groff_markup - groff macros for authoring web pages
groff -markup [ options ] file ...
This manual page describes the GNU -markup macros, which is part of the groff document formatting system. The manual page is very a basic guide, and the html device driver (grohtml) is still very alpha. It has been included into the distribution so that a lot of people have a chance to test it. Note that this macro file will be automatically called (via the troffrc file) if you use -Thtml.
To see the hyperlinks in action, please format this man page with the grohtml device.
Here is a summary of the functions found in this macro set.
|
.HTMLINDEX |
determine automatic link cut off | |
|
point for sections/headers | ||
|
.BODYCOLOR |
specify colours on a web page | |
|
.BACKGROUND |
specify background image | |
|
.URL |
create a url using two parameters | |
|
.MAILTO |
create a html email address | |
|
.FTP |
create an ftp reference | |
|
.IMAGE |
include an image file | |
|
.HTML |
pass an html raw request to the | |
|
device driver | ||
|
.TAG |
generate an html name tag from $1 | |
|
.LINE |
create a full width horizontal rule |
Output of the pic, eqn, refer, and tbl preprocessors is acceptable as input.
HTMLINDEX
determines the cut off point for automatic link generation to headings. By default all headings found in a troff document have links created to them at the top of the html web page. It maybe that many of the lower heading levels do not require links. Alternatively some web pages may not need any heading links at all, in which case:
.HTMLINDEX 0
will tell grohtml not to generate links. An HTMLINDEX of 2 will mean that a heading
1.1.1 Some Title
will not be included in the links either as it is said to have a heading level of three.
BODYCOLOR
takes five parameters: foreground, background, active hypertext link, hypertext link not yet visited, and visited hypertext link colour.
BACKGROUND
the only parameter to this macro is the background image file.
|
URL |
generates a URL using either two or three arguments. $1 is the name of the link, $2 is the actual URL, and $3 is optional stuff to be printed immediately after $2. Here is how to encode homepage for groff: |
.URL "homepage for groff" http://groff.ffii.org/ :
If this is processed by a device other than -Thtml it appears as: homepage for groff ⟨http://groff.ffii.org⟩. The URL macro can be of any type; for example we can reference Eric Raymond's pic guide by:
.URL "Eric Raymond’s pic guide" pic.html
MAILTO
generates an email html reference. The first argument is mandatory as the email address. The optional second argument is the text you see in your browser, and an optional third argument is stuff printed immediately after the second argument. For example, the groff maintainers are and This is achieved by the following macros:
.MAILTO wl@gnu.org "Werner Lemberg"
.MAILTO
Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk \
"Ted Harding" .
Note that all the urls actually are treated as consuming no textual space in groff. This could be considered as a bug since it causes some problems. To circumvent this, tmac.arkup inserts a zero-width character which expands to a harmless space (only if in HTML mode)
|
FTP |
indicates that data can be obtained via ftp. The first argument is the browser text and the second is the url. A third argument, similar to the macros above, is intended for stuff printed immediately after the second argument. The second and the third parameter are optional. As an example, here the location of the current groff development distribution. The macro example above was specified by: |
.FTP
"current groff development distribution" \
ftp://ftp.ffii.org/pub/groff/devel/groff-current.tar.gz
.
|
IMAGE |
allows the document to include pictures. The first argument is the image file. The next two arguments are optional: Argument two is the width in pixels (default is 400 pixels if absent). The third argument is the height in pixels (default is the width value if absent). | ||
|
HTML |
all text after this macro is treated as raw html. If the document is processed without -Thtml then the macro is ignored. This macro is a building block for other higher level macros. |
For example,
the BACKGROUND macro is defined as:
.de BACKGROUND
. HTML <body background=\$1>
..
|
TAG |
generates an html name tag from its argument. This can then be referenced using the URL macro. As you can see, you must precede the tag name with ‘#’ since it is a local reference. This link was achieved via placing a TAG in the URL description above; the source looks like this: |
.TP
.B URL
generates
.TAG URL
a URL using either two or three
arguments.
$1 is the name of the link, $2 is the actual URL
etc.
|
LINE |
generates a full width horizontal rule. Example: |
.LINE
By default grohtml generates links to all section headings and places these at the top of the html document. Grohtml has to guess what a section heading looks like — remember that all grohtml actually sees is a device independent language telling it where to place text, draw lines, change font sizes and faces etc. It believes a section heading to be a line of bold text which starts at the left most margin. Consequently it may misinterpret. Users can turn off all heading and title guessing by giving invoking groff with groff -P-g.
Although basic text can be translated in a straightforward fashion there are some areas where grohtml has to try and guess text relationship. In particular, whenever grohtml encounters text tables and indented paragraphs or two column mode it will try and utilize the html table construct to preserve columns. Grohtml also attempts to work out which lines should be automatically formatted by the browser. Ultimately in trying to make reasonable guesses most of the time it will make mistakes. Hopefully these mistakes will happen less and less as we get bug reports and patches :-).
Tbl, pic, eqn’s are also generated using images which may be considered a limitation.
/usr/local/share/groff/tmac/tmac.arkup
groff(1), troff(1) grohtml(1),
Grohtml is written by
Report bugs to the Include a complete, self-contained example that will allow the bug to be reproduced, and say which version of groff you are using.