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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!--
This file is part of groff, the GNU roff type-setting system.
Copyright (C) 2004, 2005, 2006, 2009, 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Written by Peter Schaffter.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or
any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the
Invariant Sections being this comment section, with no Front-Cover
Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts.
A copy of the Free Documentation License is included as a file called
FDL in the main directory of the groff source package.
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<title>Using mom</title>
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<td><a href="toc.html">Back to Table of Contents</a></td>
<td style="text-align: right;"><a href="typesetting.html#top">Next: The typesetting macros</a></td>
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<h1 id="using" class="docs">Using mom</h1>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<ul class="no-enumerator" style="margin-left: -2.5em;">
<li ><a href="#using-intro">Introduction</a></li>
<li ><a href="#using-macros">How to input mom’s macros</a></li>
<li ><a href="#using-previewing">How to preview documents</a></li>
<li ><a href="#using-saving">Saving documents</a></li>
<li ><a href="#using-printing">Printing documents</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="rule-short" style="margin-top: 18px;"><hr/></div>
<h2 id="using-intro" class="docs">Introduction</h2>
<p>
As explained in the section
<a href="intro.html#top">What is mom?</a>,
mom can be used in two ways: for straight typesetting or
for document processing. The difference between the two
is that in straight typesetting, every macro is a literal
typesetting instruction that determines precisely how text
following it will look. Document processing, on the other
hand, uses markup tags (e.g. <kbd>.PP</kbd> for
paragraphs, <kbd>.HEAD</kbd> for heads,
<kbd>.FOOTNOTE</kbd> for footnotes, etc.) that make a
lot of typesetting decisions automatically.
</p>
<p>
You tell mom that you want to use the document processing macros
with the
<a href="docprocessing.html#start"><kbd>START</kbd></a>
macro, explained below. After <kbd>START</kbd>,
mom determines the appearance of text following the markup tags
automatically, although you, the user, can easily change how mom
interprets the tags. This gives you nearly complete control
over document design. In addition, the typesetting macros, in
combination with document processing, let you meet all sorts of
typesetting needs that just can’t be covered by “one
macro fits all“ markup tags.
</p>
<h2 id="using-macros" class="docs">How to input mom’s macros</h2>
<p>
Regardless of which way you use mom, the following apply:
</p>
<ol style="margin-top: -.5em; margin-bottom: -.5em;">
<li>
You need a good text editor for inputting mom files.
<span style="display: block; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .5em;">
I cannot recommend highly enough that you use an editor that
lets you write syntax highlighting rules for mom’s
macros and
<a href="definitions.html#inlines">inline escapes</a>.
Simply colourizing macros and inlines to half-intensity can be
enough to make text stand out clearly from formatting commands.
</span>
</li>
<li>
All mom’s macros begin with a period (dot) and must be
entered in upper case (capital) letters.
</li>
<li>
Macro
<a href="definitions.html#arguments">arguments</a>
are separated from the macro itself by spaces. Multiple
arguments to the same macro are separated from each
other by spaces. Any number of spaces may be used. All
arguments to a macro must appear on the same line as the
macro.
</li>
<li>
Any argument (except a
<a href="definitions.html#stringargument">string argument</a>)
that is not a digit must be entered in upper case
(capital) letters.
</li>
<li>
Any argument that requires a plus or minus sign must
have the plus or minus sign prepended to the argument
with no intervening space (e.g. <kbd>+2</kbd>).
</li>
<li>
Any argument that requires a
<a href="definitions.html#unitofmeasure">unit of measure</a>
must have the unit appended directly to the argument, with no
intervening space (e.g. <kbd>.5i</kbd>).
</li>
<li>
<a href="definitions.html#stringargument">String arguments</a>,
in the sense that the term is used in this manual, must be
surrounded by double-quotes
(<kbd>"<text of string>"</kbd>). Multiple
string arguments are separated from each other by spaces (each
argument surrounded by double-quotes, of course).
</li>
<li>
If a string argument, as entered in your text editor, becomes
uncomfortably long (i.e. runs longer than the visible portion of
your screen or window), you may break it into two or more lines
by placing the backslash character (<kbd>\</kbd>)
at the ends of lines to break them up, like this:
<span class="pre">
.SUBTITLE "An In-Depth Consideration of the \
Implications of Forty-Two as the Meaning of Life, \
The Universe, and Everything"
</span>
</li>
</ol>
<div class="box-tip">
<p class="tip">
<span class="tip">Tip:</span>
It’s important that formatted documents be easy to
read/interpret when you’re looking at them in a text editor.
One way to achieve this is to group macros that serve a similar
purpose together, and separate them from other groups of macros
with a blank comment line. In groff, that’s done with
<kbd>\#</kbd> on a line by itself. Consider the
following, which is a template for starting the chapter of a book.
<br/>
<span class="pre-in-pp">
.TITLE "My Pulitzer Novel"
.AUTHOR "Joe Blow"
.CHAPTER 1
\#
.DOCTYPE CHAPTER
.PRINTSTYLE TYPESET
\#
.FAM P
.PT_SIZE 10
.LS 12
\#
.START
</span>
</p>
</div>
<h2 id="using-previewing" class="docs">How to preview documents</h2>
<p>
Other than printing out hard copy, there are two well-established
methods for previewing your work. Both assume you have a working
X server.
</p>
<p>
Groff itself comes with a quick and dirty previewer called
gxditview. Invoke it with:
<br/>
<span class="pre-in-pp">
groff -X -mom <filename>
</span>
It’s not particularly pretty, doesn’t have many
navigation options, requires a lot of work if you want to use
other than the standard groff PostScript fonts, and occasionally has
difficulty accurately reproducing some of mom’s macro effects
(<a href="goodies.html#smartquotes">smartquotes</a>
and
<a href="goodies.html#leader">leaders</a>
come to mind). What it does have going for it is that it’s
fast and doesn’t gobble up system resources.
</p>
<p>
A surer way to preview documents is with gv (ghostview). This
involves processing documents with groff and directing the default
PostScript output to a file, like this:
<br/>
<span class="pre-in-pp">
groff -mom <filename> > <filename>.ps
</span>
You can then then open the ps file in gv.
</p>
<div class="box-tip">
<p class="tip">
<span class="tip">Tip:</span>
I’ve set up my editor (vi[m]) to do seamless, automatic
previewing. Whenever I’m working on a document that
needs previewing/checking, I fire up gv with the “Watch
File“ option turned on. The first time I want to look at
the file, I tell vim (via a keymapping) to process it with groff
and send it to a PostScript file:
<br/>
<span class="pre-in-pp">
groff -mom <filename> > <filename>.ps
</span>
I then open the file inside gv. Ever after, when I want to look at
any changes I make, I simply tell vim to work its magic again.
The Watch File option in gv registers that the PostScript file has
changed, and automatically loads the new version. <i>Voilà!</i>—instant
previewing.
</p>
</div>
<h2 id="using-saving" class="docs">Saving documents</h2>
<p>
By default, groff dumps its PostScript output to stdout (your
terminal screen) so you have to say where you want it to go if you
want to save it to a file. The most straightforward way to do
this is:
<br/>
<span class="pre-in-pp">
groff -mom <filename> > <filename>.ps
</span>
which drops the output in a PostScript file. Alternatively, you
might prefer to save it as a pdf file, in which case you'd do:
<br/>
<span class="pre">
groff -mom <filename> | ps2pdf - <filename>.pdf
</span>
</p>
<h2 id="using-printing" class="docs" style="margin-top: 1.5em;">Printing documents</h2>
<p>
You can process and print documents from the command line without
saving them to .ps or .pdf files first. Here are two common ways
to do it:
<span class="pre">
groff -mom -l <filename>
groff -mom <filename> | lpr
</span>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: -1.5em;">
In the first, the <kbd>-l</kbd> option tells groff
to send the output to your printer. In the second, you’re
doing the same thing, except you’re telling groff to
<i>pipe</i> the output to your printer spooler. Basically,
they’re the same thing. The advantage to the second is that
you can pass additional options to lpr, for example to send
the output to a particular printer, like this:
<br/>
<span class="pre-in-pp">
groff -mom <filename> | lpr -P <printer_name>
</span>
</p>
<div class="rule-long" style="margin-top: -.5em;"><hr/></div>
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<td style="width: 33%; text-align: right;"><a href="typesetting.html#top">Next: The typesetting macros</a></td>
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