractions in the interval [0, 1] to 16-bit
              unsigned integers.

       The magnitudes of other scaling units depend on the text formatting parameters in effect.

       m      Em; an em is equal to the current type size in points.
       n      En; an en is one-half em.
       v      Vee; distance between text baselines.
       M      Hundredth of an em.

   Motion quanta
       An  output device's basic unit u is not necessarily its smallest addressable length; u can
       be smaller to avoid problems with integer roundoff.  The minimum distances that  a  device
       can  work  with  in  the  horizontal and vertical directions are termed its motion quanta,
       stored in the .H and .V registers, respectively.  Measurements are rounded  to  applicable
       motion quanta.  Half-quantum fractions round toward zero.

   Default units
       A  general-purpose  register  (one  created  or  updated  with the nr request; see section
       “Registers” below) is implicitly dimensionless, or reckoned in basic units if  interpreted
       in  a measurement context.  But it is convenient for many requests and escape sequences to
       infer a scaling unit for an argument if none is specified.  An explicit scaling unit  (not
       after  a  closing  parenthesis)  can  override  an  undesirable default.  Effectively, the
       default unit is suffixed to the expression if a scaling unit is not already present.   GNU
       troff's use of integer arithmetic should also be kept in mind; see below.

Numeric expressions

       A numeric expression evaluates to an integer.  The following operators are recognized.

             +   addition
             -   subtraction
             *   multiplication
             /   truncating division

             %   modulus
       ────────────────────────────────────────────
       unary +   assertion, motion, incrementation
       unary -   negation, motion, decrementation
       ────────────────────────────────────────────
             ;   scaling
            >?   maximum
            <?   minimum
       ────────────────────────────────────────────
             <   less than
             >   greater than
            <=   less than or equal
            >=   greater than or equal
             =   equal
            ==   equal
       ────────────────────────────────────────────
             &   logical conjunction (“and”)
             :   logical disjunction (“or”)
             !   logical complementation (“not”)
       ────────────────────────────────────────────
           ( )   precedence
       ────────────────────────────────────────────
             |   boundary-relative motion

       troff provides a set of mathematical and logical operators familiar to programmers—as well
       as some unusual ones—but  supports  only  integer  arithmetic.   (Provision  is  made  for
       interpreting  and  reporting  decimal fractions in certain cases.)  The internal data type
       used for computing results is usually a 32-bit signed integer, which suffices to represent
       magnitudes within a range of ±2 billion.  (If that's not enough, see groff_tmac(5) for the
       62bit.tmac macro package.)

       Arithmetic infix operators perform a function on the numeric expressions to their left and
       right;  they  are  +  (addition),  -  (subtraction),  *  (multiplication),  /  (truncating
       division), and % (modulus).  Truncating division rounds to the integer nearer to zero,  no
       matter  how  large the fractional portion.  Overflow and division (or modulus) by zero are
       errors and abort evaluation of a numeric expression.

       Arithmetic unary operators operate on the numeric expression to their right;  they  are  -
       (negation)  and  +  (assertion—for  completeness;  it does nothing).  The unary minus must
       often be used with parentheses  to  avoid  confusion  with  the  decrementation  operator,
       discussed below.

       The sign of the modulus of operands of mixed signs is determined by the sign of the first.
       Division and modulus operators satisfy the following property: given a dividend  a  and  a
       divisor  b,  a  quotient  q  formed  by  “(a  /  b)”  and a remainder r by “(a % b)”, then
       qb + r = a.

       GNU troff's scaling  operator,  used  with  parentheses  as  (c;e),  evaluates  a  numeric
       expression  e  using  c  as  the default scaling unit.  If c is omitted, scaling units are
       ignored in the evaluation of e.  GNU troff also provides a pair of  operators  to  compute
       the extrema of two operands: >? (maximum) and <? (minimum).

       Comparison operators comprise < (less than), > (greater than), <= (less than or equal), >=
       (greater than or equal), and = (equal).  ==  is  a  synonym  for  =.   When  evaluated,  a
       comparison  is  replaced  with  “0” if it is false and “1” if true.  In the roff language,
       positive values are true, others false.

       We can operate on truth values with the logical operators & (logical conjunction or “and”)
       and : (logical disjunction or “or”).  They evaluate as comparison operators do.  A logical
       complementation (“not”) operator, !, works only within “if”, “ie”, and  “while”  requests.
       Furthermore,  !  is recognized only at the beginning of a numeric expression not contained
       by another numeric expression.  In other words,  it  must  be  the  “outermost”  operator.
       Including  it elsewhere in the expression produces a warning in the “number” category (see
       troff(1)), and its expression evaluates  false.   This  unfortunate  limitation  maintains
       compatibility with AT&T troff.  Test a numeric expression for falsity by comparing it to a
       false value.

       The roff language has no operator precedence: expressions are evaluated strictly from left
       to  right, in contrast to schoolhouse arithmetic.  Use parentheses ( ) to impose a desired
       precedence upon subexpressions.

       For many requests and escape sequences that cause motion on the page, the unary  operators
       +  and  - work differently when leading a numeric expression.  They then indicate a motion
       relative to the drawing  position:  positive  is  down  in  vertical  contexts,  right  in
       horizontal ones.

       +  and  - are also treated differently by the following requests and escape sequences: bp,
       in, ll, pl, pn, po, ps, pvs, rt, ti, \H, \R, and \s.  Here, leading plus and  minus  signs
       serve  as  incrementation  and  decrementation  operators,  respectively.   To  negate  an
       expression, subtract it from zero or include the  unary  minus  in  parentheses  with  its
       argument.

       A  leading  |  operator  indicates  a motion relative not to the drawing position but to a
       boundary.  For horizontal motions, the measurement specifies  a  distance  relative  to  a
       drawing  position corresponding to the beginning of the input line.  By default, tab stops
       reckon movements in this way.  Most escape sequences do not; | tells them to do  so.   For
       vertical  motions, the | operator specifies a distance from the first text baseline on the
       page or in the current diversion, using the current vertical spacing.

       The \B escape sequence tests its argument for validity as a numeric expression.

       A register interpolated as an operand in a numeric expression must have an Arabic  format;
       luckily, this is the default.

       Due  to the way arguments are parsed, spaces are not allowed in numeric expressions unless
       the (sub)expression containing them is surrounded by parentheses.

Identifiers

       An identifier labels a GNU troff datum  such  as  a  register,  name  (macro,  string,  or
       diversion),  typeface,  color, special character, character class, environment, or stream.
       Valid identifiers consist of one or more ordinary characters.  An ordinary character is an
       input  character  that  is not the escape character, a leader, tab, newline, or invalid as
       GNU troff input.

       Invalid input characters are subset of control characters (from the sets “C0 Controls” and
       “C1  Controls” as Unicode describes them).  When troff encounters one in an identifier, it
       produces a warning in category “input” (see section “Warnings”  in  troff(1)).   They  are
       removed  during  interpretation: an identifier “foo”, followed by an invalid character and
       then “bar”, is processed as “foobar”.

       On a machine using the  ISO  646,  8859,  or  10646  character  encodings,  invalid  input
       characters  are  0x00,  0x08, 0x0B, 0x0D0x1F, and 0x800x9F.  On an EBCDIC host, they are
       0x000x01, 0x08, 0x09, 0x0B, 0x0D0x14, 0x170x1F, and  0x300x3F.   Some  of  these  code
       points are used by troff internally, making it non-trivial to extend the program to accept
       UTF-8 or other encodings that use characters from these ranges.

       An identifier with a closing bracket (“]”) in its name can't be accessed with bracket-form
       escape  sequences that expect an identifier as a parameter.  Similarly, the identifier “(”
       can't be interpolated except with bracket forms.

       If you begin a macro, string, or diversion name with either of the characters “[” or  “]”,
       you  foreclose  use  of  the  refer(1)  preprocessor,  which  recognizes  “.[” and “.]” as
       bibliographic reference delimiters.

       The escape sequence \A tests its argument for validity as an identifier.

       How GNU troff handles the  interpretation  of  an  undefined  identifier  depends  on  the
       context.   There is no way to invoke an undefined request; such syntax is interpreted as a
       macro call instead.  If the identifier is interpreted as a string,  macro,  or  diversion,
       troff  emits  a  warning in category “mac”, defines it as empty, and interpolates nothing.
       If the identifier is interpreted as a register, troff emits a warning in  category  “reg”,
       initializes  it to zero, and interpolates that value.  See section “Warnings” in troff(1),
       and subsection “Interpolating registers” and section “Strings” below.  Attempting  to  use
       an  undefined  typeface, style, special character, color, character class, environment, or
       stream generally provokes an error diagnostic.

       Identifiers for requests, macros, strings, and diversions share one  name  space;  special
       characters and character classes another.  No other object types do.

Control characters

       Control  characters  are  recognized  only  at  the  beginning of an input line, or at the
       beginning of the branch of a control structure request; see section  “Control  structures”
       below.

       A few requests cause a break implicitly; use the no-break control character to prevent the
       break.  Break suppression is its sole  behavioral  distinction.   Employing  the  no-break
       control character to invoke requests that don't cause breaks is harmless but poor style.

       The  control  character “.” and the no-break control character “'” can be changed with the
       cc and c2 requests, respectively.  Within a macro definition, register .br  indicates  the
       control character used to call it.

Invoking requests

       A  control  character  is optionally followed by tabs and/or spaces and then an identifier
       naming a request or macro.  The invocation of an unrecognized request is interpreted as  a
       macro  call.   Defining  a  macro  with  the  same name as a request replaces the request.
       Deleting a request name with the rm request makes it unavailable.   The  als  request  can
       alias  requests, permitting them to be wrapped or non-destructively replaced.  See section
       “Strings” below.

       There is no inherent limit on argument length or quantity.  Most requests take one or more
       arguments,  and  ignore  any  they  do  not  expect.   A request may be separated from its
       arguments by tabs or spaces, but only spaces can separate an argument from its  successor.
       Only  one between arguments is necessary; any excess is ignored.  GNU troff does not allow
       tabs for argument separation.

       Generally, a space within a request argument  is  not  relevant,  not  meaningful,  or  is
       supported by bespoke provisions, as with the tl request's delimiters.  Some requests, like
       ds, interpret the remainder of the  control  line  as  a  single  argument.   See  section
       “Strings” below.

       Spaces  and  tabs  immediately  after  a control character are ignored.  Commonly, authors
       structure the source of documents or macro files with them.

Calling macros

       If a macro of the desired name does not exist when called,  it  is  created,  assigned  an
       empty  definition, and a warning in category “mac” is emitted.  Calling an undefined macro
       does end a macro definition naming it as its  end  macro  (see  section  “Writing  macros”
       below).

       To  embed  spaces  within  a macro argument, enclose the argument in neutral double quotes
       ‘"’.  Horizontal motion escape sequences are sometimes a better choice for arguments to be
       formatted as text.

       The  foregoing raises the question of how to embed neutral double quotes or backslashes in
       macro arguments when those characters are desired as literals.  In GNU troff, the  special
       character escape sequence \[rs] produces a backslash and \[dq] a neutral double quote.

       In  GNU  troff's  AT&T  compatibility  mode, these characters remain available as \(rs and
       \(dq, respectively.  AT&T troff did not consistently define these special characters,  but
       its  descendants  can  be  made  to support them.  See groff_font(5).  If even that is not
       feasible, see the “Calling Macros” section of the groff Texinfo  manual  for  the  complex
       macro argument quoting rules of AT&T troff.

Using escape sequences

       Whereas  requests  must occur on control lines, escape sequences can occur intermixed with
       text and may appear in arguments to requests, macros,  and  other  escape  sequences.   An
       escape  sequence is introduced by the escape character, a backslash \.  The next character
       selects the escape's function.

       Escape sequences vary in length.  Some take an argument, and of those, some have different
       syntactical  forms  for  a  one-character,  two-character,  or  arbitrary-length argument.
       Others accept only an arbitrary-length argument.  In the former  scheme,  a  one-character
       argument follows the function character immediately, an opening parenthesis “(” introduces
       a two-character argument (no closing parenthesis is used), and an  argument  of  arbitrary
       length  is  enclosed in brackets “[]”.  In the latter scheme, the user selects a delimiter
       character.  A few escape sequences are idiosyncratic, and support both  of  the  foregoing
       conventions  (\s),  designate their own termination sequence (\?), consume input until the
       next newline (\!, \", \#), or support an additional modifier character (\s again, and \n).

       If an escape character is followed by  a  character  that  does  not  identify  a  defined
       operation, the escape character is ignored (producing a diagnostic of the “escape” warning
       category, which is not enabled by  default)  and  the  following  character  is  processed
       normally.

       Escape  sequence  interpolation  is  of  higher  precedence  than escape sequence argument
       interpretation.  This rule affords flexibility in  using  escape  sequences  to  construct
       parameters to other escape sequences.

       The escape character can be interpolated (\e).  Requests permit the escape mechanism to be
       deactivated (eo) and restored, or the escape character  changed  (ec),  and  to  save  and
       restore it (ecs and ecr).

Delimiters

       Some escape sequences that require parameters use delimiters.  The neutral apostrophe ' is
       a popular choice and shown in this document.  The neutral double quote " is also  commonly
       seen.   Letters,  numerals,  and  leaders  can be used.  Punctuation characters are likely
       better choices, except for those defined as infix operators in  numeric  expressions;  see
       below.

       The  following  escape  sequences don't take arguments and thus are allowed as delimiters:
       \space, \%, \|, \^, \{, \}, \', \`, \-, \_, \!, \?, \), \/, \,, \&, \:, \~,  \0,  \a,  \c,
       \d,  \e,  \E,  \p,  \r, \t, and \u.  However, using them this way is discouraged; they can
       make the input confusing to read.

       A few escape sequences, \A, \b, \o, \w, \X, and \Z,  accept  a  newline  as  a  delimiter.
       Newlines  that  serve  as  delimiters continue to be recognized as input line terminators.
       Use of newlines as delimiters in escape sequences is also discouraged.

       Finally, the escape sequences \D, \h, \H, \l, \L, \N, \R, \s, \S, \v, and \x prohibit many
       delimiters.

              • the numerals 0–9 and the decimal point “.”

              • the (single-character) operators +-/*%<>=&:()

              • any  escape  sequences other than \%, \:, \{, \}, \', \`, \-, \_, \!, \/, \c, \e,
                and \p

       Delimiter syntax is complex and flexible primarily for historical reasons;  the  foregoing
       restrictions need be kept in mind mainly when using groff in AT&T compatibility mode.  GNU
       troff keeps track of the nesting depth of escape  sequence  interpolations,  so  the  only
       characters  you  need  to avoid using as delimiters are those that appear in the arguments
       you input, not any that result from interpolation.  Typically, ' works fine.  See  section
       “Implementation differences” in groff_diff(7).

Dummy characters

       As  discussed  in  roff(7),  the  first  character  on an input line is treated specially.
       Further, formatting a  glyph  has  many  consequences  on  formatter  state  (see  section
       “Environments”  below).   Occasionally,  we want to escape this context or embrace some of
       those consequences without actually rendering a glyph to the output.   \&  interpolates  a
       dummy  character,  which is constitutive of output but invisible.  Its presence alters the
       interpretation context of a subsequent input character, and enjoys  several  applications:
       preventing  the  insertion  of  extra space after an end-of-sentence character, preventing
       interpretation of a control character at  the  beginning  of  an  input  line,  preventing
       kerning  between  two  glyphs,  and  permitting  the  tr  request  to remap a character to
       “nothing”.  \) works as \& does, except that it does not cancel a pending  end-of-sentence
       state.

Control structures

       groff  has  “if” and “while” control structures like other languages.  However, the syntax
       for grouping multiple input lines in  the  branches  or  bodies  of  these  structures  is
       unusual.

       They  have  a  common  form:  the  request  name  is (except for .el “else”) followed by a
       conditional expression cond-expr; the remainder of the line, anything, is  interpreted  as
       if  it  were  an  input line.  Any quantity of spaces between arguments to requests serves
       only to separate them; leading spaces  in  anything  are  therefore  not  seen.   anything
       effectively  cannot be omitted; if cond-expr is true and anything is empty, the newline at
       the end of the control line is interpreted as a blank line (and  therefore  a  blank  text
       line).

       It  is frequently desirable for a control structure to govern more than one request, macro
       call, or text line, or a combination of the foregoing.   The  opening  and  closing  brace
       escape  sequences  \{  and  \}  perform  such grouping.  Brace escape sequences outside of
       control structures have no meaning and produce no output.

       \{ should appear (after optional spaces and tabs) immediately subsequent to the  request's
       conditional  expression.   \}  should appear on a line with other occurrences of itself as
       necessary to match \{ sequences.  It can be preceded by a control character,  spaces,  and
       tabs.   Input after any quantity of \} sequences on the same line is processed only if all
       the preceding conditions to which they correspond are true.  Furthermore, a \} closing the
       body of a .while request must be the last such escape sequence on an input line.

   Conditional expressions
       The .if, .ie, and .while requests test the truth values of numeric expressions.  They also
       support several additional Boolean operators; the  members  of  this  expanded  class  are
       termed conditional expressions; their truth values are as shown below.

       cond-expr...   ...is true if...
       ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
            's1's2'   s1 produces the same formatted output as s2.
                c g   a glyph g is available.
                d m   a string, macro, diversion, or request m is defined.
                  e   the current page number is even.
                F f   a font named f is available.
                m c   a color named c is defined.
                  n   the formatter is in nroff mode.
                  o   the current page number is odd.
                r n   a register named n is defined.
                S s   a font style named s is available.
                  t   the formatter is in troff mode.
                  v   n/a (historical artifact; always false).

       If  the  first  argument  to an .if, .ie, or .while request begins with a non-alphanumeric
       character apart from ! (see below); it performs an output comparison test.  Shown first in
       the  table  above,  the output comparison operator interpolates a true value if formatting
       its comparands s1 and s2 produces the same output commands.  Other delimiters can be  used
       in  place  of  the neutral apostrophes.  troff formats s1 and s2 in separate environments;
       after the comparison, the resulting data are discarded.  The resulting  glyph  properties,
       including  font  family,  style,  size,  and  slant,  must  match, but not necessarily the
       requests and/or escape sequences used to obtain them.  Motions must match  in  orientation
       and  magnitude  to  within  the  applicable  horizontal  or vertical motion quantum of the
       device, after rounding.

       Surround the comparands with \? to avoid formatting them; this causes them to be  compared
       character  by character, as with string comparisons in other programming languages.  Since
       comparands protected with \? are read in copy mode, they need  not  even  be  valid  groff
       syntax.   The  escape  character  is still lexically recognized, however, and consumes the
       next character.

       The above operators can't be combined with most others, but a leading  “!”,  not  followed
       immediately  by  spaces  or tabs, complements an expression.  Spaces and tabs are optional
       immediately after the “c”, “d”, “F”, “m”, “r”, and “S” operators,  but  right  after  “!”,
       they  end  the  predicate  and  the  conditional  evaluates  true.  (This bizarre behavior
       maintains compatibility with AT&T troff.)

Syntax reference conventions

       In the following request and escape sequence  specifications,  most  argument  names  were
       chosen to be descriptive.  A few denotations may require introduction.

              c         denotes a single input character.
              font      a font either specified as a font name or a numeric mounting position.
              anything  all characters up to the end of the line, to the ending delimiter for the
                        escape sequence, or within \{ and \}.  Escape sequences may generally  be
                        used freely in anything, except when it is read in copy mode.
              message   is  a  character  sequence  to  be  emitted on the standard error stream.
                        Special character escape sequences are not interpreted.
              n         is a numeric expression that evaluates to a non-negative integer.
              npl       is a numeric expression constituting a  count  of  subsequent  productive
                        input lines; that is, those that directly produce formatted output.  Text
                        lines produce output, as do control lines containing requests like .tl or
                        escape sequences like \D.  Macro calls are not themselves productive, but
                        their interpolated contents can be.
              ±N        is a numeric expression with a meaning dependent on its sign.

       If a numeric expression presented as ±N starts with a ‘+’ sign, an increment in the amount
       of  of  N  is  applied  to  the value applicable to the request or escape sequence.  If it
       starts with a ‘-’ sign, a decrement of magnitude N is applied instead.  Without a sign,  N
       replaces  any  existing  value.   A  leading  minus  sign  in N is always interpreted as a
       decrementation operator, not an algebraic sign.  To assign a register a negative value  or
       the  negated  value  of  another  register,  enclose it with its operand in parentheses or
       subtract it from zero.  If a prior value does not exist (the register was  undefined),  an
       increment or decrement is applied as if to 0.

Request short reference

       Not  all  details of request behavior are outlined here.  See the groff Texinfo manual or,
       for features new to GNU troff, groff_diff(7).

       .ab       Abort processing; exit with failure status.
       .ab message
                 Abort processing; write message to the  standard  error  stream  and  exit  with
                 failure status.
       .ad       Enable output line alignment and adjustment using the mode stored in \n[.j].
       .ad c     Enable  output  line  alignment  and  adjustment  in mode c (c=b,c,l,n,r).  Sets
                 \n[.j].
       .af register c
                 Assign format c to register, where c is “i”, “I”, “a”, “A”,  or  a  sequence  of
                 decimal  digits  whose  quantity  denotes the minimum width in digits to be used
                 when the register is interpolated.  “i” and  “a”  indicate  Roman  numerals  and
                 basic Latin alphabetics, respectively, in the lettercase specified.  The default
                 is 0.
       .aln new old
                 Create alias (additional name) new for existing register named old.
       .als new old
                 Create alias (additional name) new  for  existing  request,  string,  macro,  or
                 diversion old.
       .am macro Append to macro until .. is encountered.
       .am macro end
                 Append to macro until .end is called.
       .am1 macro
                 Same as .am but with compatibility mode switched off during macro expansion.
       .am1 macro end
                 Same as .am but with compatibility mode switched off during macro expansion.
       .ami macro
                 Append  to  a  macro  whose  name  is  contained in the string macro until .. is
                 encountered.
       .ami macro end
                 Append to a macro indirectly.  macro and end  are  strings  whose  contents  are
                 interpolated for the macro name and the end macro, respectively.
       .ami1 macro
                 Same as .ami but with compatibility mode switched off during macro expansion.
       .ami1 macro end
                 Same as .ami but with compatibility mode switched off during macro expansion.
       .as name  Create string name with empty contents; no operation if name already exists.
       .as name contents
                 Append contents to string name.
       .as1 string
       .as1 string contents
                 As .as, but with compatibility mode disabled when contents interpolated.
       .asciify diversion
                 Unformat ASCII characters, spaces, and some escape sequences in diversion.
       .backtrace
                 Write  the  state  of  the input stack to the standard error stream.  See the -b
                 option of groff(1).
       .bd font  Stop emboldening font font.
       .bd font n
                 Embolden font by overstriking its glyphs offset by n-1 units.  See register .b.
       .bd special-font font
                 Stop emboldening special-font when font is selected.
       .bd special-font font n
                 Embolden special-font, overstriking its glyphs offset by n-1 units when font  is
                 selected.  See register .b.
       .blm      Unset blank line macro (trap).  Restore default handling of blank lines.
       .blm name Set blank line macro (trap) to name.
       .box      Stop  directing  output  to  current  diversion;  any  pending  output  line  is
                 discarded.
       .box name Direct output to diversion name, omitting a partially collected line.
       .boxa     Stop  appending  output  to  current  diversion;  any  pending  output  line  is
                 discarded.
       .boxa name
                 Append output to diversion name, omitting a partially collected line.
       .bp       Break page and start a new one.
       .bp ±N    Break page, starting a new one numbered ±N.
       .br       Break output line.
       .brp      Break output line; adjust if applicable.
       .break    Break out of a while loop.
       .c2       Reset no-break control character to “'”.
       .c2 o     Recognize ordinary character o as no-break control character.
       .cc       Reset control character to ‘.’.
       .cc o     Recognize ordinary character o as the control character.
       .ce       Break,  center the output of the next productive input line without filling, and
                 break again.
       .ce npl   Break, center the output of the next npl productive input lines without filling,
                 then break again.  If npl ≤ 0, stop centering.
       .cf file  Copy contents of file without formatting to the (top-level) diversion.
       .cflags n c1 c2 ...
                 Assign properties encoded by n to characters c1, c2, and so on.
       .ch name  Unplant page location trap name.
       .ch name vpos
                 Change  page  location  trap  name planted by .wh by moving its location to vpos
                 (default scaling unit v).
       .char c contents
                 Define ordinary or special character c as contents.
       .chop object
                 Remove the last character from the macro, string, or diversion named object.
       .class name c1 c2 ...
                 Define a (character) class name comprising the characters or  range  expressions
                 c1, c2, and so on.
       .close stream
                 Close the stream.
       .color    Enable output of color-related device-independent output commands.
       .color n  If  n  is  zero,  disable  output  of  color-related  device-independent  output
                 commands; otherwise, enable them.
       .composite from to
                 Map glyph name from to glyph name to while constructing a composite glyph name.
       .continue Finish the current iteration of a while loop.
       .cp       Enable compatibility mode.
       .cp n     If n is zero, disable compatibility mode, otherwise enable it.
       .cs font n m
                 Set constant character width mode for font to n/36 ems with em m.
       .cu       Continuously underline the output of the next productive input line.
       .cu npl   Continuously underline the output of the next npl productive  input  lines.   If
                 npl=0, stop continuously underlining.
       .da       Stop appending output to current diversion.
       .da name  Append output to diversion name.
       .de macro Define or redefine macro until “..” occurs at the start of a control line in the
                 current conditional block.
       .de macro end
                 Define or redefine macro until end is invoked  or  called  at  the  start  of  a
                 control line in the current conditional block.
       .de1 macro
                 As .de, but disable compatibility mode during macro expansion.
       .de1 macro end
                 As “.de macro end”, but disable compatibility mode during macro expansion.
       .defcolor ident scheme color-component ...
                 Define  a color named ident.  scheme identifies a color space and determines the
                 number of required color-components; it must be one of “rgb” (three components),
                 “cmy”  (three), “cmyk” (four), or “gray” (one).  “grey” is accepted as a synonym
                 of “gray”.  The color components can be encoded as a  single  hexadecimal  value
                 starting with # or ##.  The former indicates that each component is in the range
                 0–255 (0–FF), the latter the range 0–65,535 (0–FFFF).  Alternatively, each color
                 component  can  be specified as a decimal fraction in the range 0–1, interpreted
                 using a default scaling unit of “f”, which multiplies its value by  65,536  (but
                 clamps  it  at  65,535).   Each output device has a color named “default”, which
                 cannot be redefined.   A  device's  default  stroke  and  fill  colors  are  not
                 necessarily the same.
       .dei macro
                 Define  macro  indirectly.  As .de, but use interpolation of string macro as the
                 name of the defined macro.
       .dei macro end
                 Define macro indirectly.  As .de, but use interpolations of  strings  macro  and
                 end as the names of the defined and end macros.
       .dei1 macro
                 As .dei, but disable compatibility mode during macro expansion.
       .dei1 macro end
                 As .dei macro end, but disable compatibility mode during macro expansion.
       .device anything
                 Write  anything, read in copy mode, to troff output as a device control command.
                 An initial neutral double quote  is  stripped  to  allow  embedding  of  leading
                 spaces.
       .devicem name
                 Write  contents  of  macro  or  string  name to troff output as a device control
                 command.
       .di       Stop directing output to current diversion.
       .di name  Direct output to diversion name.
       .do name ...
                 Interpret the  string,  request,  diversion,  or  macro  name  (along  with  any
                 arguments)  with  compatibility  mode  disabled.  Compatibility mode is restored
                 (only if it was active) when the expansion of name is interpreted.
       .ds name  Create empty string name.
       .ds name contents
                 Create a string name containing contents.
       .ds1 name
       .ds1 name contents
                 As .ds, but with compatibility mode disabled when contents interpolated.
       .dt       Clear diversion trap.
       .dt vertical-position name
                 Set the diversion trap to  macro  name  at  vertical-position  (default  scaling
                 unit v).
       .ec       Recognize \ as the escape character.
       .ec o     Recognize ordinary character o as the escape character.
       .ecr      Restore escape character saved with .ecs.
       .ecs      Save the escape character.
       .el anything
                 Interpret  anything as if it were an input line if the conditional expression of
                 the corresponding .ie request was false.
       .em name  Call macro name after the end of input.
       .eo       Disable the escape mechanism in interpretation mode.
       .ev       Pop environment stack, returning to previous one.
       .ev env   Push current environment onto stack and switch to env.
       .evc env  Copy environment env to the current one.
       .ex       Exit with successful status.
       .fam      Set default font family to previous value.
       .fam name Set default font family to name.
       .fc       Disable field mechanism.
       .fc a     Set field delimiter to a and pad glyph to space.
       .fc a b   Set field delimiter to a and pad glyph to b.
       .fchar c contents
                 Define fallback character (or glyph) c as contents.
       .fcolor   Restore previous fill color.
       .fcolor c Set fill color to c.
       .fi       Enable filling of output lines; a pending output line is broken.  Sets \n[.u].
       .fl       Flush output buffer.
       .fp pos id
                 Mount font with font description file name id at non-negative position n.
       .fp pos id font-description-file-name
                 Mount  font  with  font-description-file-name  as  name   id   at   non-negative
                 position n.
       .fschar f c anything
                 Define fallback character (or glyph) c for font f as string anything.
       .fspecial font
                 Reset list of special fonts for font to be empty.
       .fspecial font s1 s2 ...
                 When the current font is font, then the fonts s1, s2, ... are special.
       .ft
       .ft P     Select previous font mounting position (abstract style or font); same as \f[] or
                 \fP.
       .ft font  Select typeface font, which can be a mounting position, abstract style, or  font
                 name; same as \f[font] escape sequence.  font cannot be P.
       .ftr font1 font2
                 Translate font1 to font2.
       .fzoom font
       .fzoom font 0
                 Stop magnifying font.
       .fzoom font z
                 Set zoom factor for font to z (in thousandths; default: 1000).
       .gcolor   Restore previous stroke color.
       .gcolor c Set stroke color to c.
       .hc       Reset the hyphenation character to \% (the default).
       .hc char  Change the hyphenation character to char.
       .hcode c1 code1 [c2 code2] ...
                 Set  the  hyphenation code of character c1 to code1, that of c2 to code2, and so
                 on.
       .hla lang Set the hyphenation language to lang.
       .hlm n    Set the maximum quantity of consecutive hyphenated lines to n.
       .hpf pattern-file
                 Read hyphenation patterns from pattern-file.
       .hpfa pattern-file
                 Append hyphenation patterns from pattern-file.
       .hpfcode a b [c d] ...
                 Define mappings for character codes in hyphenation pattern files read with  .hpf
                 and .hpfa.
       .hw word ...
                 Define hyphenation overrides for each word; a hyphen “-” indicates a hyphenation
                 point.
       .hy       Set automatic hyphenation mode to 1.
       .hy 0     Disable automatic hyphenation; same as .nh.
       .hy mode  Set automatic hyphenation mode to mode; see section “Hyphenation” below.
       .hym      Set the (right) hyphenation margin to 0 (the default).
       .hym length
                 Set the (right) hyphenation margin to length (default scaling unit m).
       .hys      Set the hyphenation space to 0 (the default).
       .hys hyphenation-space
                 Suppress automatic hyphenation in adjustment modes “b” or “n” if the line can be
                 justified  with the addition of up to hyphenation-space to each inter-word space
                 (default scaling unit m).
       .ie cond-expr anything
                 If cond-expr is true, interpret anything as if it were an input line,  otherwise
                 skip to a corresponding .el request.
       .if cond-expr anything
                 If cond-expr is true, then interpret anything as if it were an input line.
       .ig       Ignore  input  (except  for  side  effects of \R on auto-incrementing registers)
                 until “..” occurs at the start of a control  line  in  the  current  conditional
                 block.
       .ig end   Ignore  input  (except  for  side  effects of \R on auto-incrementing registers)
                 until .end is called at the start of a control line in the  current  conditional
                 block.
       .in       Set indentation amount to previous value.
       .in ±N    Set indentation to ±N (default scaling unit m).
       .it       Cancel any pending input line trap.
       .it npl name
                 Set  (or  replace)  an  input  line trap in the environment, calling macro name,
                 after the next npl productive input lines have  been  read.   Lines  interrupted
                 with the \c escape sequence are counted separately.
       .itc      Cancel any pending input line trap.
       .itc npl name
                 As  .it, except that input lines interrupted with the \c escape sequence are not
                 counted.
       .kern     Enable pairwise kerning.
       .kern n   If n is zero, disable pairwise kerning, otherwise enable it.
       .lc       Unset leader repetition character.
       .lc c     Set leader repetition character to c (default: “.”).
       .length reg anything
                 Compute the number of characters of anything and store the count in the register
                 reg.
       .linetabs Enable  line-tabs  mode (calculate tab positions relative to beginning of output
                 line).
       .linetabs 0
                 Disable line-tabs mode.
       .lf n     Set number of next input line to n.
       .lf n file
                 Set number of next input line to n and input file name to file.
       .lg m     Set ligature mode to m (0 = disable, 1 =  enable,  2  =  enable  for  two-letter
                 ligatures only).
       .ll       Set line length to previous value.  Does not affect a pending output line.
       .ll ±N    Set  line  length to ±N (default length 6.5i, default scaling unit m).  Does not
                 affect a pending output line.
       .lsm      Unset the leading space macro (trap).  Restore default handling  of  lines  with
                 leading spaces.
       .lsm name Set the leading space macro (trap) to name.
       .ls       Change to the previous value of additional intra-line skip.
       .ls n     Set  additional  intra-line  skip value to n, i.e., n-1 blank lines are inserted
                 after each text output line.
       .lt       Set length of title lines to previous value.
       .lt ±N    Set length of title lines (default length 6.5i, default scaling unit m).
       .mc       Cease writing margin character.
       .mc c     Begin writing margin character c to the right of each output line.
       .mc c d   Begin writing margin character c on each output line at distance d to the  right
                 of the right margin (default distance 10p, default scaling unit m).
       .mk       Mark vertical drawing position in an internal register; see .rt.
       .mk register
                 Mark vertical drawing position in register.
       .mso file As .so, except that file is sought in the tmac directories.
       .msoquiet file
                 As .mso, but no warning is emitted if file does not exist.
       .na       Disable output line adjustment.
       .ne       Break page if distance to next page location trap is less than one vee.
       .ne d     Break  page  if  distance  to  next  page  location trap is less than distance d
                 (default scaling unit v).
       .nf       Disable filling of output lines;  a  pending  output  line  is  broken.   Clears
                 \n[.u].
       .nh       Disable automatic hyphenation; same as “.hy 0”.
       .nm       Deactivate output line numbering.
       .nm ±N
       .nm ±N m
       .nm ±N m s
       .nm ±N m s i
                 Activate  output line numbering: number the next output line ±N, writing numbers
                 every m lines, with s numeral widths (\0) between the line number and the output
                 (default 1), and indenting the line number by i numeral widths (default 0).
       .nn       Suppress numbering of the next output line to be numbered with nm.
       .nn n     Suppress  numbering  of the next n output lines to be numbered with nm.  If n=0,
                 cancel suppression.
       .nop anything
                 Interpret anything as if it were an input line.
       .nr reg ±N
                 Define or update register reg with value N.
       .nr reg ±N I
                 Define or update register reg with value N and auto-increment I.
       .nroff    Make the conditional expressions n true and t false.
       .ns       Enable no-space mode, ignoring .sp requests until a glyph  or  \D  primitive  is
                 output.  See .rs.
       .nx       Immediately jump to end of current file.
       .nx file  Stop formatting current file and begin reading file.
       .open stream file
                 Open  file  for  writing  and associate the stream named stream with it.  Unsafe
                 request; disabled by default.
       .opena stream file
                 As .open, but append to file.  Unsafe request; disabled by default.
       .os       Output vertical distance that was saved by the .sv request.
       .output contents
                 Emit contents directly to intermediate output, allowing  leading  whitespace  if
                 string starts with " (which is stripped off).
       .pc       Reset page number character to ‘%’.
       .pc c     Page number character.
       .pev      Report  the  state  of  the  current  environment  followed by that of all other
                 environments to the standard error stream.
       .pi program
                 Pipe output to program (nroff only).  Unsafe request; disabled by default.
       .pl       Set page length to default 11i.  The current page length is stored  in  register
                 .p.
       .pl ±N    Change page length to ±N (default scaling unit v).
       .pm       Report,  to  the  standard error stream, the names and sizes in bytes of defined
                 macros, strings, and diversions.
       .pn ±N    Next page number N.
       .pnr      Write the names and contents of all defined  registers  to  the  standard  error
                 stream.
       .po       Change  to  previous  page  offset.   The  current  page  offset is available in
                 register .o.
       .po ±N    Page offset N.
       .ps       Return to previous type size.
       .ps ±N    Set/increase/decrease the type  size  to/by  N  scaled  points  (a  non-positive
                 resulting type size is set to 1 u); also see \s[±N].
       .psbb file
                 Retrieve  the  bounding  box  of  the PostScript image found in file, which must
                 conform to Adobe's Document Structuring Conventions (DSC).  See  registers  llx,
                 lly, urx, ury.
       .pso command-line
                 Execute  command-line with popen(3) and interpolate its output.  Unsafe request;
                 disabled by default.
       .ptr      Report names and positions of all page location  traps  to  the  standard  error
                 stream.
       .pvs      Change to previous post-vertical line spacing.
       .pvs ±N   Change post-vertical line spacing according to ±N (default scaling unit p).
       .rchar c1 c2 ...
                 Remove definition of each ordinary or special character c1, c2, ... defined by a
                 .char, .fchar, or .schar request.
       .rd prompt
                 Read insertion.
       .return   Return from a macro.
       .return anything
                 Return twice, namely from the macro at the current level and from the macro  one
                 level higher.
       .rfschar f c1 c2 ...
                 Remove the font-specific definitions of glyphs c1, c2, ... for font f.
       .rj npl   Break, right-align the output of the next productive input line without filling,
                 then break again.
       .rj npl   Break, right-align the output of the next npl  productive  input  lines  without
                 filling, then break again.  If npl ≤ 0, stop right-aligning.
       .rm name  Remove request, macro, diversion, or string name.
       .rn old new
                 Rename request, macro, diversion, or string old to new.
       .rnn reg1 reg2
                 Rename register reg1 to reg2.
       .rr ident Remove register ident.
       .rs       Restore spacing; disable no-space mode.  See .ns.
       .rt       Return (upward only) to vertical position marked by .mk on the current page.
       .rt N     Return (upward only) to vertical position N (default scaling unit v).
       .schar c contents
                 Define global fallback character (or glyph) c as contents.
       .shc      Reset the soft hyphen character to \[hy].
       .shc c    Set the soft hyphen character to c.
       .shift n  In a macro definition, left-shift arguments by n positions.
       .sizes s1 s2 ... sn [0]
                 Set  available type sizes similarly to the sizes directive in a DESC file.  Each
                 si is interpreted in units of scaled points (z).
       .so file  Replace the request's control line with the contents of file, “sourcing” it.
       .soquiet file
                 As .so, but no warning is emitted if file does not exist.
       .sp       Break and move the next text baseline down by one vee, or until springing a page
                 location trap.
       .sp dist  Break  and  move  the next text baseline down by dist, or until springing a page
                 location trap (default scaling unit v).  A negative dist  will  not  reduce  the
                 position  of  the  text baseline below zero.  Prefixing dist with the | operator
                 moves to a position relative to the page top for positive N, and the bottom if N
                 is  negative;  in  all  cases,  one line height (vee) is added to dist.  dist is
                 ignored inside a diversion.
       .special  Reset global list of special fonts to be empty.
       .special s1 s2 ...
                 Fonts s1, s2, etc. are special and are searched for glyphs not  in  the  current
                 font.
       .spreadwarn
                 Toggle the spread warning on and off (the default) without changing its value.
       .spreadwarn N
                 Emit  a  break  warning  if the additional space inserted for each space between
                 words in an adjusted output line is greater than or equal to N.  A negative N is
                 treated  as  0.   The  default  scaling  unit  is m.  At startup, .spreadwarn is
                 inactive and N is 3 m.
       .ss n     Set minimal inter-word spacing to n 12ths of current font's space width.
       .ss n m   As “.ss n”, and set additional inter-sentence space to m 12ths of current font's
                 space width.
       .stringdown stringvar
                 Replace each byte in the string named stringvar with its lowercase version.
       .stringup stringvar
                 Replace each byte in the string named stringvar with its uppercase version.
       .sty n style
                 Associate abstract style with font position n.
       .substring str start [end]
                 Replace the string named str with its substring bounded by the indices start and
                 end, inclusive.  Negative indices count backwards from the end of the string.
       .sv       As .ne, but save 1 v for output with .os request.
       .sv d     As .ne, but save distance d for later output with .os request  (default  scaling
                 unit v).
       .sy command-line
                 Execute command-line with system(3).  Unsafe request; disabled by default.
       .ta n1 n2 ... nn T r1 r2 ... rn
                 Set  tabs  at  positions  n1,  n2,  ..., nn, then set tabs at nn+m×rn+r1 through
                 nn+m×rn+rn, where m increments from 0, 1, 2, ...  to  the  output  line  length.
                 Each  n  argument  can  be  prefixed  with  a  “+” to place the tab stop ni at a
                 distance relative to the previous, n(i-1).   Each  argument  ni  or  ri  can  be
                 suffixed  with a letter to align text within the tab column bounded by tab stops
                 i and i+1; “L” for left-aligned (the default), “C” for  centered,  and  “R”  for
                 right-aligned.
       .tag
       .taga     Reserved for internal use.
       .tc       Unset tab repetition character.
       .tc c     Set tab repetition character to c (default: none).
       .ti ±N    Temporarily indent next output line (default scaling unit m).
       .tkf font s1 n1 s2 n2
                 Enable track kerning for font.
       .tl 'left'center'right'
                 Format three-part title.
       .tm message
                 Write message, followed by a newline, to the standard error stream.
       .tm1 message
                 As  .tm,  but an initial neutral double quote in message is removed, allowing it
                 to contain leading spaces.
       .tmc message
                 As .tm1, without emitting a newline.
       .tr abcd...
                 Translate ordinary or special characters a to b, c to d,  and  so  on  prior  to
                 output.
       .trf file Transparently output the contents of file.  Unlike .cf, invalid input characters
                 in file are rejected.
       .trin abcd...
                 As .tr, except that  .asciify  ignores  the  translation  when  a  diversion  is
                 interpolated.
       .trnt abcd...
                 As .tr, except that translations are suppressed in the argument to \!.
       .troff    Make the conditional expressions t true and n false.
       .uf font  Set underline font used by .ul to font.
       .ul       Underline  (italicize  in  troff  mode)  the output of the next productive input
                 line.
       .ul npl   Underline (italicize in troff mode) the output of the next npl productive  input
                 line.  If npl=0, stop underlining.
       .unformat diversion
                 Unformat space characters and tabs in diversion, preserving font information.
       .vpt      Enable vertical position traps.
       .vpt 0    Disable vertical position traps.
       .vs       Change to previous vertical spacing.
       .vs ±N    Set vertical spacing to ±N (default scaling unit p).
       .warn     Enable all warning categories.
       .warn 0   Disable all warning categories.
       .warn n   Enable warnings in categories whose codes sum to n; see troff(1).
       .warnscale su
                 Set  scaling  unit  used  in  certain  warnings  to su (one of u, i, c, p, or P;
                 default: i).
       .wh vpos  Remove visible page location trap at vpos (default scaling unit v).
       .wh vpos name
                 Plant macro name as page  location  trap  at  vpos  (default  scaling  unit  v),
                 removing any visible trap already there.
       .while cond-expr anything
                 Repeatedly execute anything unless and until cond-expr evaluates false.
       .write stream anything
                 Write anything to the stream named stream.
       .writec stream anything
                 Similar to .write without emitting a final newline.
       .writem stream xx
                 Write contents of macro or string xx to the stream named stream.

Escape sequence short reference

       The  escape  sequences  \",  \#,  \$,  \*,  \?,  \a,  \e, \n, \t, \g, \V, and \newline are
       interpreted even in copy mode.

       \"     Comment.  Everything up to the end of the line is ignored.
       \#     Comment.  Everything up to and including the next newline is ignored.
       \*s    Interpolate string with one-character name s.
       \*(st  Interpolate string with two-character name st.
       \*[string]
              Interpolate string with name string (of arbitrary length).
       \*[string arg ...]
              Interpolate string with name string  (of  arbitrary  length),  taking  arg  ...  as
              arguments.
       \$0    Interpolate name by which currently executing macro was invoked.
       \$n    Interpolate macro or string parameter numbered n (1≤n≤9).
       \$(nn  Interpolate macro or string parameter numbered nn (01≤nn≤99).
       \$[nnn]
              Interpolate macro or string parameter numbered nnn (nnn≥1).
       \$*    Interpolate concatenation of all macro or string parameters, separated by spaces.
       \$@    Interpolate  concatenation  of all macro or string parameters, with each surrounded
              by double quotes and separated by spaces.
       \$^    Interpolate concatenation of all  macro  or  string  parameters  as  if  they  were
              arguments to the .ds request.
       \'     is a synonym for \[aa], the acute accent special character.
       \`     is a synonym for \[ga], the grave accent special character.
       \-     is a synonym for \[-], the minus sign special character.
       \_     is a synonym for \[ul], the underrule special character.
       \%     Control hyphenation.
       \!     Transparent  line.   The  remainder  of  the input line is interpreted (1) when the
              current  diversion  is  read;  or  (2)  if  in  the  top-level  diversion,  by  the
              postprocessor (if any).
       \?anything\?
              Transparently  embed anything, read in copy mode, in a diversion, or unformatted as
              an output comparand in a conditional expression.
       \space Move right one word space.
       \~     Insert an unbreakable, adjustable space.
       \0     Move right by the width of a numeral in the current font.
       \|     Move one-sixth em to the right on typesetters.
       \^     Move one-twelfth em to the right on typesetters.
       \&     Interpolate a dummy character.
       \)     Interpolate a dummy character that is transparent to end-of-sentence recognition.
       \/     Apply italic correction.  Use between an immediately adjacent oblique glyph on  the
              left and an upright glyph on the right.
       \,     Apply left italic correction.  Use between an immediately adjacent upright glyph on
              the left and an oblique glyph on the right.
       \:     Non-printing break point (similar to \%, but never produces a hyphen glyph).
       \newline
              Continue current input line on the next.
       \{     Begin conditional input.
       \}     End conditional input.
       \(gl   Interpolate glyph with two-character name gl.
       \[glyph]
              Interpolate glyph with name glyph (of arbitrary length).
       \[base-char comp ...]
              Interpolate composite glyph constructed from base-char and each component comp.
       \[charnnn]
              Interpolate glyph of eight-bit encoded character nnn, where 0≤nnn≤255.
       \[unnnn[n[n]]]
              Interpolate glyph of Unicode character with  code  point  nnnn[n[n]]  in  uppercase
              hexadecimal.
       \[ubase-char[_combining-component]...]
              Interpolate  composite  glyph  from  Unicode  character  base-char  and  combining-
              components.
       \a     Interpolate a leader in copy mode.
       \A'anything'
              Interpolate 1 if anything is a valid identifier, and 0 otherwise.
       \b'string'
              Build bracket: pile a sequence of glyphs corresponding to each character in  string
              vertically, and center it vertically on the output line.
       \B'anything'
              Interpolate 1 if anything is a valid numeric expression, and 0 otherwise.
       \c     Continue output line at next input line.
       \C'glyph'
              As \[glyph], but compatible with other troff implementations.
       \d     Move downward ½ em on typesetters.
       \D'drawing-command'
              See subsection “Drawing commands” below.
       \e     Interpolate the escape character.
       \E     As \e, but not interpreted in copy mode.
       \fP    Select  previous  font mounting position (abstract style or font); same as “.ft” or
              “.ft P”.
       \fF    Select font mounting position, abstract style, or font with one-character  name  or
              one-digit position F.  F cannot be P.
       \f(ft  Select  font  mounting position, abstract style, or font with two-character name or
              two-digit position ft.
       \f[font]
              Select font mounting position, abstract style, or font with arbitrarily  long  name
              or position font.  font cannot be P.
       \f[]   Select previous font mounting position (abstract style or font).
       \Ff    Set default font family to that with one-character name f.
       \F(fm  Set default font family to that with two-character name fm.
       \F[fam]
              Set default font family to that with arbitrarily long name fam.
       \F[]   Set default font family to previous value.
       \gr    Interpolate format of register with one-character name r.
       \g(rg  Interpolate format of register with two-character name rg.
       \g[reg]
              Interpolate format of register with arbitrarily long name reg.
       \h'N'  Horizontally  move  the  drawing  position  by N ems (or specified units); | may be
              used.  Positive motion is rightward.
       \H'N'  Set height of current font to N scaled points (or specified units).
       \kr    Mark horizontal position in one-character register name r.
       \k(rg  Mark horizontal position in two-character register name rg.
       \k[reg]
              Mark horizontal position in register with arbitrarily long name reg.
       \l'N[c]'
              Draw horizontal line of length N with character c (default: \[ru]; default  scaling
              unit m).
       \L'N[c]'
              Draw  vertical  line  of length N with character c (default: \[br]; default scaling
              unit v).
       \mc    Set stroke color to that with one-character name c.
       \m(cl  Set stroke color to that with two-character name cl.
       \m[color]
              Set stroke color to that with arbitrarily long name color.
       \m[]   Restore previous stroke color.
       \Mc    Set fill color to that with one-character name c.
       \M(cl  Set fill color to that with two-character name cl.
       \M[color]
              Set fill color to that with arbitrarily long name color.
       \M[]   Restore previous fill color.
       \nr    Interpolate contents of register with one-character name r.
       \n(rg  Interpolate contents of register with two-character name rg.
       \n[reg]
              Interpolate contents of register with arbitrarily long name reg.
       \N'n'  Interpolate glyph with index n in the current font.
       \o'abc...'
              Overstrike centered glyphs of characters a, b, c, and so on.
       \O0    At the outermost suppression  level,  disable  emission  of  glyphs  and  geometric
              objects to the output driver.
       \O1    At the outermost suppression level, enable emission of glyphs and geometric objects
              to the output driver.
       \O2    At the outermost suppression level, enable glyph and geometric  primitive  emission
              to  the  output driver and write to the standard error stream the page number, four
              bounding box registers enclosing  glyphs  written  since  the  previous  \O  escape
              sequence,  the  page  offset, line length, image file name (if any), horizontal and
              vertical device motion quanta, and input file name.
       \O3    Begin a nested suppression level.
       \O4    End a nested suppression level.
       \O[5Pfile]
              At the outermost suppression level, write the  name  file  to  the  standard  error
              stream at position P, which must be one of l, r, c, or i.
       \p     Break output line at next word boundary; adjust if applicable.
       \r     Move “in reverse” (upward) 1 em.
       \R'name ±N'
              Set, increment, or decrement register name by N.
       \s±N   Set/increase/decrease  the  type  size  to/by  N scaled points.  N must be a single
              digit; 0 restores the previous type size.  (In compatibility mode only, a  non-zero
              N must be in the range 4–39.)  Otherwise, as .ps request.
       \s(±N
       \s±(N  Set/increase/decrease  the type size to/by N scaled points; N is a two-digit number
              ≥1.  As .ps request.
       \s[±N]
       \s±[N]
       \s'±N'
       \s±'N' Set/increase/decrease the type size to/by N scaled points.  As .ps request.
       \S'N'  Slant output glyphs by N degrees; the direction of text flow is positive.
       \t     Interpolate a tab in copy mode.
       \u     Move upward ½ em on typesetters.
       \v'N'  Vertically move the drawing position by N vees (or specified units); | may be used.
              Positive motion is downward.
       \Ve    Interpolate contents of environment variable with one-character name e.
       \V(ev  Interpolate contents of environment variable with two-character name ev.
       \V[env]
              Interpolate contents of environment variable with arbitrarily long name env.
       \w'anything'
              Interpolate width of anything, formatted in a dummy environment.
       \x'N'  Increase  vertical  spacing  of  pending output line by N vees (or specified units;
              negative before, positive after).
       \X'anything'
              Write anything to troff output as a device control command.  Within  anything,  the
              escape  sequences  \&,  \),  \%, and \: are ignored; \space and \~ are converted to
              single space characters; and \\ has its escape character  stripped.   So  that  the
              basic  Latin  subset  of  the  Unicode  character  set  can  be reliably encoded in
              anything, the special character escape sequences \-, \[aq],  \[dq],  \[ga],  \[ha],
              \[rs], and \[ti] are mapped to basic Latin characters; see groff_char(7).  For this
              transformation,  character  translations  and  special  character  definitions  are
              ignored.
       \Yn    Write contents of macro or string n to troff output as a device control command.
       \Y(nm  Write contents of macro or string nm to troff output as a device control command.
       \Y[name]
              Write contents of macro or string name to troff output as a device control command.
       \zc    Format character c with zero width—without advancing the drawing position.
       \Z'anything'
              Save the drawing position, format anything, then restore it.

   Drawing commands
       Drawing  commands  direct  the  output  device  to  render geometrical objects rather than
       glyphs.  Specific devices may support only a  subset,  or  may  feature  additional  ones;
       consult  the  man  page  for  the  output  driver  in use.  Terminal devices in particular
       implement almost none.

       Rendering starts at the drawing position; when finished, the drawing position is  left  at
       the rightmost point of the object, even for closed figures, except where noted.  GNU troff
       draws stroked (outlined) objects with the stroke color, and shades filled  ones  with  the
       fill  color.  See section “Colors” above.  Coordinates h and v are horizontal and vertical
       motions relative to the drawing position or previous point in the  command.   The  default
       scaling  unit  for  horizontal  measurements (and diameters of circles) is m; for vertical
       ones, v.

       Circles, ellipses, and polygons can be drawn stroked or  filled.   These  are  independent
       properties;  if  you  want  a  filled, stroked figure, you must draw the same figure twice
       using each drawing command.  A filled figure  is  always  smaller  than  an  outlined  one
       because  the  former  is  drawn  only within its defined area, whereas strokes have a line
       thickness (set with \D't').

       \D'~ h1 v1 ... hn vn'
              Draw B-spline to each point in sequence, leaving drawing position at (hn, vn).
       \D'a hc vc h v'
              Draw circular arc centered at (hc, vc) counterclockwise from the  drawing  position
              to  a  point  (h,  v)  relative  to  the center.  (hc, vc) is adjusted to the point
              nearest the perpendicular bisector of the arc's chord.
       \D'c d'
              Draw circle of diameter d with its leftmost point at the drawing position.
       \D'C d'
              As \D'C', but the circle is filled.
       \D'e h v'
              Draw ellipse of width h and height  v  with  its  leftmost  point  at  the  drawing
              position.
       \D'E h v'
              As \D'e', but the ellipse is filled.
       \D'l h v'
              Draw line from the drawing position to (h, v).
       \D'p h1 v1 ... hn vn'
              Draw  polygon  with  vertices  at drawing position and each point in sequence.  GNU
              troff closes the polygon by drawing a line  from  (hn,  vn)  back  to  the  initial
              drawing position.  Afterward, the drawing position is left at (hn, vn).
       \D'P h1 v1 ... hn vn'
              As \D'p', but the polygon is filled.
       \D't n'
              Set  stroke  thickness  of geometric objects to to n basic units.  A zero n selects
              the minimal supported thickness.  A negative n selects a thickness proportional  to
              the type size; this is the default.

   Device control commands
       The  .device  and  .devicem  requests, and \X and \Y escape sequences, enable documents to
       pass information directly to a postprocessor.  These are  useful  for  exercising  device-
       specific  capabilities  that  the  groff  language  does  not abstract or generalize; such
       functions include the embedding of hyperlinks and image files.  Device-specific  functions
       are documented in each output driver's man page.

Strings

       groff  supports  strings  primarily  for  user  convenience.  Conventionally, if one would
       define a macro only to interpolate a small amount of text, without  invoking  requests  or
       calling  any other macros, one defines a string instead.  Only one string is predefined by
       the language.

       \*[.T]    Contains the name of the output device (for example, “utf8” or “pdf).

       The .ds request creates a string with a specified name and contents.   If  the  identifier
       named  by .ds already exists as an alias, the target of the alias is redefined.  If .ds is
       called with only one argument, the named string becomes empty.   Otherwise,  troff  stores
       the remainder of the control line in copy mode; see subsection “Copy mode” below.

       The  \*  escape sequence dereferences a string's name, interpolating its contents.  If the
       name does not exist, it is defined as empty, nothing is interpolated,  and  a  warning  in
       category   “mac”   is  emitted.   See  section  “Warnings”  in  troff(1).   The  bracketed
       interpolation form accepts arguments that are handled as macro arguments are; see  section
       “Calling  macros”  above.   In  contrast  to  macro calls, however, if a closing bracket ]
       occurs in a string argument, that argument must be  enclosed  in  double  quotes.   \*  is
       interpreted  even  in  copy  mode.  When defining strings, argument interpolations must be
       escaped if they are  to  reference  parameters  from  the  calling  context;  see  section
       “Parameters” below.

       An initial neutral double quote " in the string contents is stripped to allow embedding of
       leading spaces.  Any other " is interpreted literally, but it is wise to use  the  special
       character  escape  sequence \[dq] instead if the string might be interpolated as part of a
       macro argument; see section “Calling macros” above.  Strings are not limited to  a  single
       input  line  of  text.  \newline works just as it does elsewhere.  The resulting string is
       stored without the newlines.  Care is therefore required when interpolating strings  while
       filling  is  disabled.   It  is  not  possible to embed a newline in a string that will be
       interpreted as such when the string is interpolated.  To achieve that effect,  use  \*  to
       interpolate a macro instead.

       The  .as  request  is similar to .ds but appends to a string instead of redefining it.  If
       .as is called with only one argument, no operation is performed (beyond dereferencing  the
       string).

       Because  strings  are  similar  to  macros, they too can be defined to suppress AT&T troff
       compatibility mode enablement when interpolated; see section “Compatibility  mode”  below.
       The  .ds1  request  defines  a  string that suspends compatibility mode when the string is
       later interpolated.  .as1 is likewise similar to .as, with  compatibility  mode  suspended
       when the appended portion of the string is later interpolated.

       Caution:  Unlike  other  requests,  the  second  argument  to  these requests consumes the
       remainder of the input line, including trailing spaces.  Ending  string  definitions  (and
       appendments) with a comment, even an empty one, prevents unwanted space from creeping into
       them during source document maintenance.

       Several requests exist to perform rudimentary string operations.  Strings can  be  queried
       (.length) and modified (.chop, .substring, .stringup, .stringdown), and their names can be
       manipulated through renaming, removal, and aliasing (.rn, .rm, .als).

       When a request, macro, string, or diversion  is  aliased,  redefinitions  and  appendments
       “write  through”  alias  names.  To replace an alias with a separately defined object, you
       must use the rm request on its name first.

Registers

       In the roff language, numbers can be stored in registers.  Many built-in registers  exist,
       supplying anything from the date to details of formatting parameters.  You can also define
       your own.  See section “Identifiers” above for information on constructing  a  valid  name
       for a register.

       Define registers and update their values with the nr request or the \R escape sequence.

       Registers  can  also be incremented or decremented by a configured amount at the time they
       are interpolated.  The value of the increment is specified with a third  argument  to  the
       .nr  request,  and  a special interpolation syntax, \n± is used to alter and then retrieve
       the register's value.  Together, these features are called  auto-increment.   (A  negative
       auto-increment can be considered an “auto-decrement”.)

       Many  predefined  registers  are  available.   In the following presentation, the register
       interpolation syntax \n[name] is used to refer to a register name to  clearly  distinguish
       it  from a string or request name.  The register name space is separate from that used for
       requests, macros, strings, and diversions.  Bear in mind that the  symbols  \n[]  are  not
       part of the register name.

   Read-only registers
       Predefined  registers whose identifiers start with a dot are read-only.  Many are Boolean-
       valued.  Some are string-valued, meaning that they  interpolate  text.   A  register  name
       (without  the  dot)  is  often  associated with a request of the same name; exceptions are
       noted.

       \n[.$]         Count of arguments passed to currently interpolated macro or string.
       \n[.a]         Amount of extra post-vertical line space; see \x.
       \n[.A]         Approximate output  is  being  formatted  (Boolean-valued);  see  troff  -a
                      option.
       \n[.b]         Font emboldening offset; see .bd.
       \n[.br]        The  normal  control  character was used to call the currently interpolated
                      macro (Boolean-valued).
       \n[.c]         Input line number; see .lf and register “c.”.
       \n[.C]         Compatibility mode is enabled (Boolean-valued); see .cp.  Always false when
                      processing .do; see register .cp.
       \n[.cdp]       Depth of last glyph formatted in the environment; positive if glyph extends
                      below the baseline.
       \n[.ce]        Count of output lines remaining to be centered.
       \n[.cht]       Height of last glyph  formatted  in  the  environment;  positive  if  glyph
                      extends above the baseline.
       \n[.color]     Color output is enabled (Boolean-valued).
       \n[.cp]        Within .do, the saved value of compatibility mode; see register .C.
       \n[.csk]       Skew of the last glyph formatted in the environment; skew is how far to the
                      right of the center of a glyph the center of  an  accent  over  that  glyph
                      should be placed.
       \n[.d]         Vertical drawing position in diversion.
       \n[.ev]        Name of environment (string-valued).
       \n[.f]         Mounting position of selected font; see .ft and \f.
       \n[.F]         Name of input file (string-valued); see .lf.
       \n[.fam]       Name of default font family (string-valued).
       \n[.fn]        Resolved name of selected font (string-valued); see .ft and \f.
       \n[.fp]        Next non-zero free font mounting position index.
       \n[.g]         Always true in GNU troff (Boolean-valued).
       \n[.h]         Text baseline high-water mark on page or in diversion.
       \n[.H]         Horizontal motion quantum of output device in basic units.
       \n[.height]    Font height; see \H.
       \n[.hla]       Hyphenation language in environment (string-valued).
       \n[.hlc]       Count of immediately preceding consecutive hyphenated lines in environment.
       \n[.hlm]       Maximum quantity of consecutive hyphenated lines allowed in environment.
       \n[.hy]        Automatic hyphenation mode in environment.
       \n[.hym]       Hyphenation margin in environment.
       \n[.hys]       Hyphenation space adjustment threshold in environment.
       \n[.i]         Indentation amount; see .in.
       \n[.in]        Indentation amount applicable to the pending output line; see .ti.
       \n[.int]       Previous  output  line  was  “interrupted”  or  continued with \c (Boolean-
                      valued).
       \n[.j]         Adjustment mode encoded as an integer; see .ad and .na.  Do  not  interpret
                      or perform arithmetic on its value.
       \n[.k]         Horizontal drawing position relative to indentation.
       \n[.kern]      Pairwise kerning is enabled (Boolean-valued).
       \n[.l]         Line length; see .ll.
       \n[.L]         Line spacing; see .ls.
       \n[.lg]        Ligature mode.
       \n[.linetabs]  Line-tabs mode is enabled (Boolean-valued).
       \n[.ll]        Line length applicable to the pending output line.
       \n[.lt]        Title length.
       \n[.m]         Stroke  color  (string-valued);  see  .gcolor  and \m.  Empty if the stroke
                      color is the default.
       \n[.M]         Fill color (string-valued); see .fcolor and \M.  Empty if the fill color is
                      the default.
       \n[.n]         Length of formatted output on previous output line.
       \n[.ne]        Amount  of  vertical  space  required  by last .ne that caused a trap to be
                      sprung; also see register .trunc.
       \n[.nm]        Output line numbering is enabled (Boolean-valued).
       \n[.nn]        Count of output lines remaining to have numbering suppressed.
       \n[.ns]        No-space mode is enabled (Boolean-valued).
       \n[.o]         Page offset; see .po.
       \n[.O]         Output suppression nesting level; see \O.
       \n[.p]         Page length; see .pl.
       \n[.P]         The page is selected for output (Boolean-valued); see troff -o option.
       \n[.pe]        Page ejection is in progress (Boolean-valued).
       \n[.pn]        Number of the next page.
       \n[.ps]        Type size in scaled points.
       \n[.psr]       Most recently requested type size in scaled points; see .ps and \s.
       \n[.pvs]       Post-vertical line spacing.
       \n[.R]         Count of available unused registers; always 10,000 in GNU troff.
       \n[.rj]        Count of lines remaining to be right-aligned.
       \n[.s]         Type size in points as a decimal fraction (string-valued); see .ps and \s.
       \n[.slant]     Slant of font in degrees; see \S.
       \n[.sr]        Most recently requested type size in points as a decimal fraction  (string-
                      valued); see .ps and \s.
       \n[.ss]        Size  of  minimal  inter-word  space  in twelfths of the space width of the
                      selected font.
       \n[.sss]       Size of additional inter-sentence space in twelfths of the space  width  of
                      the selected font.
       \n[.sty]       Selected abstract style (string-valued); see .ft and \f.
       \n[.t]         Distance to next vertical position trap; see .wh and .ch.
       \n[.T]         An  output  device  was  explicitly selected (Boolean-valued); see troff -T
                      option.
       \n[.tabs]      Representation of tab settings suitable for use as argument to .ta (string-
                      valued).
       \n[.trunc]     Amount  of  vertical  space  truncated by the most recently sprung vertical
                      position trap, or, if the trap was sprung by an .ne, minus  the  amount  of
                      vertical motion produced by .ne; also see register .ne.
       \n[.u]         Filling is enabled (Boolean-valued); see .fi and .nf.
       \n[.U]         Unsafe mode is enabled (Boolean-valued); see troff -U option.
       \n[.v]         Vertical line spacing; see .vs.
       \n[.V]         Vertical motion quantum of the output device in basic units.
       \n[.vpt]       Vertical position traps are enabled (Boolean-valued).
       \n[.w]         Width of previous glyph formatted in the environment.
       \n[.warn]      Sum of the numeric codes of enabled warning categories.
       \n[.x]         Major version number of the running troff formatter.
       \n[.y]         Minor version number of the running troff formatter.
       \n[.Y]         Revision number of the running troff formatter.
       \n[.z]         Name of diversion (string-valued).  Empty if output is directed to the top-
                      level diversion.
       \n[.zoom]      Zoom multiplier of current font (in thousandths; zero if no magnification);
                      see .fzoom.

   Writable predefined registers
       Several registers are predefined but also modifiable; some are updated upon interpretation
       of certain requests or escape sequences.  Date- and time-related registers are set to  the
       local time as determined by localtime(3) when the formatter launches.  This initialization
       can be overridden by SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH and TZ; see section “Environment” of groff(1).

       \n[$$]         Process ID of troff.
       \n[%]          Page number.
       \n[c.]         Input line number.
       \n[ct]         Union of character types of each glyph rendered into dummy  environment  by
                      \w.
       \n[dl]         Width of last closed diversion.
       \n[dn]         Height of last closed diversion.
       \n[dw]         Day of the week (1–7; 1 is Sunday).
       \n[dy]         Day of the month (1–31).
       \n[hours]      Count of hours elapsed since midnight (0–23).
       \n[hp]         Horizontal drawing position relative to start of input line.
       \n[llx]        Lower-left  x  coordinate  (in  PostScript  units) of PostScript image; see
                      .psbb.
       \n[lly]        Lower-left y coordinate (in PostScript  units)  of  PostScript  image;  see
                      .psbb.
       \n[ln]         Output line number; see .nm.
       \n[lsn]        Count of leading spaces on input line.
       \n[lss]        Amount of horizontal space corresponding to leading spaces on input line.
       \n[minutes]    Count of minutes elapsed in the hour (0–59).
       \n[mo]         Month of the year (1–12).
       \n[nl]         Vertical drawing position.
       \n[opmaxx]
       \n[opmaxy]
       \n[opminx]
       \n[opminy]     These  four registers mark the top left- and bottom right-hand corners of a
                      rectangle encompassing all formatted output on the page.  They are reset to
                      -1 by \O0 or \O1.
       \n[rsb]        As register sb, adding maximum glyph height to measurement.
       \n[rst]        As register st, adding maximum glyph depth to measurement.
       \n[sb]         Maximum  displacement  of  text  baseline below its original position after
                      rendering into dummy environment by \w.
       \n[seconds]    Count of seconds elapsed in the minute (0–60).
       \n[skw]        Skew of last glyph rendered into dummy environment by \w.
       \n[slimit]     The maximum depth of troff's internal input stack.   If  ≤0,  there  is  no
                      limit:  recursion  can  continue  until available memory is exhausted.  The
                      default is 1,000.
       \n[ssc]        Subscript correction of last glyph rendered into dummy environment by \w.
       \n[st]         Maximum displacement of text baseline above  its  original  position  after
                      rendering into dummy environment by \w.
       \n[systat]     Return value of system() function; see .sy.
       \n[urx]        Upper-right  x  coordinate  (in  PostScript units) of PostScript image; see
                      .psbb.
       \n[ury]        Upper-right y coordinate (in PostScript units)  of  PostScript  image;  see
                      .psbb.
       \n[year]       Gregorian year.
       \n[yr]         Gregorian year minus 1900.

Using fonts

       In  digital typography, a font is a collection of characters in a specific typeface that a
       device can render as glyphs at a desired size.  (Terminals and some  output  devices  have
       fonts that render at only one or two sizes.  As examples of the latter, take the groff lj4
       device's Lineprinter, and lbp's Courier and Elite faces.)  A  roff  formatter  can  change
       typefaces at any point in the text.  The basic faces are a set of styles combining upright
       and slanted shapes with normal and heavy stroke weights: “R”,  “I”,  “B”,  and  “BI”—these
       stand  for  roman,  bold,  italic, and bold-italic.  For linguistic text, GNU troff groups
       typefaces into families containing each of these styles.  (Font designers prepare families
       such  that  the  styles  share  esthetic  properties.)  A text font is thus often a family
       combined with a style, but it need not be: consider the ps and  pdf  devices'  ZCMI  (Zapf
       Chancery  Medium  italic)—often,  no  other style of Zapf Chancery Medium is provided.  On
       typesetting devices, at least one special font is available,  comprising  unstyled  glyphs
       for mathematical operators and other purposes.

       Like AT&T troff, GNU troff does not itself load or manipulate a digital font file; instead
       it works with  a  font  description  file  that  characterizes  it,  including  its  glyph
       repertoire  and  the  metrics  (dimensions)  of  each glyph.  This information permits the
       formatter to accurately place glyphs with respect to each  other.   Before  using  a  font
       description,  the  formatter associates it with a mounting position, a place in an ordered
       list of available typefaces.  So that a  document  need  not  be  strongly  coupled  to  a
       specific  font family, in GNU troff an output device can associate a style in the abstract
       sense with a mounting position.  Thus the default family can  be  combined  with  a  style
       dynamically, producing a resolved font name.

       Fonts often have trademarked names, and even Free Software fonts can require renaming upon
       modification.  groff maintains a convention that a device's serif font family is given the
       name  T  (“Times”),  its  sans-serif  family  H (“Helvetica”), and its monospaced family C
       (“Courier”).  Historical inertia has driven groff's font identifiers  to  short  uppercase
       abbreviations of font names, as with TR, TB, TI, TBI, and a special font S.

       The  default  family  used  with abstract styles can be changed at any time; initially, it
       is T.  Typically, abstract styles are arranged in the first four mounting positions in the
       order  shown  above.  The default mounting position, and therefore style, is always 1 (R).
       By issuing appropriate formatter instructions, you can override these defaults before your
       document writes its first glyph.

       Terminal  output devices cannot change font families and lack special fonts.  They support
       style changes  by  overstriking,  or  by  altering  ISO  6429/ECMA-48  graphic  renditions
       (character cell attributes).

Hyphenation

       When  filling,  groff  hyphenates  words  as  needed  at  user-specified and automatically
       determined hyphenation points.  Explicitly hyphenated words such  as  “mother-in-law”  are
       always  eligible  for  breaking after each of their hyphens.  The hyphenation character \%
       and non-printing break point \: escape sequences may be used to  control  the  hyphenation
       and  breaking  of  individual words.  The .hw request sets user-defined hyphenation points
       for specified words at any subsequent occurrence.  Otherwise, groff determines hyphenation
       points automatically by default.

       Several  requests influence automatic hyphenation.  Because conventions vary, a variety of
       hyphenation modes is available to the .hy request;  these  determine  whether  hyphenation
       will  apply  to  a  word  prior to breaking a line at the end of a page (more or less; see
       below for details), and at which  positions  within  that  word  automatically  determined
       hyphenation  points  are permissible.  The default is “1” for historical reasons, but this
       is not  an  appropriate  value  for  the  English  hyphenation  patterns  used  by  groff;
       localization macro files loaded by troffrc and macro packages often override it.

       0      disables hyphenation.

       1      enables hyphenation except after the first and before the last character of a word.

       The remaining values “imply” 1; that is, they enable hyphenation under the same conditions
       as “.hy 1”, and then apply or lift restrictions relative to that basis.

       2      disables hyphenation of the last word on a page.  (Hyphenation is prevented if  the
              next  page  location  trap is closer to the vertical drawing position than the next
              text baseline would be.  See section “Traps” below.)

       4      disables hyphenation before the last two characters of a word.

       8      disables hyphenation after the first two characters of a word.

       16     enables hyphenation before the last character of a word.

       32     enables hyphenation after the first character of a word.

       Apart from value 2, restrictions imposed by the hyphenation mode  are  not  respected  for
       words  whose  hyphenations  have  been  specified  with the hyphenation character (“\%” by
       default) or the .hw request.

       Nonzero values are additive.  For example, mode 12 causes groff to hyphenate  neither  the
       last  two  nor  the  first  two characters of a word.  Some values cannot be used together
       because they contradict; for instance, values 4 and 16, and values 8 and 32.  As noted, it
       is superfluous to add 1 to any non-zero even mode.

       The  places  within  a  word that are eligible for hyphenation are determined by language-
       specific data (.hla, .hpf, and .hpfa) and lettercase relationships (.hcode and  .hpfcode).
       Furthermore,  hyphenation  of  a  word  might  be suppressed due to a limit on consecutive
       hyphenated lines (.hlm), a minimum line length threshold (.hym), or because the  line  can
       instead be adjusted with additional inter-word space (.hys).

Localization

       The  set  of  hyphenation  patterns is associated with the hyphenation language set by the
       .hla request.  The .hpf request is usually invoked by a localization file  loaded  by  the
       troffrc file.  groff provides localization files for several languages; see groff_tmac(5).

Writing macros

       The .de request defines a macro named for its argument.  If that name already exists as an
       alias, the target of the alias is redefined; see section “Strings”  above.   troff  enters
       “copy  mode”  (see  below),  storing  subsequent  input  lines  as the definition.  If the
       optional second argument is not specified, the definition ends with the control line  “..”
       (two  dots).   Alternatively,  a  second argument names a macro whose call syntax ends the
       definition; this “end macro” is then called normally.  Spaces or tabs are permitted  after
       the  first  control  character  in  the  line  containing  this  ending  token,  but a tab
       immediately after the token prevents its recognition as the end  of  a  macro  definition.
       Macro  definitions can be nested if they use distinct end macros or if their ending tokens
       are sufficiently escaped.  An end macro need not be defined until it is called.  This fact
       enables a nested macro definition to begin inside one macro and end inside another.

       Variants  of  .de  disable  compatibility  mode  and/or  indirect  the names of the macros
       specified for definition or termination: these are .de1, .dei, and .dei1.  Append to macro
       definitions  with  .am,  .am1, .ami, and .ami1.  The .als, .rm, and .rn requests create an
       alias of, remove, and rename a macro, respectively.  .return  stops  the  execution  of  a
       macro immediately, returning to the enclosing context.

   Parameters
       Macro  call  and  string  interpolation  parameters can be accessed using escape sequences
       starting with “\$”.   The  \n[.$]  read-only  register  stores  the  count  of  parameters
       available  to  a  macro  or  string; its value can be changed by the .shift request, which
       dequeues parameters from the current list.  The \$0 escape sequence interpolates the  name
       by  which  a  macro  was called.  Applying string interpolation to a macro does not change
       this name.

   Copy mode
       When troff processes certain requests, most importantly those which define or append to  a
       macro  or string, it does so in copy mode: it copies the characters of the definition into
       a dedicated storage region, interpolating the escape sequences \n, \g, \$, \*, \V, and  \?
       normally;  interpreting \newline immediately; discarding comments \" and \#; interpolating
       the current leader, escape, or tab character  with  \a,  \e,  and  \t,  respectively;  and
       storing all other escape sequences in an encoded form.  The complement of copy mode—a roff
       formatter's behavior when not defining or appending to a macro, string, or diversion—where
       all  macros  are  interpolated,  requests  invoked,  and  valid escape sequences processed
       immediately upon recognition, can be termed interpretation mode.

       The escape character, \ by default, can  escape  itself.   This  enables  you  to  control
       whether  a  given \n, \g, \$, \*, \V, or \? escape sequence is interpreted at the time the
       macro containing it is defined, or later when the macro is called.

       You can think of \\ as a “delayed” backslash; it is the escape  character  followed  by  a
       backslash  from which the escape character has removed its special meaning.  Consequently,
       \\ is not an escape sequence in the usual sense.  In any escape  sequence  \X  that  troff
       does  not  recognize,  the  escape  character is ignored and X is output.  An unrecognized
       escape sequence causes a warning in category “escape”, with two exceptions, \\ being  one.
       The  other  is \., which escapes the control character.  It is used to permit nested macro
       definitions to end without a named macro call to conclude  them.   Without  a  syntax  for
       escaping the control character, this would not be possible.  roff documents should not use
       the \\ or \. character sequences outside of copy mode; they serve only  to  obfuscate  the
       input.   Use  \e to represent the escape character, \[rs] to obtain a backslash glyph, and
       \& before . and ' where troff expects them as control characters if you mean to  use  them
       literally.

       Macro  definitions  can  be  nested to arbitrary depth.  In “\\”, each escape character is
       interpreted twice—once in copy mode, when the macro is defined, and once in interpretation
       mode,  when the macro is called.  This fact leads to exponential growth in the quantity of
       escape characters required to delay interpolation of \n, \g, \$, \*, \V, and  \?  at  each
       nesting  level.  An alternative is to use \E, which represents an escape character that is
       not interpreted in copy mode.  Because \. is not a true escape sequence, we can't  use  \E
       to  keep  “..”  from  ending  a  macro  definition  prematurely.   If  the multiplicity of
       backslashes complicates maintenance, use end macros.

Traps

       Traps are locations in the output, or conditions  on  the  input  that,  when  reached  or
       fulfilled,  call  a  specified  macro.   A  vertical  position trap calls a macro when the
       formatter's vertical drawing position reaches or passes,  in  the  downward  direction,  a
       certain  location  on the output page or in a diversion.  Its applications include setting
       page headers and footers, body text in multiple columns, and footnotes.  These  traps  can
       occur  at  a  given  location  on  the page (.wh, .ch); at a given location in the current
       diversion (.dt)—together, these are  known  as  vertical  position  traps,  which  can  be
       disabled and re-enabled (.vpt).

       A  diversion  is  not formatted in the context of a page, so it lacks page location traps;
       instead it can have a diversion trap.  There can exist at most one such vertical  position
       trap per diversion.

       Other  kinds  of  trap can be planted at a blank line (.blm); at a line with leading space
       characters (.lsm); after a certain number of productive input lines (.it, .itc); or at the
       end  of  input  (.em).  Macros called by traps are passed no arguments.  Setting a trap is
       also called planting one.  It is said that a trap is sprung if its condition is fulfilled.

       Registers associated with trap management include vertical position trap enablement status
       (\n[.vpt]),  distance  to  the  next trap (\n[.t]), amount of needed (.ne-requested) space
       that caused the most recent vertical position trap  to  be  sprung  (\n[.ne]),  amount  of
       needed  space  truncated  from  the  amount  requested  (\n[.trunc]), page ejection status
       (\n[.pe]), and leading space count (\n[.lsn]) with  its  corresponding  amount  of  motion
       (\n[.lss]).

   Page location traps
       A  page  location  trap  is a vertical position trap that applies to the page; that is, to
       undiverted output.  Many can be present; manage them with the wh and  ch  requests.   Non-
       negative  page  locations  given to these requests set the trap relative to the top of the
       page; negative values set the trap relative to the bottom of the page.  It is not possible
       to  plant  a  trap  less  than  one basic unit from the page bottom: a location of “-0” is
       interpreted as “0”, the top of the page.  An existing visible trap (see below) at the same
       location is removed; this is .wh's sole function if its second argument is missing.

       A trap is sprung only if it is visible, meaning that its location is reachable on the page
       and it is not hidden by another trap at the same location already planted there.  (A  trap
       planted at “20i” or “-30i” will not be sprung on a page of length “11i”.)

       A  trap  above the top or at or below the bottom of the page can be made visible by either
       moving it into the page area or increasing the page length so that  the  trap  is  on  the
       page.   Negative trap values always use the current page length; they are not converted to
       an absolute vertical position.  Use .ptr to dump page location traps to the standard error
       stream; their positions are reported in basic units.

   The implicit page trap
       An  implicit  page  trap always exists in the top-level diversion; it works like a trap in
       some ways but not others.  Its purpose is to eject the current page  and  start  the  next
       one.  It has no name, so it cannot be moved or deleted with wh or ch requests.  You cannot
       hide it by placing another trap at its location, and can move it only  by  redefining  the
       page  length  with .pl.  Its operation is suppressed when vertical page traps are disabled
       with the vpt request.

Diversions

       In roff systems it is possible to format text as if for output, but instead of writing  it
       immediately, one can divert the formatted text into a named storage area.  It is retrieved
       later by specifying its name after a control character.  The same name space is  used  for
       such  diversions as for strings and macros; see section “Identifiers” above.  Such text is
       sometimes said to be “stored  in  a  macro”,  but  this  coinage  obscures  the  important
       distinction between macros and strings on one hand and diversions on the other; the former
       store unformatted input text, and the latter capture formatted output.  Diversions also do
       not  interpret  arguments.   Applications of diversions include “keeps” (preventing a page
       break from occurring at an inconvenient place by forcing a set of output lines to  be  set
       as  a  group),  footnotes,  tables of contents, and indices.  For orthogonality it is said
       that GNU troff is in the top-level diversion if no diversion is active (that is, formatted
       output is being “diverted” immediately to the output device.

       Dereferencing  an  undefined  diversion  will create an empty one of that name and cause a
       warning in category mac to be emitted.  (see section “Warnings” in troff(1)).  A diversion
       does  not  exist  for  the  purpose  of  testing with the d conditional operator until its
       initial definition ends (see subsection “Conditional expressions” above).

       The di request creates a diversion, including any partially collected line.  da appends to
       a  diversion,  creating one if it does not already exist.  If the diversion's name already
       exists as an alias, the target of the alias  is  replaced  or  appended  to;  see  section
       “Strings”  above.   box  and  boxa  works similarly, but ignore partially collected lines.
       Call any of these macros again without an argument to end the diversion.

       Diversions can be nested.  The registers .d, .z, dn, and dl report information  about  the
       current  (or  last  closed)  diversion.  .h is meaningful in diversions, including the top
       level.

       The \!  and \?  escape sequences and output request escape from a diversion, the first two
       to the enclosing level and the last to the top level.  This facility is termed transparent
       embedding.

       The asciify and unformat requests reprocess diversions.

Punning names

       Macros, strings, and diversions share a  name  space;  see  section  “Identifiers”  above.
       Internally,  the  same  mechanism  is  used to store them.  You can thus call a macro with
       string interpolation syntax and vice versa.  Interpolating a string does not hide existing
       macro arguments.  The sequence \\ can be placed at the end of a line in a macro definition
       or, within a macro definition, immediately after the interpolation of a macro as a  string
       to suppress the effect of a newline.

Environments

       Environments  store  most  of  the  parameters  that  control  text processing.  A default
       environment named “0” exists when troff starts up; it is  modified  by  formatting-related
       requests and escape sequences.

       You  can  create new environments and switch among them.  Only one is current at any given
       time.  Active environments are managed using a stack, a data structure  supporting  “push”
       and  “pop”  operations.   The  current  environment  is at the top of the stack.  The same
       environment name can be pushed onto the stack multiple times,  possibly  interleaved  with
       others.   Popping  the  environment  stack  does  not  destroy the current environment; it
       remains accessible by name and can be made current  again  by  pushing  it  at  any  time.
       Environments  cannot  be  renamed  or  deleted, and can only be modified when current.  To
       inspect the environment stack, use the pev request; see section “Debugging” below.

       Environments store the following information.

       • a partially collected line, if any

       • data about the most recently output glyph and line (registers .cdp, .cht, .csk, .n, .w)

       • typeface parameters (size, family,  style,  height  and  slant,  inter-word  and  inter-
         sentence space sizes)

       • page parameters (line length, title length, vertical spacing, line spacing, indentation,
         line numbering, centering, right-alignment, underlining, hyphenation parameters)

       • filling enablement; adjustment enablement and mode

       • tab stops; tab, leader, escape,  control,  no-break  control,  hyphenation,  and  margin
         characters

       • input line traps

       • stroke and fill colors

       The  ev  request  pushes  to and pops from the environment stack, while evc copies a named
       environment's contents to the current one.

Underlining

       In RUNOFF (see roff(7)),  underlining,  even  of  lengthy  passages,  was  straightforward
       because  only  fixed-pitch  printing  devices  were  targeted.   Typesetter output posed a
       greater challenge.   There  exists  a  groff  request  .ul  (see  above)  that  underlines
       subsequent source lines on terminal devices, but on typesetters, it selects an italic font
       style instead.  The ms macro package (see groff_ms(7)) offers a  macro  .UL,  but  it  too
       produces the desired effect only on typesetters, and has other limitations.

       One could adapt ms's approach to the construction of a macro as follows.
              .de UNDERLINE
              . ie n \\$1\f[I]\\$2\f[P]\\$3
              . el \\$1\Z'\\$2'\v'.25m'\D'l \w'\\$2'u 0'\v'-.25m'\\$3
              ..
       If  doclifter(1)  makes  trouble, change the macro name UNDERLINE into some 2-letter word,
       like Ul.  Moreover, change the form of the font selection escape sequence  from  \f[P]  to
       \fP.

   Underlining without macro definitions
       If  one  does  not  want to use macro definitions, e.g., when doclifter gets lost, use the
       following.
              .ds u1 before
              .ds u2 in
              .ds u3 after
              .ie n \*[u1]\f[I]\*[u2]\f[P]\*[u3]
              .el \*[u1]\Z'\*[u2]'\v'.25m'\D'l \w'\*[u2]'u 0'\v'-.25m'\*[u3]
       When using doclifter, it might be necessary to change  syntax  forms  such  as  \[xy]  and
       \*[xy] to those supported by AT&T troff: \*(xy and \(xy, and so on.

       Then these lines could look like
              .ds u1 before
              .ds u2 in
              .ds u3 after
              .ie n \*[u1]\fI\*(u2\fP\*(u3
              .el \*(u1\Z'\*(u2'\v'.25m'\D'l \w'\*(u2'u 0'\v'-.25m'\*(u3

       The result looks like
              before in after

   Underlining by overstriking with \(ul
       The  \z  escape  sequence  writes a glyph without advancing the drawing position, enabling
       overstriking.  Thus, \zc\(ul formats c with an  underrule  glyph  on  top  of  it.   Video
       terminals  implement  the  underrule by setting a character cell's underline attribute, so
       this technique works in both nroff and troff modes.

       Long words may then look intimidating in the input; a clarifying approach might be to  use
       the input line continuation escape sequence \newline to place each underlined character on
       its own input line.  Thus,
              .nf
              \&\fB: ${\fIvar\fR\c
              \zo\(ul\
              \zp\(ul\c
              \&\fIvalue\fB}
              .fi
       produces
              : ${varopvalue}
       as output.

Compatibility mode

       The differences between the roff language recognized by GNU troff and that of AT&T  troff,
       as  well as the device, font, and device-independent intermediate output formats described
       by CSTR #54 are documented in groff_diff(7).  groff provides an AT&T  compatibility  mode.
       The .cp request and registers .C and .cp set and test the enablement of this mode.

Debugging

       Preprocessors  use the .lf request to preserve the identities of line numbers and names of
       input files.  groff emits a variety of error diagnostics and supports  several  categories
       of  warning; the output of these can be selectively suppressed with .warn (and see the -E,
       -w, and -W options of troff(1)).  A trace of the formatter's input processing stack can be
       emitted  when  errors  or  warnings occur by means of troff(1)'s -b option, or produced on
       demand with the .backtrace request.  .tm, .tmc, and .tm1 can be used  to  emit  customized
       diagnostic messages or for instrumentation while troubleshooting.  .ex and .ab cause early
       termination with successful and error exit codes respectively, to halt further  processing
       when continuing would be fruitless.  Examine the state of the formatter with requests that
       write lists of defined names—macros, strings, and diversions—(.pm);  environments  (.pev),
       registers (.pnr), and page location traps (.ptr) to the standard error stream.

Authors

       This  document  was written by by Trent A. Fisher, Werner Lemberg, and G. Branden Robinson
       ⟨g.branden.robinson@gmail.com⟩.  Section “Underlining”  was  primarily  written  by  Bernd
       Warken ⟨groff-bernd.warken-72@web.de⟩.

See also

       Groff:  The  GNU  Implementation  of  troff, by Trent A. Fisher and Werner Lemberg, is the
       primary groff manual.  You can browse it interactively with “info groff”.

       “Troff User's Manual” by Joseph F. Ossanna, 1976 (revised by Brian  W.  Kernighan,  1992),
       AT&T  Bell  Laboratories  Computing  Science Technical Report No. 54, widely called simply
       “CSTR #54”, documents the language, device and font description file formats, and  device-
       independent output format referred to collectively in groff documentation as “AT&T troff”.

       “A  Typesetter-independent  TROFF”  by  Brian  W.  Kernighan, 1982, AT&T Bell Laboratories
       Computing Science Technical Report No. 97 (CSTR #97), provides  additional  insights  into
       the device and font description file formats and device-independent output format.

       groff(1)
              is  the  preferred  interface  to  the  groff  system; it manages the pipeline that
              carries a source document through preprocessors, the troff formatter, and an output
              driver  to  viewable  or  printable form.  It also exhaustively lists the man pages
              provided with the GNU roff system.

       groff_char(7)
              discusses character encoding issues, escape  sequences  that  produce  glyphs,  and
              enumerates groff's predefined special character escape sequences.

       groff_diff(7)
              covers differences between the GNU troff formatter, its device and font description
              file formats, its device-independent output format, and those of AT&T troff,  whose
              design it reimplements.

       groff_font(5)
              describes the formats of the files that describe devices (DESC) and fonts.

       groff_tmac(5)
              surveys  macro  packages  provided  with  groff,  describes  how documents can take
              advantage of them, offers guidance on writing macro packages and using  diversions,
              and includes historical information on macro package naming conventions.

       roff(7)
              presents a detailed history of roff systems and summarizes concepts common to them.