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Mom’s simple but effective letter-writing macros are a subset of the document processing macros, designed to ease the creation of correspondence.
Because the letter macros are a subset of the document processing macros, you can use control macros to design correspondence to your own specifications. However, mom makes no pretence of providing complete design flexibility in the matter of letters, which are, after all, simple communicative documents whose only real style requirements are that they be neat and professional-looking.
Mom letters begin, like all mom-processed documents, with
reference macros
(in this case,
AUTHOR),
a
DOCTYPE
(LETTER, obviously), the essential
PRINTSTYLE
macro, and
START,
like this:
.AUTHOR "Yannick P. Guique"
.DOCTYPE LETTER
.PRINTSTYLE TYPESET
.START
PRINTSTYLE, above, could also be TYPEWRITE. Mom has no
objection to creating letters that look like they were typed on an
Underwood by a shapely secretary with 1940s gams.
Please note that if you choose PRINTSTYLE TYPEWRITE, there’s no need to give the SINGLESPACE option, as this is the unalterable default for letters.
After the START macro, you enter headers pertinent to your letter: the date, the addressee (in business correspondence, typically both name and address), the addresser (that’s you; in business correspondence, typically both name and address), and a greeting (in full, e.g. “Dear Mr. Smith,” or “Dear Mr. Smith:”).
The macros for entering the headers are simple (they’re not even
toggles):
.DATE
.TO
.CC
.FROM
.GREETING
You may enter them in any order you like, except for GREETING, which
must come last. Mom ignores any headers you omit and spaces the
letter’s opening according to what you do include. See
Default for letters
to find out how mom formats the headers.
Once you’ve filled in what you need to get a letter started, simply type the letter, introducing each and every paragraph, including the first, with the PP macro.
Letters are concluded with the CLOSING macro. If you want a complimentary closing (“Yours truly,” “Sincerely,” “Hugs and kisses”), invoke CLOSING on a line by itself and follow it with the text of the closing. N.B. Don’t add your name; mom supplies it automatically (from AUTHOR), leaving room above it for your signature. If you'd prefer not to have a complimentary closing, place \& immediately underneath .CLOSING. Mom then just adds your name (from AUTHOR), again leaving room for your signature.
Assuming our tutorial letter is for business correspondence,
here’s what the complete letter looks like.
.AUTHOR "Yannick P. Guique"
.DOCTYPE LETTER
.PRINTSTYLE TYPESET
.START
.DATE
August 25, 2010
.TO
GUILLAUME BARRIÈRES
Minidoux Corporation
5000 Pannes Drive
Redmond, Virginia
.CC
John Doe
Jane Deere
Joe Blough
.FROM
Y.P. GUIQUE
022 Umask Road
St-Sauveur-en-dehors-de-la-mappe, Québec
.GREETING
Dear Mr. Barrières,
.PP
It has come to my attention that you have once again been
lobbying the US government to prohibit the use of open source
software by endeavouring to outlaw so-called "warranty
free" applications.
.PP
I feel it is my duty to inform you that the success of your
operating system relies heavily on open source programs and
protocols, notably TCP/IP.
.PP
Therefore, in the interests of your corporation’s fiscal health,
I strongly advise that you withdraw support for any US
legislation that would cripple or render illegal open source
development.
.CLOSING
Sincerely,
This produces a letter with headers that follow the North American
standard for business correspondence. If you’d prefer another style
of correspondence, for example, British, you’d set up the same
letter like this:
.AUTHOR "Yannick P. Guique"
.DOCTYPE LETTER
.PRINTSTYLE TYPESET
.START
.FROM
.RIGHT
Y.P. GUIQUE
022 Umask Road
St-Sauveur-en-dehors-de-la-mappe, Québec
.TO
GUILLAUME BARRIÈRES
Minidoux Corporation
5000 Pannes Drive
Redmond, Virginia
.CC
John Doe
Jane Deere
Joe Blough
.DATE
.RIGHT
August 25, 2010
.GREETING
Dear Mr. Barrières,
Notice the use of .RIGHT after .FROM and
.DATE in this example, used to change the default quad
for these macros.
In letters, if the order of header macros is
Mom sets
which is the standard for North American business correspondence. The .CC macro, followed by a list of carbon copy recipients, may go anywhere before .GREETING
If you switch the order of .DATE, .TO and/or .FROM, mom sets all the headers flush left, with a gap of one linespace underneath each. (The default left quad of any header can be changed by invoking the .RIGHT macro, on a line by itself, immediately before inputting the text of the header.)
Following the headers, mom sets
Other important style defaults are listed below, and may be changed via the typesetting macros or the document processing control macros prior to START. Assume that any style parameter not listed below is the same as for any document processed with PRINTSTYLE TYPESET or PRINTSTYLE TYPEWRITE.
All letter macros must come after START, except NO_SUITE, which must come after PRINTSTYLE and before START.
Invoke .DATE on a line by itself, with the date
underneath, like this:
.DATE
October 31, 2024
You may also enter the date symbolically using groff’s
.pso request and the system date command, like
this:
.DATE
.pso date "+%B %-e, %Y%n"
Consult the date(1) manpage for details of date formatting. Note
that you must pass pdfmom or groff the -U flag
when you use the .pso request.
If you wish to change the default quad direction for the date, enter .LEFT or .RIGHT, on a line by itself, immediately after .DATE.
If you want additional space between the date and any letter header
that comes after it, do so after inputting the date, not at the top
of the next header macro, like this:
.DATE
October 31, 2012
.SPACE \"Or, more simply, .SP
If you wish to remove the default space,
.SPACE -1v \"Or, more simply, .SP -1v
will do the trick.
Invoke .TO on a line by itself, with the name and address
of the addressee underneath, like this:
.TO
JOHN SMITH
10 Roberts Crescent
Bramladesh, Ont.
If you wish to change the default quad direction for the address,
enter .LEFT or .RIGHT, on a line by itself,
immediately after .TO.
If you want additional space between the address and any letter
header that comes after it, do so after inputting the address, not
at the top of the next header macro, like this:
.TO
JOHN SMITH
10 Roberts Crescent
Bramladesh, Ont.
.SPACE \"Or, more simply, .SP
If you wish to remove the default space,
.SPACE -1v \"Or, more simply, .SP -1v
will do the trick.
The .CC macro, invoked on a line by itself and followed by the names of carbon copy recipients, one to a line, creates a CC list that is set at the bottom of letters, underneath the signature line. If the list runs deep, mom shifts it to the next page.
Mom’s default is to introduce the list of CC recipients with
CC:. The default can be changed with the CC_STRING
macro, e.g.
.CC_STRING "Copies to:"
When setting up letter headers, the CC macro may go anywhere before GREETING.
Invoke .FROM on a line by itself, with the name and
address of the addresser underneath, like this:
.FROM
JOE BLOW
15 Brunette Road
Ste-Vieille-Andouille, Québec
If you wish to change the default quad direction for the address,
enter .LEFT or .RIGHT, on a line by itself,
immediately after .FROM.
If you want additional space between the address and any letter
header that comes after it, do so after inputting the address, not
at the top of the next header macro, like this:
.FROM
JOE BLOW
15 Brunette Road
Ste-Vieille-Andouille, Québec
.SPACE \"Or, more simply, .SP
If you wish to remove the default space,
.SPACE -1v \"Or, more simply, .SP -1v
will do the trick.
Invoke .GREETING on a line by itself, with the full
salutation you want for the letter underneath, like this:
.GREETING
Dear Mr. Smith,
Mom-formatted letters must end with .CLOSING. Follow
it on the next line with your preferred complimentary closing
(e.g. “Yours truly,”), like this:
.CLOSING
Yours truly,
If you’d rather not have a complimentary closing, follow
.CLOSING with \& on a line by itself. Mom
will still automatically supply the signature line, whose position
you may want to adjust with
SIGNATURE_SPACE.
CLOSING control macros and defaults
Two macros control the behaviour of .CLOSING:
The first, CLOSING_INDENT, indicates the distance from the left
margin you’d like to have your closing indented. It takes a
single
numeric argument
and must have a
unit of measure
appended to it, unless you want an indent of 0 (zero). Mom’s
default is one half the width of the letter’s line length
(i.e. halfway across the page). If you wanted, instead, an indent of
6
picas,
you’d do it like this:
.CLOSING_INDENT 6P
Or, if you wanted to have no indent at all:
.CLOSING_INDENT 0
The second, SIGNATURE_SPACE, controls how much room to leave for the
signature. It takes a single
numeric argument
and must have a
unit of measure
appended to it. Mom’s default is 3 line spaces, but if you
wanted to change that to, say, 2 line spaces, you’d do:
.SIGNATURE_SPACE 2v
If you don’t want mom to print a “next page” number at the bottom of multi-page letters, invoke .NO_SUITE, on a line by itself, prior to START.
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