GROFF_ME

NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
Macro Reference
FILES
NOTES
SEE ALSO

NAME

groff_me - “me” macro package for formatting documents with GNU roff

SYNOPSIS

groff -me [option ...] [input-file ...]
groff -m me [option ...] [input-file ...]

DESCRIPTION

The me package of macro definitions for the roff language provides a convenient facility for preparing technical papers in various formats. This manual page describes the GNU version of the me macros, which is part of the groff document formatting system. This version can be used with both GNU troff and Unix troff.

Many roff requests are unsafe in conjunction with this package; however, the following requests may be used with impunity after the first .pp:

.bpbegin new page.brbreak output line here.sp ninsert n spacing lines.ls n(line spacing) n=1 single, n=2 double space.nano alignment of right margin.ce ncenter next n lines.ul nunderline next n lines

Output of the pic, eqn, refer, and tbl preprocessors is acceptable as input.

Macro Reference

Numeric arguments to macros are denoted with lowercase letters and string arguments with uppercase. An optional macro argument such as x appears in brackets, [x]. Note that arguments to macros generally must be quoted if they contain whitespace. An exception is the argument to header and footer macros, which require some explanation. They take the form “c left c middle c right c”, with spaces added here for clarity. The strings left, middle, and right correspond to their page placement and can contain unprotected whitespace, but must not contain the (non-space) character c, which delimits them. For brevity, the table presents header and footer arguments as clcmcrc. Popular choices for c are the ASCII apostrophe “'” and the ASCII double quote “"”.

This list is incomplete; some requests are too complex to summarize in a table, and some that are listed below accept additional arguments not shown. See the -me Reference Manual for interesting details.

Request InitialCauses ExplanationValue Break .(c −yesBegin centered block..(d −noBegin delayed text..(f −noBegin footnote..(l −yes Begin list..(q −yesBegin major quote..(x [X]−noBegin item in index (named X)..(z −noBegin floating keep..)c −yesEnd centered block..)d −yesEnd delayed text..)f −yesEnd footnote..)l −yes End list..)q −yesEnd major quote..)x −yesEnd index item..)z −yesEnd floating keep..++ M [clcmcrc]− noDefine paper section as M, which must be one of C (chapter), A (ap-pendix), P (preliminary, i.e., front matter or table of contents), AB(abstract), B (bibliography), RC (chapters renumbered from page oneeach chapter), or RA (appendix renumbered from page one) (and setpage header to clcmcrc)..+c [T]−yesBegin chapter (or appendix, etc., as set by .++) (with title T)..1c 1yesOne-column format on a new page..2c 1yesTw o-column format..EN −yesSpace after equation produced by eqn or neqn..EQ [M [T]] −yesBegin displayed equation (with indentation M, which must be one ofC (centered, default), I (indented), or L (justified left) (and title T inright margin))..GE −yesEnd gremlin picture..GS −yesBegin gremlin picture..PE −yesEnd pic picture..PS −yesBegin pic picture..TE −yesEnd tbl table..TH −yesEnd heading of tbl table..TS [H]−yesBegin tbl table; if H, table repeats heading on each page..b [X [Y]] −noPrint X in bold (appending Y in the previous font); if no arguments,switch to bold..ba n0yesAugment the base indent (for regular text, like paragraphs) by n..bc −yesBegin new column..bi [X [Y]] −noPrint X in bold italics (appending Y in the previous font); if no argu-ments, switch to bold italics..bu−yesBegin bulleted paragraph..bx [X [Y]] −noPrint X in a box (with Y appended). Renders reliably only in no-fillmode..ef clcmcrc"""" noSet even-numbered page footer..eh clcmcrc"""" noSet even-numbered page header..fo clcmcrc"""" noSet page footer..hx −noSuppress headers and footers on next page..he clcmcrc"""" noSet page header..hl −yesDraw a horizontal line..i [X [Y]] −noPrint X in italics (appending Y in the previous font); if no arguments,switch to italics..ip [X [n]]n=5n yesStart indented paragraph (with hanging tag X (and indentation n))..lp −yesBegin paragraph with first line flush left..np 1yesStart numbered paragraph..of clcmcrc"""" noSet odd-numbered page footer..oh clcmcrc"""" noSet odd-numbered page header..pd −yesPrint delayed text..pp −yesBegin paragraph with indented first line..r [X [Y]] −noPrint X in roman (appending Y in the previous font); if no arguments,switch to roman..re 0.5inoReset tabs to default values..sh [n [T]]n=1 yesStart numbered section; print section number (set to n (and title T)) inbold..sk −noLeave the next page blank. Only one page is remembered ahead..sm X [Y]−noPrint X in a smaller point size (appending Y at the previous size)..sz n10p noAugment the point size by n points..tp −yesBegin title page..u X [Y]−noUnderline X (appending Y without underlining). Renders reliablyonly in no-fill mode..uh [T]−yesStart unnumbered section (and print title T in bold)..xp [X]−noPrint index (named X).

FILES

/usr/share/groff/1.22.4.rc2/tmac/me.tmac (a wrapper file for e.tmac)
/usr/share/groff/1.22.4.rc2/tmac/e.tmac

NOTES

Early roff macro packages limited themselves to a single-letter namespace (mm, ms, mv, mn, etc.). It is not known for certain what the “e” in “me” stands for, but one can infer a derivation from the first initial of Eric P. Allman (then of the University of California), who wrote the original technical papers documenting the package.

SEE ALSO

groff(1), troff(1)
-me Reference Manual, Eric P. Allman and James Clark

may be available at /usr/share/doc/groff-base/meref.ps.gz (on Debian-based systems).

Writing Papers with Groff Using -me, Eric P. Allman and James Clark

may be available at /usr/share/doc/groff-base/meintro.ps.gz (on Debian-based systems).

For preprocessors supported by me, see eqn(1), grn(1), pic(1), refer(1), and tbl(1).