3.2 Common Features

GNU troff provides low-level operations for formatting a document. Many routine operations are undertaken in nearly all documents that require a series of such primitive operations to be performed. These common tasks are grouped into macros, which are then collected into a macro package.

Macro packages come in two varieties: “major” or “full-service” ones that manage page layout, and “minor” or “auxiliary” ones that do not, instead fulfilling narrow, specific tasks. Find a list in the groff_tmac(5) man page. Type ‘man groff_tmac’ at the command line to view it.

We survey several capabilities of full-service macro package below. Each package employs its own macros to exercise them. For details, consult its man page or, for ms, see ms.