Re: [Groff] Beginner Groff issue: number registers inside macros

[Clarke Echols]

On 06/27/2012 02:45 PM, Zoë Blade wrote:
> > That may not be what you need.  A blank line has the same vertical
> > spacing as a .sp 1v request.  Paragraph spacing is more typically
> > .sp .5v
>
> Thank you, that's a very good point!  As it happens, for my particular 
> idiosyncratic purposes, I'm making a macro package for formatting scripts (the 
> non-computer kind), which are (as far as I can tell) essentially emulating an 
> IBM Selectric typewriter.  I don't know the details of it, but as it's 
> electromechanical, I'm guessing it's probably pretty simple, and missing 
> exactly one line in between each block of text should be sufficient for my 
> purposes!  Thank you though, it's always good to be aware of what I'm doing 
> rather than blindly groping around with copious manual skimming, as is my 
> custom. :)
>
> Thanks,
> Zoe.

Back in 1989, I learned troff while working on the HP-UX Reference (HP's 
published man pages).  I took the AT&T man macros and
used the vi editor to add comments so I could make sense of them.

I concluded the best way to learn troff is to put a comment on every
line in the entire package that explains what that line does (with
additional comments to explain particular macros, traps, etc.
without breaking anything.

It was very effective as a learning aid.  I had a standard AT&T
troff manual which was reasonably complete, but horribly arranged
for the user wanting to learn it.

Clarke