A Revised Version of -ms
Bill Tuthill
Computing Services
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720
The -ms macros have been slightly revised and rearranged for
the Berkeley Unix distribution. Because of the rearrangement, the
new macros can be read by the computer in about half the time
required by the previous version of -ms. This means that output
will begin to appear between ten seconds and several minutes more
quickly, depending on the system load. On long files, however,
the savings in total time are not substantial. The old version of
-ms is still available as -mos.
Several bugs in -ms have been fixed, including a bad problem
with the .1C macro, minor difficulties with boxed text, a break
induced by .EQ before initialization, the failure to set tab
stops in displays, and several bothersome errors in the refer
macros. Macros used only at Bell Laboratories have been removed.
There are a few extensions to previous -ms macros, and a number
of new macros, but all the documented -ms macros still work
exactly as they did before, and have the same names as before.
Output produced with -ms should look like output produced with
-mos.
One important new feature is automatically numbered foot-
notes. Footnote numbers are printed by means of a pre-defined
string (\**), which you invoke separately from .FS and .FE. Each
time it is used, this string increases the footnote number by
one, whether or not you use .FS and .FE in your text. Footnote
numbers will be superscripted on the phototypesetter and on
daisy-wheel terminals, but on low-resolution devices (such as the
lpr and a crt), they will be bracketed. If you use \** to indi-
cate numbered footnotes, then the .FS macro will automatically
include the footnote number at the bottom of the page. This foot-
note, for example, was produced as follows:[1]
This footnote, for example, was produced as follows:\**
.FS
...
.FE
If you are using \** to number footnotes, but want a
_________________________
[1] If you never use the ``\**'' string, no footnote
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particular footnote to be marked with an asterisk or a
dagger, then give that mark as the first argument to .FS: -
then give that mark as the first argument to .FS: \(dg
.FS \(dg
...
.FE
Footnote numbering will be temporarily suspended, because
the \** string is not used. Instead of a dagger, you could
use an asterisk * or double dagger =, represented as \(dd.
Another new feature is a macro for printing theses according
to Berkeley standards. This macro is called .TM, which stands for
thesis mode. (It is much like the .th macro in -me.) It will put
page numbers in the upper right-hand corner; number the first
page; suppress the date; and doublespace everything except
quotes, displays, and keeps. Use it at the top of each file mak-
ing up your thesis. Calling .TM defines the .CT macro for chapter
titles, which skips to a new page and moves the pagenumber to the
center footer. The .P1 (P one) macro can be used even without
thesis mode to print the header on page 1, which is suppressed
except in thesis mode. If you want roman numeral page numbering,
use an ``.af PN i'' request.
There is a new macro especially for bibliography entries,
called .XP, which stands for exdented paragraph. It will exdent
the first line of the paragraph by \n(PI units, usually 5n (the
same as the indent for the first line of a .PP). Most bibliogra-
phies are printed this way. Here are some examples of exdented
paragraphs:
Lumley, Lyle S., Sex in Crustaceans: Shell Fish Habits, Harbinger
Press, Tampa Bay and San Diego, October 1979. 243 pages. The
pioneering work in this field.
Leffadinger, Harry A., ``Mollusk Mating Season: 52 Weeks, or All
Year?'' in Acta Biologica, vol. 42, no. 11, November 1980. A
provocative thesis, but the conclusions are wrong.
Of course, you will have to take care of italicizing the book
title and journal, and quoting the title of the journal article.
Indentation or exdentation can be changed by setting the value of
number register PI.
If you need to produce endnotes rather than footnotes, put
the references in a file of their own. This is similar to what
_________________________
numbers will appear anywhere in the text, including down
here. The output footnotes will look exactly like footnotes
produced with -mos.
- In the footnote, the dagger will appear where the foot-
note number would otherwise appear, as on the left.
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you would do if you were typing the paper on a conventional type-
writer. Note that you can use automatic footnote numbering
without actually having .FS and .FE pairs in your text. If you
place footnotes in a separate file, you can use .IP macros with
\** as a hanging tag; this will give you numbers at the left-hand
margin. With some styles of endnotes, you would want to use .PP
rather than .IP macros, and specify \** before the reference
begins.
There are four new macros to help produce a table of con-
tents. Table of contents entries must be enclosed in .XS and .XE
pairs, with optional .XA macros for additional entries; arguments
to .XS and .XA specify the page number, to be printed at the
right. A final .PX macro prints out the table of contents. Here
is a sample of typical input and output text:
.XS ii
Introduction
.XA 1
Chapter 1: Review of the Literature
.XA 23
Chapter 2: Experimental Evidence
.XE
.PX
Table of Contents
Introduction .................................... ii
Chapter 1: Review of the Literature .............. 1
Chapter 2: Experimental Evidence ................. 23
The .XS and .XE pairs may also be used in the text, after a sec-
tion header for instance, in which case page numbers are supplied
automatically. However, most documents that require a table of
contents are too long to produce in one run, which is necessary
if this method is to work. It is recommended that you do a table
of contents after finishing your document. To print out the table
of contents, use the .PX macro; if you forget it, nothing will
happen.
As an aid in producing text that will format correctly with
both nroff and troff, there are some new string definitions that
define quotation marks and dashes for each of these two format-
ting programs. The \*_ string will yield two hyphens in nroff,
but in troff it will produce an em dash-- like this one. The \*Q
and \*U strings will produce `` and '' in troff, but " in nroff.
(In typesetting, the double quote is traditionally considered bad
form.)
There are now a large number of optional foreign accent
marks defined by the -ms macros. All the accent marks available
in -mos are present, and they all work just as they always did.
However, there are better definitions available by placing .AM at
the beginning of your document. Unlike the -mos accent marks, the
accent strings should come after the letter being accented. Here
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is a list of the diacritical marks, with examples of what they
look like.
name of accent input output
___________________________________
acute accent e\*' '
grave accent e\*` `
circumflex o\*^ ^
cedilla c\*, ,
tilde n\*~ n̅
question \*? ?
exclamation \*! !
umlaut u\*: "
digraph s \*8 B
ha'`ek c\*v '`
macron a\*_ ^
underdot s\*. .
o-slash o\*/ /
angstrom a\*o aa
yogh kni\*3t kni3t
Thorn \*(Th P
thorn \*(th p
Eth \*(D- -
eth \*(d- `
hooked o \*q ,
ae ligature \*(ae ae
AE ligature \*(Ae AE
oe ligature \*(oe oe
OE ligature \*(Oe OE
If you want to use these new diacritical marks, don't forget the
.AM at the top of your file. Without it, some will not print at
all, and others will be placed on the wrong letter.
It is also possible to produce custom headers and footers
that are different on even and odd pages. The .OH and .EH macros
define odd and even headers, while .OF and .EF define odd and
even footers. Arguments to these four macros are specified as
with .tl. This document was produced with:
.OH '\fIThe -mx Macros''Page %\fP'
.EH '\fIPage %''The -mx Macros\fP'
Note that it would be a error to have an apostrophe in the header
text; if you need one, you will have to use a different delimiter
around the left, center, and right portions of the title. You can
use any character as a delimiter, provided it doesn't appear
elsewhere in the argument to .OH, .EH, .OF, or EF.
The -ms macros work in conjunction with the tbl, eqn, and
refer preprocessors. Macros to deal with these items are read in
only as needed, as are the thesis macros (.TM), the special
accent mark definitions (.AM), table of contents macros (.XS and
.XE), and macros to format the optional cover page. The code for
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the -ms package lives in /usr/lib/tmac/tmac.s, and sourced files
reside in the directory /usr/ucb/lib/ms.
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