Groff – A Basic guide to formatting

July 24, 2023

Originally posted on reddit – A Basic guide to formatting (babies first groff)

Groff Guide

The following is a very slimmed down list of basic groff commands using the MS macro set and Table pre-processor Examples of usage follow.

COMMAND	Explanation
.TL	Title
.AU	Author
.NH N	Heading (N = Subheading number)
.SH	Sub Heading (not numbered)
.PP	Paragraph
.LP	Non Indented Paragraph
.B “TEXT”	Bold (.B “TEXT” AFTER BEFORE)
.I “TEXT”	Italic (.I “TEXT” AFTER BEFORE)
.UL “TEXT”	Underline (.UL “TEXT” AFTER BEFORE)
.BI	Bold & Italic (.BI “TEXT” AFTER BEFORE)
.BX “TEXT”	Boxed text
.AB NO	Abstract Begin (add no to suppress ABSTRACT title)
.AE	Abstract End
.TS	Table Start (notes beginning of table area)
.TE	Table End (end of table area)

EXAMPLES:

 .TL

This is the titles of my document

.AU

I wrote this

 .PP

This text will be indented and the next line will not be intended, yeah, those dashes are to illustrate the intention and are totally not a result of the way markdown works in this editor (damn you reddit!, shakes fist)

.LP

This paragraph will start with no intent and often looks nicer for less formal documents, Its rather nice. However

 .B "this will be on BOLD"

but be on the same line as the rest