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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.

Macro packages come in two varieties: “major” or “full-service” ones that manage page layout with traps, and “minor” or “auxiliary” ones that do not, but fulfill narrower purposes. Find a list in groff_tmac(5).

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.