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<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1">
<title>Using mom</title>
</head>
<body bgcolor="#dfdfdf">
<!====================================================================>
<a href="toc.html">Back to Table of Contents</a>
<a name="TOP"></a>
<a name="USING">
<h1 align="center"><u>USING MOM</u></h1>
</a>
<a href="#USING_INTRO">Introduction</a>
<br>
<a href="#USING_MACROS">Inputting macros</a>
<br>
<a href="#USING_INVOKING">Invoking groff</a>
<br>
<a href="#USING_PREVIEWING">Previewing documents</a>
<br>
<hr>
<h2><a name="USING_INTRO"><u>Introduction</u></a></h2>
As explained in the section
<a href="intro.html#INTRO">What is mom?</a>,
<strong>mom</strong> 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>
You tell <strong>mom</strong> that you want to use the document
processing macros with the
<a href="docprocessing.html#START">START</a>
macro, explained below. After <strong>START</strong>,
<strong>mom</strong> determines the appearance of text following
the markup tags automatically, although you, the user, can easily
change how <strong>mom</strong> interprets the tags. This gives you
nearly complete control over the look and feel of your documents.
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.
<a name="USING_MACROS">
<h2><u>How to input mom's macros</u></h2>
</a>
Regardless of which way you use <strong>mom</strong>, the
following apply.
<br>
<ol>
<li>You need a good text editor for inputting
<strong>mom</strong> files.
<p>
I cannot recommend highly enough that you use an
editor that lets you write syntax highlighting
rules for <strong>mom</strong>'s macros and
<a href="definitions.html#TERMS_INLINES">inline escapes</a>.
I use the vi clone called elvis, and find it a pure
joy in this regard. Simply colorizing macros and
inlines to half-intensity is enough to make text stand
out clearly from formattting commands.
<li>All <strong>mom</strong>'s macros begin with a period
(dot) and must be entered in upper case (capital)
letters.
<li>Macro
<a href="definitions.html#TERMS_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>Any argument (except a
<a href="definitions.html#TERMS_STRINGARGUMENT">string argument</a>)
that is not a digit must be entered in upper case
(capital) letters.
<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. +2, -4).
<li>Any argument that requires a
<a href="definitions.html#TERMS_UNITOFMEASURE">unit of measure</a>
must have the unit appended directly to the argument,
with no intervening space (e.g. 4P, .5i, 2v).
<li><a href="definitions.html#TERMS_STRINGARGUMENT">String arguments</a>,
in the sense that the term is used in this manual, must
be surrounded by double-quotes ("text of
string"). Multiple string arguments are separated
from each other by spaces (each argument surrounded by
double-quotes, of course).
<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:
<p>
<pre>
.SUBTITLE "An In-Depth Consideration of the \
Implications of Forty-Two as the Meaning of Life, \
The Universe, and Everything"
</pre>
</ol>
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.
<p>
<pre>
.TITLE "My Pulizter Novel"
.AUTHOR "Joe Blow"
.CHAPTER 1
\#
.DOCTYPE CHAPTER
.PRINTSTYPE TYPESET
\#
.FAM P
.PS 10
.LS 12
\#
.START
</pre>
<a name="USING_INVOKING">
<h2><u>Printing -- invoking groff with mom</u></h2>
</a>
After you've finished your document, naturally you will want to
print it. This involves invoking groff from the command line.
In all likelihood, you already know how to do this, but in case
you don't, here are two common ways to do it.
<p>
<pre>
groff -mom -l <filename>
groff -mom <filename> | lpr
</pre>
In the first, the <strong>-l</strong> option to groff tells
groff to send the output to your printer. In the second, you're
doing the same thing, except you're telling groff to pipe the
output to your printer. Basically, they're the same thing. The
only advantage to the second is that your system may be set up
to use something other than <strong>lpr</strong> as your print
command, in which case, you can replace <strong>lpr</strong>
with whatever is appropriate to your box.
<p>
Sadly, it is well beyond the scope of this manual to tell you
how to set up a printing system. See the README file for
minimum requirements to run groff with <strong>mom</strong>.
<a name="USING_PREVIEWING">
<h2><u>How to preview documents</u></h2>
</a>
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>
Groff itself comes with a quick and dirty previewer called
gxditview. Invoke it with
<p>
<pre>
groff -X -mom <filename>
</pre>
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
<strong>mom</strong>'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>
A surer way to preview documents is with <strong>gv</strong>
(ghostview). This involves processing documents with groff,
directing the output to a temporary (PostScript) file, then opening
the temporary file in <strong>gv</strong>. While that may sound
like a lot of work, I've set up my editor (elvis) to do it for me.
Whenever I'm working on a document that needs previewing/checking,
I fire up <strong>gv</strong> with the "Watch File"
option turned on. To look at the file, I tell elvis to process
it (with groff) and send it to the temporary file (<kbd>groff
-mom filename > filename.ps</kbd>), then open the file inside
<strong>gv</strong>. Ever after, when I want to look at any changes
I make, I simply tell elvis to work his magic again. The Watch File
option in <strong>gv</strong> registers that the file has changed,
and automatically loads the new version. Voilą! -- instant previewing.
<p>
<hr>
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