.CHAPTER RUNOFF COMMANDS .INDEX RUNOFF COMMANDS .INDEX COMMAND FORMAT .skip The following commands will be recognized if they are at the beginning of a line started with a period. Any line in the source file beginning with a period is assumed to be one of these commands. If it is not, an error diagnostic will be typed and the line will be ignored. Some commands take one or more decimal numeric arguments. These are separated from the command by a space. Multiple arguments may be separated by spaces,tabs, or commas. If the argument is preceeded by a minus sign (-) then it may be entered as a negative value. If it is preceeded by +- then it may be a relative argument. A relative argument changes the old value by the + or - value specified. .p More than one command may be entered on a single line. The commands may be optionally separated by a semicolon (;). If the semicolon is used as a separator the next command must immediately follow with no intervening spaces. Commands which are followed by text may be the last command on a line, but may not have other commands after them on the same line. For example the following line is a legal set of commands all on 1 line: .i5; .TP 10.Fill;.EH.Title GONE WITH THE WIND .S Multi-word commands may appear in any form. Thus, .NO HEADER and .NOHEADER are both legal. .skip Many commands may be abbreviated. Standard abbreviations are given below each command. .s; Commands may have text following them provided the text is separated from the command by a semicolon (;). For example the following line will produce a centered title. .i5; .C; THIS IS A TITLE .br; The semicolon is essentially a separator which indicates that the rest of the line is to be treated just as if a new line had begun. .UC .S Square are [] brackets are used to denote optional syntax elements. .PAGE