+.Sq \ef
+escape followed by an indicator: B (bold), I (italic), R (regular), or P
+(revert to previous mode):
+A numerical representation 3, 2, or 1 (bold, italic, and regular,
+respectively) may be used instead.
+A text decoration is only valid, if specified in free-form text, until
+the next macro invocation; if specified within a macro, it's only valid
+until the macro closes scope.
+Note that macros like
+.Sx \&BR
+open and close a font scope with each argument.
+.Pp
+The
+.Sq \ef
+attribute is forgotten when entering or exiting a macro block.
+.Pp
+Examples:
+.Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent -compact
+.It \efBbold\efR
+write in bold, then switch to regular
+.It \efIitalic\efP
+write in italic, then return to previous
+.El
+.Ss Predefined Strings
+Predefined strings, like
+.Sx Special Characters ,
+mark special output glyphs.
+Predefined strings are escaped with the slash-asterisk,
+.Sq \e* :
+single-character
+.Sq \e*X ,
+two-character
+.Sq \e*(XX ,
+and N-character
+.Sq \e*[N] .
+.Pp
+Examples:
+.Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent -compact
+.It \e*(Am
+ampersand
+.It \e*(Ba
+vertical bar
+.El
+.Pp
+These strings are set using
+.Xr roff 7 ,
+although
+.Nm
+consists of several pre-set escapes listed in
+.Xr mandoc_char 7 .
+.Ss Whitespace
+Whitespace consists of the space character.
+In text lines, whitespace is preserved within a line.
+In macro lines, whitespace delimits arguments and is discarded.
+.Pp
+Unescaped trailing spaces are stripped from text line input unless in a
+literal context.
+In general, trailing whitespace on any input line is discouraged for
+reasons of portability.
+In the rare case that a blank character is needed at the end of an
+input line, it may be forced by
+.Sq \e\ \e& .
+.Pp
+If the first character of a text line is a space, that line is printed
+with a leading newline.
+.Ss Quotation
+Macro arguments may be quoted with double-quotes; in this case,
+whitespace within the quotes is retained as part of the argument.
+.Pp
+A quoted argument begins with a double-quote preceded by whitespace.
+The next double-quote not pairwise adjacent to another double-quote
+terminates the literal, regardless of surrounding whitespace.
+.Pp
+In unquoted arguments, space characters can alternatively be included
+by preceding them with a backslash
+.Pq Sq \e\~ ,
+but quoting is usually better for clarity.
+.Pp
+Note that any quoted text, even if it would cause a macro invocation
+when unquoted, is considered literal text.
+.Pp
+In text lines, quotes are regarded as opaque text.
+.Ss Scaling Widths
+Many macros support scaled widths for their arguments.
+The syntax for a scaled width is
+.Sq Li [+-]?[0-9]*.[0-9]*[:unit:] ,
+where a decimal must be preceded or proceeded by at least one digit.
+Negative numbers, while accepted, are truncated to zero.
+.Pp
+The following scaling units are accepted:
+.Pp
+.Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent -compact
+.It c
+centimetre
+.It i
+inch
+.It P
+pica (~1/6 inch)
+.It p
+point (~1/72 inch)
+.It f
+synonym for
+.Sq u
+.It v
+default vertical span
+.It m
+width of rendered
+.Sq m
+.Pq em
+character
+.It n
+width of rendered
+.Sq n
+.Pq en
+character
+.It u
+default horizontal span
+.It M
+mini-em (~1/100 em)
+.El
+.Pp
+Using anything other than
+.Sq m ,
+.Sq n ,
+.Sq u ,
+or
+.Sq v
+is necessarily non-portable across output media.
+See
+.Sx COMPATIBILITY .
+.Pp
+If a scaling unit is not provided, the numerical value is interpreted
+under the default rules of
+.Sq v
+for vertical spaces and
+.Sq u
+for horizontal ones.
+.Pp
+Examples:
+.Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent -compact
+.It \&.HP 2i
+two-inch tagged list indentation
+.Pq see Sx \&HP
+.It \&.sp 2v
+two vertical spaces
+.Pq see Sx \&sp
+.El
+.Ss Sentence Spacing
+Sentences should terminate at the end of an input line.
+By doing this, a formatter will be able to apply the proper amount of
+spacing after the end of sentence (unescaped) period, exclamation mark,
+or question mark followed by zero or more non-sentence closing
+delimiters
+.Po
+.Sq \&) ,
+.Sq \&] ,
+.Sq \&' ,
+.Sq \&"
+.Pc .
+.Pp
+Examples:
+.Bd -literal -offset indent -compact
+Do not end sentences mid-line like this. Instead,
+end a sentence like this.
+A new sentence gets a new line.
+.Ed
git.ckatri.com / mandoc.git / blobdiff