.(c
.b "Five Signs That You Write In groff"
.)c
.sp 2
.lp
I first discovered Unix systems in the early 1990s, when I was an
undergraduate at university. I liked it so much that I replaced the
MS-DOS system on my home computer with the Linux operating system.
.pp
One thing that Linux didn't have in the early to mid 1990s was a word
processor. A standard office application on other desktop operating
systems, a word processor lets you edit text easily. I often used a
word processor on DOS to write my papers for class. I wouldn't find a
Linux-native word processor until the late 1990s. Until then, word
processing was one of the rare reasons I maintained dual-boot on my
first computer, so I could occasionally boot back into DOS to write
papers.
.pp
Then I discovered that Linux provided a kind of word processor. GNU
.b groff
is a modern implementation of a classic
.i "text processing"
system called
.b troff ,
for
.i "typesetter roff" ,
which itself is an improved version of the
.b nroff
system. And
.b nroff
was meant to be a
.i new
implementation of the original
.b roff
(which stood for
.i "run off" ,
as in to
.q "run off"
a document).
.pp
With
.i "text processing" ,
you edit text in a plain text editor, and you add formatting through
.q macros
or other processing commands. You later process that text file through
the text processing system such as
.b groff
to generate
.i "formatted output"
suitable for a printer. Another well-known text processing system is
LaTeX, but
.b groff
was simple enough for my needs.
.pp
With a little practice, I found I could write my class papers just as
easily in
.b groff
on Linux as I could using a word processor on Linux. While I don't use
.b groff
to write documents today, I still remember the macros and commands to
generate printed documents with
.b groff .
And if you're the same as me, and you learned how to write with
.b groff
all those years ago, you probably fit these five signs that you write
in
.b groff .
.sh 1 "You have a favorite macro set"
.lp
You format a document in
.b groff
by writing plain text interspersed with
.i macros .
Each macro in
.b groff
is a short command that starts with a single period at the beginning
of a line. For example: if you want to insert a few lines into your
output, the
.q ".sp 2"
macro command will add two blank lines.
.b groff
supports other basic macros for all kinds of formatting.
.pp
To make formatting a document easier for the writer,
.b groff
also provides different
.i "macro sets" ,
collections of new macros that let you format documents your own
way. The first macro set I learned was the
.q -me
macro set. Really, the macro set is called the
.q e
macro set, and you specify the
.q e
macro set when you process a file using the
.q -me
option. So many writers who use
.b groff
refer to the macro set with the
.q -m
option prepended to the name.
.pp
But
.b groff
includes other macro sets, too. For example, the
.q -man
macro set used to be the standard macro set to format the built-in
.b man ual
pages on Unix systems, and the
.q -ms
macro set is often used to format certain other technical
documents. If you have ever learned to write with
.b groff ,
you probably have a favorite macro set.
.sh 1 "You want to focus on your content, not the formatting"
.lp
One great feature of writing with
.b groff
is that you can focus just on your
.i content
and not worry too much about what it looks like. And that is a handy
feature for technical writers.
.b groff
is a great
.q distraction-free
environment for professional writers. At least, as long as you don't
mind delivering your final output in any of the formats that
.b groff
supports with the
.q -T
command line option, including PDF, Postscript, HTML, and plain
text. You can't currently generate a LibreOffice ODT file or Word DOC
file directly from
.b groff .
.pp
Once you get comfortable writing in nroff, the macros start to
.i "disappear" .
The formatting macros become part of the background, and you focus
purely on the text in front of you. I've done enough writing in
.b groff
that I don't even see the macros anymore. Maybe it's like writing
programming code, and your mind just switches gears so you think like
a computer and see the code as a set of instructions. For me, writing
in
.b groff
is like that; I just see my text, and my mind interprets the macros
automatically into formatting.
.sh 1 "You like the old-school feel"
.lp
Sure, it might be
.i easier
to write your documents with a more typical word processor like
LibreOffice Writer, or even Google Docs or Microsoft Word. And for
certain kinds of documents, a desktop word processor is the right
fit. But if you want the
.q old-school
feel, it's hard to beat writing in
.b groff .
.pp
I'll admit that I do most of my writing with LibreOffice Writer, which
does an outstanding job. But when I get that itch to do it
.q old-school,
I'll open an editor and write my document using
.b groff .
.sh 1 "You can use it anywhere"
.lp
.b groff
or its cousins are a standard package on almost any Unix system. And
with
.b groff ,
the macros don't change. For example, the
.q -me
macros should be the same from system to system. So once you've
learned to use the macros on one system, you can use them on the next
system.
.pp
And because
.b groff
documents are just plain text, you can use any editor you like to edit
your documents for
.b groff .
I like to use GNU Emacs to edit my
.b groff
documents, but you can use GNOME Gedit, Vim, or your favorite text
editor. Most editors include some kind of
.q mode
that will highlight the
.b groff
macros in a different color from the rest of your text, to help you
spot errors before you process the file.
.sh 1 "You wrote this article in -me"
.lp
When I decided to write this article, I thought the best way to write
it would be to use
.b groff
directly. I wanted to demonstrate how flexible
.b groff
was in preparing documents. So even though you're reading this on a
website, the article itself was originally written using
.b groff .
.pp
I hope this article has interested you in learning how to use
.b groff
to write documents.  If you'd like to use more advanced functions in
.q -me
macro set, refer to Eric Allman's
.i "Writing Papers with Groff using -me" ,
which you should find on your system as
.q meintro.me
in
.b groff 's
documentation. It's a great reference document that explains other
ways to format papers using the
.q "-me"
macros.
.pp
I've also included a copy of the original draft of my article, using
the
.q -me
macros. Save the file as
.b five-signs-groff.me
to your system, and run it through
.b groff
to view it. The
.q -T
option sets the output type, such as
.b -Tps
to generate Postscript output, or
.b -Thtml
to create an HTML file. For example:
.(q
groff -me -Thtml five-signs-groff.me > five-signs-groff.html
.)q