groff -Tps -man file ...
Note that NET-2 BSD mdoc man pages can be used with groff simply by specifying the -mdoc option instead of the -man option. Using the -mandoc option is, however, recommended, since this will automatically detect which macro package is in use.
For conventions that should be employed when writing man pages for the Linux man-pages package, see man-pages(7).
For details of the arguments that should be supplied to the TH command, see man-pages(7).
Note that BSD mdoc-formatted pages begin with the Dd command, not the TH command.
The only mandatory heading is NAME, which should be the first section and be followed on the next line by a one-line description of the program:
It is extremely important that this format is followed, and that there is a backslash before the single dash which follows the item name. This syntax is used by the mandb(8) program to create a database of short descriptions for the whatis(1) and apropos(1) commands. (See lexgrog(1) for further details on the syntax of the NAME section.)
For a list of other sections that might appear in a manual page, see man-pages(7).
Traditionally, each command can have up to six arguments, but the GNU implementation removes this limitation (you might still want to limit yourself to 6 arguments for portability's sake). Arguments are delimited by spaces. Double quotes can be used to specify an argument which contains spaces. All of the arguments will be printed next to each other without intervening spaces, so that the .BR command can be used to specify a word in bold followed by a mark of punctuation in Roman. If no arguments are given, the command is applied to the following line of text.
Below are other relevant macros and predefined strings. Unless noted otherwise, all macros cause a break (end the current line of text). Many of these macros set or use the "prevailing indent." The "prevailing indent" value is set by any macro with the parameter i below; macros may omit i in which case the current prevailing indent will be used. As a result, successive indented paragraphs can use the same indent without respecifying the indent value. A normal (nonindented) paragraph resets the prevailing indent value to its default value (0.5 inches). By default, a given indent is measured in ens; try to use ens or ems as units for indents, since these will automatically adjust to font size changes. The other key macro definitions are:
These macros have been supported since GNU Troff 1.20 (2009-01-05) and Heirloom Doctools Troff since 160217 (2016-02-17).
You may also use many troff escape sequences (those sequences beginning with \). When you need to include the backslash character as normal text, use \e. Other sequences you may use, where x or xx are any characters and N is any digit, include: \', \`, \-, \., \ , \%, \*x, \*(xx, \(xx, \$N, \nx, \n(xx, \fx, and \f(xx. Avoid using the escape sequences for drawing graphics.
Do not use the optional parameter for bp (break page). Use only positive values for sp (vertical space). Don't define a macro (de) with the same name as a macro in this or the mdoc macro package with a different meaning; it's likely that such redefinitions will be ignored. Every positive indent (in) should be paired with a matching negative indent (although you should be using the RS and RE macros instead). The condition test (if,ie) should only have 't' or 'n' as the condition. Only translations (tr) that can be ignored should be used. Font changes (ft and the \f escape sequence) should only have the values 1, 2, 3, 4, R, I, B, P, or CW (the ft command may also have no parameters).
If you use capabilities beyond these, check the results carefully on several tools. Once you've confirmed that the additional capability is safe, let the maintainer of this document know about the safe command or sequence that should be added to this list.
By all means include full URLs (or URIs) in the text itself; some tools such as man2html(1) can automatically turn them into hypertext links. You can also use the UR and UE macros to identify links to related information. If you include URLs, use the full URL (e.g., to ensure that tools can automatically find the URLs.
Tools processing these files should open the file and examine the first nonwhitespace character. A period (.) or single quote (') at the beginning of a line indicates a troff-based file (such as man or mdoc). A left angle bracket (<) indicates an SGML/XML-based file (such as HTML or Docbook). Anything else suggests simple ASCII text (e.g., a "catman" result).
Many man pages begin with '\" followed by a space and a list of characters, indicating how the page is to be preprocessed. For portability's sake to non-troff translators we recommend that you avoid using anything other than tbl(1), and Linux can detect that automatically. However, you might want to include this information so your man page can be handled by other (less capable) systems. Here are the definitions of the preprocessors invoked by these characters:
Most of the macros describe formatting (e.g., font type and spacing) instead of marking semantic content (e.g., this text is a reference to another page), compared to formats like mdoc and DocBook (even HTML has more semantic markings). This situation makes it harder to vary the man format for different media, to make the formatting consistent for a given media, and to automatically insert cross-references. By sticking to the safe subset described above, it should be easier to automate transitioning to a different reference page format in the future.
The Sun macro TX is not implemented.