The GNU
implementation of the me macro package is part of the
groff document formatting system. The me
package of macro definitions for the roff language
provides a convenient facility for preparing technical
papers in various formats. This version is based on the
me distributed with 4.4BSD and can be used with the
GNU troff formatter as well as those descended from
AT&T troff.
Some formatter
requests affect page layout unpredictably when used in
conjunction with this package; however, the following may be
used with impunity after the first call to a paragraphing
macro like lp or pp. Some arguments are
optional; see groff(7) for
details, particularly of requests whose argument list is
designated with an ellipsis. An asterisk * marks
groff extensions.
Except on title
pages (produced by calling tp), me suppresses
the output of vertical space at the tops of pages (after the
output of any page header); the sp request will thus
not work there. You can instead call bl or enclose
the desired spacing request in a diversion, for instance by
calling (b and )b. me also intercepts
the ll request; see the “me Reference
Manual” for details.
Name space
Objects in
me follow a rigid naming convention. To avoid
conflict, any user-defined register, string, or macro names
should be single numerals or uppercase letters, or any
longer sequence of letters and numerals with at least one
uppercase letter. (For portability between BSD and groff
me, limit names to two characters, and avoid the name
[ (left square bracket).) The names employed by any
preprocessors in use should also not be repurposed.
Macros
Some macros are
provided for “old”
roff(1) compatibility. The
“me Reference Manual” describes
alternatives for modern documents.
is a wrapper enabling the
package to be loaded with “groff -m
me”.
Notes
Early
roff macro packages often limited their names to a
single letter, which followed the formatter’s m
flag letter, resulting in mm, ms, mv,
mn, and so on. The “e” in
“me” stands for “Eric P. Allman”,
who wrote the macro package and the original technical
papers documenting it while an undergraduate at the
University of California.
See also
Two manuals are
available in source and rendered form. On your system, they
may be compressed and/or available in additional formats.
/usr/local/share/doc/groff-1.23.0/meintro.me
/usr/local/share/doc/groff-1.23.0/meintro.ps
is “Writing Papers with
Groff Using -me”, by Eric P. Allman,
adapted for groff by James Clark.
is the “me
Reference Manual”, by Eric P. Allman, adapted for
groff by James Clark and G. Branden Robinson.
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”.