Groff – Basic TABLE (including examples)

July 24, 2023

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Originally posted in Reddit – Basic TABLE (including examples)

Tables are a little confusing at first (mostly due to example files being terrible) The below is an easy to understand example of a simple table. this one uses ‘;’ as a separator and is all encased in boxed borders, both columns are left aligned.

 .TS
tab(;) allbox;
l,al.
HEADER 1;HEADER 2
BIG; Feet
Small; DOG
Cheshire; Cat
Sexy; Duck
.TE

Copy this into a file called (for example) example.ms and run the following command…

groff -ms -tbl -T pdf sample.ms > sample.pdf

Now load your nice new PDF in your preferred reader (i Use zathura) and you will (should) instantly be able to decipher the code (once you see it, its honestly pretty self explanatory)
For more information and an explanation on this topic beyond this simple explanation please check the man page for tbl.

man tbl

I hope this basic guide helps you to understand tables

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[!info] Note
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