Re: [groff] Bold v Italics: Dawn of Justice

[John Gardner]

Concerning the issue of emphasising fixed-width text differently in nroff
and troff, here's a weird hack
<https://github.com/Alhadis/Mono/blob/eee9a367f9894a9a2f4f775f3f6f0eea32bef84f/ono.tmac#L34-L54>
I've used that works:

.\" Adaptive monospace fonts
> .ie t \{
> . ds `  \\f(CR
> . ds '  \\fP
> . ds C? \\f(CR
> . ds C! \\f(CR
> . ds CW \\f(CR
> . ds CI \\f(CI
> . ds CB \\f(CB
> . ie \\n(.g .ds CE \\f[CBI]
> . el        .ds CE \\f(CB \}
> .el \{
> . ds `  \\(lq\\fI
> . ds '  \\fP\\(rq
> . ds C? \\fI
> . ds C! \\fB
> . ds CW \\f1
> . ds CI \\fI
> . ds CB \\fB
> . ds CE \\f(BI \}
> .\" End of font setup


For *troff*(1), the input and output, respectively:

Foo \*`fixed-width\*' Bar

Foo fixed-width Bar


The same source rendered by *nroff*(1):

Foo \*`fixed-width\*' Bar

Foo “*fixed‐width*” Bar


(I was split on whether the underline was necessary if the quotes were
added)

I used this to format things that clearly needed to be distinguished in
some way, but differently so the reader wouldn't confuse them in a terminal
as referencing an argument or option...



On Fri, 16 Nov 2018 at 16:46, Werner LEMBERG <address@hidden> wrote:

>
> Thanks, Brandon, for that list!
>
> > [how I present the difficult issue to the reader]
> > Because font styles are presentational rather than semantic,
> > conflicting traditions have arisen regarding which font styles should be
> > used to mark file or path names,
> > environment variables,
> > in-line literals,
> > and even man page cross-references.
>
> Perhaps adding a few words that the man page macros unfortunately
> don't offer support for a `literal' tag like a typewriter font (even
> if that gets eventually mapped to bold or italic), which enforces the
> man page writer to directly use either bold or italic.
>
> > Use italics
> > for file and path names,
> > for environment variables,
> > for enumeration or preprocessor constants in C,
>
> Personally, I would use bold for these three things, ...
>
>
>     Werner
>
>