3.2 Common Features

GNU troff provides low-level operations for formatting a document. Many routine operations are undertaken in nearly all documents that require a series of such primitive operations to be performed. These common tasks are grouped into macros, which are then collected into a macro package.

Some macro packages (“major” or “full-service”) assume responsibility for page layout and other critical functions; others (“supplemental” or “auxiliary”) do not.

We present several capabilities of full-service macro packages below. Each package employs its own macro names to exercise them. For details, consult the package’s man page or, for ms, see ms.