Follow-up Comment #3, bug #68543 (group groff): On Tuesday, 21 July 2026 17:17:47 British Summer Time G. Branden Robinson wrote: > Follow-up Comment #2, bug #68543 (group groff): > > Hi Deri, > > At 2026-07-21T11:24:27-0400, Deri James wrote: >> Follow-up Comment #1, bug #68543 (group groff): >> >> This is probably pertinent to a discussion of font styles in man >> pages, as it pertains to troff output. >> >> Currently we can control which fonts are used for:- >> >> Body text (-f) > > Yes, as a family. > >> Headings (-dHF) > > Yes, as any font identifier. > >> "Topics" (-dTF) > > Eh? What's that? Not in GNU groff. > > Oh, I think you mean `MF`. Let your inner Samuel L. Jackson flow! > Hi Branden,
Yes, that's the beastie ("topic-font").
> -dMF=man‐page‐topic‐font
> Select the font used for man page identifiers in TH calls
> and topics named in MR calls; the default is “I” (italic
> style of the default family). Any valid argument to
> groff’s “ft” request may be used. If the MF string ends
> in “I”, the package assumes it to be an oblique typeface,
> and applies italic corrections before and after man page
> topics and identifiers.
>
>> But we have no control of the font used in EX/EE sections, it is hard
>> coded. It would be nice if people agree this gap should be filled.
>
> I tend to add registers and strings for stylesheet-like configuration
> man pages only when there are arguments (as with the cold war over the
> face to be used for the "topic" in man page cross references) or people
> are raking me over the coals for changing defaults. Granted, pointing
> out that a rendering parameter is now configurable doesn't completely
> mollify them when they also dislike _that_ the default changed. A very
> recent example is Russ Allbery (podlators/ od2man maintainer) getting
> cross with me over a change I made that he didn't notice, but some of
> his users did.
I'm not suggesting the default should change, just allow users to select an
alternative should they wish.
> https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1134776
>
> I hadn't known at the time I made that change that pod2man "abused" the
> `IP` macro with such...single-minded dedication! Fortunately we seem to
> have worked things out, and POD will be in good shape to benefit from
> automatic tagging if I ever get that implemented. And the door is open
> for it to exercise the `LS`/`LE` enhancement, arriving in groff 1.25.0.
>
> Anyway, that's a _counter_-example of the point you raise because I
> haven't run into anyone who _wants_ to use a different font family for
> example regions--and it would have to be a _family_ because style
> changes are foreseeable and expected occasionally in `EX`/`EE` regions.
>
> Can you show me where you've seen some demand for setting man pages
> example regions in, say Helvetica or Bookman?
Purely aesthetics, I think there are more modern mono font families which look
nicer. Here are some examples:-
T-C.pdf (our default: TimesRoman & Courier)
T-LibC.pdf (TimesRoman & LiberationMono) Weird 'fi' ligature in word
'definition' Ugh!
T-SCP.pdf (TimesRoman & SourceCodePro)
Tinos-SCP.pdf (Tinos & SourceCodePro) My favourite.
CN-SCP.pdf (ComicNeue & SourceCodePro) A bit of fun!
As you may remember I never use 'man'; xdg's man:/ protocol is tied to my
software which calls groff and xdg-open the result.
Cheers
Deri
(file #58809, file #58810, file #58811, file #58812, file #58813)
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