TBL(7) | Miscellaneous Information Manual | TBL(7) |
tbl - tbl language reference for mandoc
The tbl language formats tables. It is used within mdoc(7) and man(7) pages. This manual describes the subset of the tbl language accepted by the mandoc(1) utility.
Each table is started with a roff(7) TS macro, consist of at most one line of Options, one or more Layout lines, one or more Data lines, and ends with a TE macro. All input must be 7-bit ASCII.
If the first input line of a table ends with a semicolon, it contains case-insensitive options separated by spaces, tabs, or commas. Otherwise, it is interpreted as the first Layout line.
The following options are available. Some of them require arguments enclosed in parentheses:
The table layout follows an Options line or a roff(7) TS or T& macro. Each layout line specifies how one line of Data is formatted. The last layout line ends with a full stop. It also applies to all remaining data lines. Multiple layout lines can be joined by commas on a single physical input line.
Each layout line consists of one or more layout cell specifications, optionally separated by whitespace. The following case-insensitive key characters start a new cell specification:
Each cell key may be followed by zero or more of the following case-insensitive modifiers:
If a modifier consists of decimal digits, it specifies a minimum spacing in units of n between this column and the next column to the right. The default is 3. If there is a vertical line, it is drawn inside the spacing.
The data section follows the last Layout line. Each data line consists of one or more data cells, delimited by tab characters.
If a data cell contains only the two bytes ‘\^’, the cell above spans to this row, as if the layout specification of this cell were ^.
If a data cell contains only the single character ‘_’ or ‘=’, a single or double horizontal line is drawn across the cell, joining its neighbours. If a data cell contains only the two character sequence ‘\_’ or ‘\=’, a single or double horizontal line is drawn inside the cell, not joining its neighbours. If a data line contains nothing but the single character ‘_’ or ‘=’, a horizontal line across the whole table is inserted without consuming a layout row.
In place of any data cell, a text block can be used. It starts with T{ at the end of a physical input line. Input line breaks inside the text block neither end the text block nor its data cell. It only ends if T} occurs at the beginning of a physical input line and is followed by an end-of-cell indicator. If the T} is followed by the end of the physical input line, the text block, the data cell, and the data line ends at this point. If the T} is followed by the tab character, only the text block and the data cell end, but the data line continues with the data cell following the tab character. If T} is followed by any other character, it does not end the text block, which instead continues to the following physical input line.
String justification and font selection:
.TS rb c lb r ci l. r center l ri ce le right c left .TE
The -T man output mode does not support tbl(7) input.
The -T man output mode does not support tbl(7) input.
The -T man output mode does not support tbl(7) input.
Some ports in OpenBSD 6.1 to show number alignment and line drawing:
.TS box tab(:); r| l r n. software:version _ AFL:2.39b Mutt:1.8.0 Ruby:1.8.7.374 TeX Live:2015 .TE
The -T man output mode does not support tbl(7) input.
The -T man output mode does not support tbl(7) input.
The -T man output mode does not support tbl(7) input.
The -T man output mode does not support tbl(7) input.
The -T man output mode does not support tbl(7) input.
The -T man output mode does not support tbl(7) input.
Spans and skipping width calculations:
.TS box tab(:); lz s | rt lt| cb| ^ ^ | rz s. left:r l:center: :right .TE
The -T man output mode does not support tbl(7) input.
The -T man output mode does not support tbl(7) input.
The -T man output mode does not support tbl(7) input.
Text blocks, specifying spacings and specifying and equalizing column widths, putting lines into individual cells, and overriding allbox:
.TS allbox tab(:); le le||7 lw10. The fourth line:_:line 1 of this column:=:line 2 determines:_:line 3 the column width.:T{ This text is too wide to fit into a column of width 17. T}:line 4 T{ No break here. T}::line 5 .TE
The -T man output mode does not support tbl(7) input.
The -T man output mode does not support tbl(7) input.
The -T man output mode does not support tbl(7) input.
The -T man output mode does not support tbl(7) input.
The -T man output mode does not support tbl(7) input.
These examples were constructed to demonstrate many tbl features in a compact way. In real manual pages, keep tables as simple as possible. They usually look better, are less fragile, and are more portable.
The mandoc(1) implementation of tbl doesn't support mdoc(7) and man(7) macros and eqn(7) equations inside tables.
mandoc(1), man(7), mandoc_char(7), mdoc(7), roff(7)
M. E. Lesk, Tbl — A Program to Format Tables, June 11, 1976.
The tbl utility, a preprocessor for troff, was originally written by M. E. Lesk at Bell Labs in 1975. The GNU reimplementation of tbl, part of the groff package, was released in 1990 by James Clark. A standalone tbl implementation was written by Kristaps Dzonsons in 2010. This formed the basis of the implementation that first appeared in OpenBSD 4.9 as a part of the mandoc(1) utility.
This tbl reference was written by Kristaps Dzonsons
<kristaps@bsd.lv> and
Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@openbsd.org>.
In -T utf8 output mode, heavy lines are drawn instead of double lines. This cannot be improved because the Unicode standard only provides an incomplete set of box drawing characters with double lines, whereas it provides a full set of box drawing characters with heavy lines. It is unlikely this can be improved in the future because the box drawing characters are already marked in Unicode as characters intended only for backward compatibility with legacy systems, and their use is not encouraged. So it seems unlikely that the missing ones might get added in the future.
September 18, 2021 | Debian |