Ralph, Ted, Thank you both for your help! Right after sending in my question I found something helpful in the Troff User Manual you mention.
A bit different than your solution but seems to work, at least with my test. It goes something like this: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nulla ut fringilla felis. Sed lacus eros, sagittis quis elit at, pretium vehicula mi. Praesent augue libero, porttitor bibendum varius pharetra, euismod eget nisl. In viverra finibus neque, sit amet venenatis augue elementum nec. .br .sp .ll -5 .in +3 .ti -1 1. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nulla ut fringilla felis. Sed lacus eros, sagittis quis elit at, pretium vehicula mi. Praesent augue libero, porttitor bibendum varius pharetra, euismod eget nisl. In viverra finibus neque, sit amet venenatis augue elementum nec. .br .sp 0.3 .ti -1 2. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nulla ut fringilla felis. Sed lacus eros, sagittis quis elit at, pretium vehicula mi. Praesent augue libero, porttitor bibendum varius pharetra, euismod eget nisl. In viverra finibus neque, sit amet venenatis augue elementum nec. .br .sp 0.3 .ti -1 3. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nulla ut fringilla felis. Sed lacus eros, sagittis quis elit at, pretium vehicula mi. Praesent augue libero, porttitor bibendum varius pharetra, euismod eget nisl. In viverra finibus neque, sit amet venenatis augue elementum nec. .br .in .ll .sp Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nulla ut fringilla felis. Sed lacus eros, sagittis quis elit at, pretium vehicula mi. Praesent augue libero, porttitor bibendum varius pharetra, euismod eget nisl. In viverra finibus neque, sit amet venenatis augue elementum nec. Probably not ideal it did give me the output that I was looking for. As I mentionned I'm using a programming language to generate groff, my program looking something like this, where title, subtitle, h1, p etc are functions that take a string. title {My New Book} subtitle {And Other Gems} h1 {1 Level 1 Heading} p {Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nulla ut fringilla felis. Sed lacus eros, sagittis quis elit at, pretium vehicula mi. Praesent augue libero, porttitor bibendum varius pharetra, euismod eget nisl. In viverra finibus neque, sit amet venenatis augue elementum nec.} p {Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nulla ut fringilla felis. Sed lacus eros, sagittis quis elit at, pretium vehicula mi. Praesent augue libero, porttitor bibendum varius pharetra, euismod eget nisl. In viverra finibus neque, sit amet venenatis augue elementum nec.} blockquote {Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nulla ut fringilla felis. Sed lacus eros, sagittis quis elit at, pretium vehicula mi. Praesent augue libero, porttitor bibendum varius pharetra, euismod eget nisl. In viverra finibus neque, sit amet venenatis augue elementum nec.} p {Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nulla ut fringilla felis. Sed lacus eros, sagittis quis elit at, pretium vehicula mi. Praesent augue libero, porttitor bibendum varius pharetra, euismod eget nisl. In viverra finibus neque, sit amet venenatis augue elementum nec.} h2 {1.1 Level 2 Heading} p {Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nulla ut fringilla felis. Sed lacus eros, sagittis quis elit at, pretium vehicula mi. Praesent augue libero, porttitor bibendum varius pharetra, euismod eget nisl. In viverra finibus neque, sit amet venenatis augue elementum nec.} p {Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nulla ut fringilla felis. Sed lacus eros, sagittis quis elit at, pretium vehicula mi. Praesent augue libero, porttitor bibendum varius pharetra, euismod eget nisl. In viverra finibus neque, sit amet venenatis augue elementum nec.} list "1" ")" [ li {Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nulla ut fringilla felis. Sed lacus eros.} li {Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nulla ut fringilla felis. Sed lacus eros,} li {Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nulla ut fringilla felis. Sed lacus eros.} ] p {Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nulla ut fringilla felis. Sed lacus eros, sagittis quis elit at, pretium vehicula mi. Praesent augue libero, @href[porttitor http://www.cool.com] bibendum @index[varius] pharetra, euismod eget nisl. In viverra finibus neque, sit amet venenatis augue elementum nec.} On Sat, Aug 11, 2018 at 3:46 AM Ralph Corderoy <ra...@inputplus.co.uk> wrote: > Hi Yves, > > > What approach would I take? Is this something that can be done with > > tabs? > > The tutorial in CSTR 54, logical page `- 32 -', defines the `lp' > labelled paragraph macro that uses tabs. https://troff.org/54.pdf > If you're starting troff, that slim document is well worthy of repeated > careful study. > > > a combination of indents? > > Ted's pointed out the combination of indents. Another way that's > sometimes seen is to move left with `\h' to out-dent the item's > `bullet'. > > $ cat list.tr > .na > .nh > .pl 10 > .ll 32 > .nr i 0 1 > .af i i > Before. > .sp > .in 8 > .ds l "\n+i. \" > \h'-\w'\*l'u'\*lFirst. > .br > .ds l "\n+i. \" > \h'-\w'\*l'u'\*lSecond. > A lot longer list item this time. > .br > .ds l "\n+i. \" > \h'-\w'\*l'u'\*lThird. > .in > .sp > After. > $ > $ nroff list.tr > Before. > > i. First. > ii. Second. A lot longer > list item this time. > iii. Third. > > After. > > > $ > > The tedious repetition is well suited to being your own macro definition > you have in your prologue. > > -- > Cheers, Ralph. > https://plus.google.com/+RalphCorderoy >