URL: <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?68261>
Summary: [man] offer advice on (not) using
Courier/monospace/typewritten font in man pages
Group: GNU roff
Submitter: gbranden
Submitted: Tue 21 Apr 2026 06:57:43 PM UTC
Category: Macro package man
Severity: 1 - Wish
Item Group: Documentation
Status: None
Privacy: Public
Assigned to: None
Open/Closed: Open
Discussion Lock: Unlocked
Planned Release: None
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Follow-up Comments:
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Date: Tue 21 Apr 2026 06:57:43 PM UTC By: G. Branden Robinson <gbranden>
Prompted by [https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2026-04/msg00019.html a
thread on the groff development list] (and "tex-k").
Add an item to the Q&A of _groff_man_style_(7)'s "Notes" section.
Advise man page authors who grab directly at the `CW` and `C` font names what
to do instead.
Alternatives:
* If you have a whole display like this, use EX and EE; they are hands-down
the most portable solution.
Otherwise, we have an inline change of typeface.
* Use quotation. We already have an item about this.
* Caution author of potential for confusing space widths when setting
monospaced and proportional typefaces adjacently. Maybe they'll decide that
bold suffices. (However, using bold to excess is a vice.)
If they're still not talked out of it:
* Define pair of enclosing, non-argument-taking, page-local macros to wrap the
words to be styled thus. If typesetting (".if t") use the font name `CR`.
Nothing is perfectly portable, but _groff_ has supported that typeface name
for 35+ years; nothing else comes close. Beyond "R", "I", "B", "S",
and--fitfully--"BI", AT&T _troff_ made no attempt to establish a reliable font
name repertoire. If not typesetting, use quotation (see above) or bold.
Advise that page-local macros may not work or may draw diagnostics from
_mandoc_(1), and likely will not work with _man2html_ programs. (But if you
write macros **that don't take arguments**, you will at least avoid document
text getting discarded, unless the non-_roff_ formatter (read: scraper) is
inexcusably crappy.)
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