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GROFF_CHAR(7) Miscellaneous Information Manual GROFF_CHAR(7) NAME groff_char - groff character names DESCRIPTION This manual page lists the standard groff input characters. The output characters in this document will look different depending on which output device was chosen (with option -T for the man(1) program or the roff for- matter). Only the characters that are available for the device that is be- ing used to print or view this manual page will be displayed (the device currently used is `ascii'). In the actual version, groff provides only 8-bit characters for direct in- put and named characters for further glyphs. On ASCII platforms, character codes in the range 0 to 127 (decimal) represent the usual 7-bit ASCII char- acters, while codes between 127 and 255 are interpreted as the correspond- ing characters in the Latin-1 (ISO-8859-1) code set. On EBCDIC platforms, only the code page cp1047 is supported (which contains the same characters as Latin-1). It is rather straightforward (for the experienced user) to set up other 8bit encodings like Latin-2; since groff will use Unicode in the next major version, no additional encodings are provided. All roff systems provide the concept of named characters. In traditional roff systems, only names of length 2 were used, while groff also provides support for longer names. It is strongly suggested that only named charac- ters are used for all characters outside of the 7-bit ASCII range. Some of the predefined groff escape sequences (with names of length 1) also produce single characters; these exist for historical reasons or are print- able versions of syntactical characters. They include \\, \', \`, \-, \., and \e; see groff(7). In groff, all of these different types of characters can be tested posi- tively with the .if c conditional. REFERENCE In this section, the characters in groff are specified in tabular form. The meaning of the columns is as follows. Output shows how the character is printed for the current device; although this can have quite a different shape on other devices, it always represents the same glyph. Input name specifies how the character is input either directly by a key on the keyboard, or by a groff escape sequence. Input code applies to characters which can be input with a single character, and gives the ISO Latin-1 decimal code of that input character. Note that this code is equivalent to the lowest 256 Unicode charac- ters; (including 7-bit ASCII in the range 0 to 127). PostScript name gives the usual PostScript name of the output character. ASCII Characters These are the basic characters having 7-bit ASCII code values. These are identical to the first 127 characters of the character standards ISO-8859-1 (Latin-1) and Unicode (range C0 Controls and Basic Latin). To save space, not every code has an entry in the following because the following code ranges are well known. 0-32 Control characters (print as themselves). 48-57 Decimal digits 0 to 9 (print as themselves). 65-90 Upper case letters A-Z (print as themselves). 97-122 Lower case letters a-z (print as themselves). 127 Control character (prints as itself). The remaining ranges constitute the printable, non-alphanumeric ASCII char- acters; only these are listed below. As can be seen in the table below, most of these characters print as themselves; the only exceptions are the following characters: ` the ISO Latin-1 `Grave Accent' (code 96) prints as `, a left single quotation mark, ' the ISO Latin-1 `Apostrophe' (code 39) prints as ', a right single quotation mark; the corresponding ISO Latin-1 characters can be ob- tained with \` and \(aq. - the ISO Latin-1 `Hyphen, Minus Sign' (code 45) prints as a hyphen; a minus sign can be obtained with \-. ~ the ISO Latin-1 `Tilde' (code 126); a larger glyph can be obtained with \(ti. ^ the ISO Latin-1 `Circumflex Accent' (code 94); a larger glyph can be obtained with \(ha. Output Input Input PostScript Notes name code name ! ! 33 exclam " " 34 quotedbl # # 35 numbersign $ $ 36 dollar % % 37 percent & & 38 ampersand ' ' 39 quoteright ( ( 40 parenleft ) ) 41 parenright * * 42 asterisk + + 43 plus , , 44 comma - - 45 hyphen . . 46 period / / 47 slash : : 58 colon ; ; 59 semicolon < < 60 less = = 61 equal > > 62 greater ? ? 63 question @ @ 64 at [ [ 91 bracketleft \ \ 92 backslash ] ] 93 bracketright ^ ^ 94 circumflex circumflex accent _ _ 95 underscore ` ` 96 quoteleft { { 123 braceleft | | 124 bar } } 125 braceright ~ ~ 126 tilde tilde accent Latin-1 Special Characters These characters have character codes between 128 and 255. They are inter- preted as characters according to the Latin-1 (iso-8859-1) code set, being identical to the Unicode range C1 Controls and Latin-1 Supplement. 128-159 the C1 Controls; they print as themselves, but the effect is mostly undefined. 160 the ISO Latin-1 no-break space is mapped to `\ ', the escaped space character. 173 the soft hyphen control character (prints as itself). groff never use this character for output (thus it is omitted in the table be- low); the input character 173 is mapped onto \%. The remaining ranges (161-172, 174-255), called the Latin-1 Supplement in Unicode, are printable characters that print as themselves. Although they can be specified directly with the keyboard on systems with a Latin-1 code page, it is better to use their named character equivalent; see next sec- tion. Output Input Input PostScript Notes name code name ! ! 161 exclamdown inverted exclamation mark c c 162 cent L L 163 sterling x x 164 currency Y Y 165 yen | | 166 brokenbar <section> <section> 167section " " 168 dieresis (C) (C) 169 copyright a a 170 ordfeminine << << 171 guillemotleft ~ ~ 172 logicalnot _R) _R) 174 registered 175 macron <degree> <degree> 176 degree +/- +/- 177 plusminus ^2 ^2 178 twosuperior ^3 ^3 179 threesuperior ' ' 180 acute acute accent <micro> <micro> 181 mu micro sign <paragraph> <paragraph> 182paragraph . . 183 periodcentered , , 184 cedilla ^1 ^1 185 onesuperior o o 186 ordmasculine >> >> 187 guillemotright 1/4 1/4 188 onequarter 1/2 1/2 189 onehalf 3/4 3/4 190 threequarters ? ? 191 questiondown A A 192 Agrave A A 193 Aacute A A 194 Acircumflex A A 195 Atilde A A 196 Adieresis A A 197 Aring AE AE 198 AE C C 199 Ccedilla E E 200 Egrave E E 201 Eacute E E 202 Ecircumflex E E 203 Edieresis I I 204 Igrave I I 205 Iacute I I 206 Icircumflex I I 207 Idieresis Dh Dh 208 Eth N N 209 Ntilde O O 210 Ograve O O 211 Oacute O O 212 Ocircumflex O O 213 Otilde O O 214 Odieresis x x 215 multiply O O 216 Oslash U U 217 Ugrave U U 218 Uacute U U 219 Ucircumflex U U 220 Udieresis Y Y 221 Yacute Th Th 222 Thorn ss ss 223 germandbls a a 224 agrave a a 225 aacute a a 226 acircumflex a a 227 atilde a a 228 adieresis a a 229 aring ae ae 230 ae c c 231 ccedilla e e 232 egrave e e 233 eacute e e 234 ecircumflex e e 235 edieresis i i 236 igrave i i 237 iacute i i 238 icircumflex i i 239 idieresis dh dh 240 eth n n 241 ntilde o o 242 ograve o o 243 oacute o o 244 ocircumflex o o 245 otilde o o 246 odieresis / / 247 divide o o 248 oslash u u 249 ugrave u u 250 uacute u u 251 ucircumflex u u 252 udieresis y y 253 yacute th th 254 thorn y y 255 ydieresis Named Characters The named character idiom is the standard way to specify special characters in roff systems. They can be embedded into the document text by using es- cape sequences. groff(7) describes how these escape sequences look. The character names can consist of quite arbitrary characters from the ASCII or Latin-1 code set, not only alphanumeric characters. Here some examples: \c named character having the name c, which consists of a single char- acter (length 1). \(ch named character having the 2-character name ch. \[char_name] named character having the name char_name (having length 1, 2, 3, ...). In groff, each 8bit input character can also referred to by the construct \n[charn] where n is the decimal code of the character, a number between 0 and 255 without leading zeros. They are mapped onto glyph entities using the .trin request. Moreover, new character names can be created by the .char request; see groff(7). Output Input PostScript Notes name name Dh \[-D] Eth Icelandic uppercase eth dh \[Sd] eth Icelandic lowercase eth Th \[TP] Thorn Icelandic uppercase thorn th \[Tp] thorn Icelandic lowercase thorn ss \[ss] germandbls German sharp s Ligatures ff \[ff] ff ff ligature fi \[fi] fi fi ligature fl \[fl] fl fl ligature ffi \[Fi] ffi ffi ligature ffl \[Fl] ffl ffl ligature AE \[AE] AE ae \[ae] ae OE \[OE] OE oe \[oe] oe IJ \[IJ] IJ Dutch IJ ligature ij \[ij] ij Dutch ij ligature i \[.i] dotlessi i without a dot (Turkish) j \[.j] dotlessj j without a dot Accented Characters A \['A] Aacute C \['C] Cacute E \['E] Eacute I \['I] Iacute O \['O] Oacute U \['U] Uacute Y \['Y] Yacute a \['a] aacute c \['c] cacute e \['e] eacute i \['i] iacute o \['o] oacute u \['u] uacute y \['y] yacute A \[:A] Adieresis A with umlaut E \[:E] Edieresis I \[:I] Idieresis O \[:O] Odieresis U \[:U] Udieresis Y \[:Y] Ydieresis a \[:a] adieresis e \[:e] edieresis i \[:i] idieresis o \[:o] odieresis u \[:u] udieresis y \[:y] ydieresis A \[^A] Acircumflex E \[^E] Ecircumflex I \[^I] Icircumflex O \[^O] Ocircumflex U \[^U] Ucircumflex a \[^a] acircumflex e \[^e] ecircumflex i \[^i] icircumflex o \[^o] ocircumflex u \[^u] ucircumflex A \[`A] Agrave E \[`E] Egrave I \[`I] Igrave O \[`O] Ograve U \[`U] Ugrave a \[`a] agrave e \[`e] egrave i \[`i] igrave o \[`o] ograve u \[`u] ugrave A \[~A] Atilde N \[~N] Ntilde O \[~O] Otilde a \[~a] atilde n \[~n] ntilde o \[~o] otilde S \[vS] Scaron s \[vs] scaron Z \[vZ] Zcaron z \[vz] zcaron C \[,C] Ccedilla c \[,c] ccedilla / \[/L] Lslash Polish L with a slash / \[/l] lslash Polish l with a slash O \[/O] Oslash Scandinavic slashed O o \[/o] oslash Scandinavic slashed o A \[oA] Aring a \[oa] aring Accents _ \[a"] hungarumlaut Hungarian umlaut \[a-] macron macron or bar accent . \[a.] dotaccent dot accent ^ \[a^] circumflex circumflex accent ' \[aa] acute acute accent ` \[ga] grave grave accent ` \[ab] breve breve accent , \[ac] cedilla cedilla accent " \[ad] dieresis umlaut or dieresis v \[ah] caron havek accent o \[ao] ring ring or circle accent ~ \[a~] tilde tilde accent , \[ho] ogonek hook or ogonek accent ^ \[ha] asciicircum ASCII circumflex, hat, caret ~ \[ti] asciitilde ASCII tilde, large tilde Quotes ,, \[Bq] quotedblbase low double comma quote , \[bq] quotesinglbase low single comma quote " \[lq] quotedblleft " \[rq] quotedblright ` \[oq] quoteleft single open quote ' \[cq] quoteright single closing quote (ASCII 39) ' \[aq] quotesingle apostrophe quote " \[dq] quotedbl double quote (ASCII 34) << \[Fo] guillemotleft >> \[Fc] guillemotright < \[fo] guilsinglleft > \[fc] guilsinglright Punctuation ! \[r!] exclamdown ? \[r?] questiondown -- \[em] emdash em dash - \[en] endash en dash - \[hy] hyphen Brackets [ \[lB] bracketleft ] \[rB] bracketright { \[lC] braceleft } \[rC] braceright < \[la] angleleft left angle bracket > \[ra] angleright right angle bracket Arrows <- \[<-] arrowleft -> \[->] arrowright <-> \[<>] arrowboth horizontal double-headed arrow v \[da] arrowdown ^ \[ua] arrowup <= \[lA] arrowdblleft => \[rA] arrowdblright <=> \[hA] arrowdblboth horizontal double-headed double arrow v \[dA] arrowdbldown ^ \[uA] arrowdblup - \[an] arrowhorizex horizontal arrow extension Lines | \[or] bar | \[ba] bar | \[br] br box rule with traditional troff metrics _ \[ru] ru baseline rule _ \[ul] ul underline with traditional troff metrics | \[bv] bv bar vertical | \[bb] brokenbar / \[sl] slash \ \[rs] backslash Text markers O \[ci] circle * \[bu] bullet <**> \[dd] daggerdbl double dagger sign <*> \[dg] dagger <> \[lz] lozenge [] \[sq] square <paragraph> \[ps] paragraph <section> \[sc] section <= \[lh] handleft => \[rh] handright @ \[at] at # \[sh] numbersign <cr> \[CR] carriagereturn carriage return symbol / \[OK] a19 check mark, tick Legalize (C) \[co] copyright (R) \[rg] registered tm \[tm] trademark \[bs] bell AT&T Bell Labs logo (not used in groff) Currency symbols $ \[Do] dollar c \[ct] cent EUR \[eu] official Euro symbol EUR \[Eu] Euro font-specific Euro glyph variant Y \[Ye] yen L \[Po] sterling British currency sign x \[Cs] currency Scandinavian currency sign f \[Fn] florin Dutch currency sign Units <degree> \[de] degree <permille> \[%0] perthousandper thousand, per mille sign ' \[fm] minute footmark, prime " \[sd] second <micro> \[mc] mu micro sign a \[Of] ordfeminine o \[Om] ordmasculine Logical Symbols ^ \[AN] logicaland v \[OR] logicalor ~ \[no] logicalnot <there exists> \[te] existentialthere exists, existential quantifier <for all> \[fa] universalfor all, universal quantifier <such that> \[st] suchthat <therefore> \[3d] therefore <therefore> \[tf] therefore Mathematical Symbols 1/2 \[12] onehalf 1/4 \[14] onequarter 3/4 \[34] threequarters ^1 \[S1] onesuperior ^2 \[S2] twosuperior ^3 \[S3] threesuperior + \[pl] plusmath plus sign in special font - \- minus minus sign from current font -/+ \[-+] minusplus +/- \[+-] plusminus +/- \[t+-] plusminus text variant of `+-' . \[pc] periodcentered multiplication dot . \[md] dotmath x \[mu] multiply x \[tmu] multiply text variant of `mu' x \[c*] circlemultiply multiply sign in a circle + \[c+] circleplus plus sign in a circle / \[di] divide division sign / \[tdi] divide text variant of `di' / \[f/] fraction bar for fractions * \[**] asteriskmath <= \[<=] lessequal >= \[>=] greaterequal << \[<<] much less >> \[>>] much greater != \[!=] notequal = \[eq] equalmath equals sign in special font == \[==] equivalence =~ \[=~] congruent ~ \[ap] similar ~~ \[~~] approxequal ~= \[~=] approxequal <proportional to> \[pt]proportional {} \[es] emptyset <element of> \[mo] element <not element of> \[nm] notelement <not subset> \[nb] notsubset <not superset> \[nc] notpropersuperset !== \[ne] notequivalence <proper subset> \[sb] propersubset <proper superset> \[sp]propersuperset <subset or equal> \[ib]reflexsubset <superset or equal> \[ip]reflexsuperset <intersection> \[ca] intersectionintersection, cap <union> \[cu] union union, cup <angle> \[/_] angle <perpendicular> \[pp] perpendicular <integral> \[is] integral <sum> \[sum] sum <product> \[product] product <nabla> \[gr] gradient _sqrt> \[sr] radical square root \[rn] overline <infinity> \[if] infinity <Aleph> \[Ah] aleph <Im> \[Im] Ifraktur Gothic I, imaginary <Re> \[Re] Rfraktur Gothic R, real p \[wp] weierstrass Weierstrass p <del> \[pd] partialdiff partial differentiation sign Greek characters A \[*A] Alpha B \[*B] Beta <Xi> \[*C] Xi <Delta> \[*D] Delta E \[*E] Epsilon <Phi> \[*F] Phi <Gamma> \[*G] Gamma <Theta> \[*H] Theta I \[*I] Iota K \[*K] Kappa <Lambda> \[*L] Lambda M \[*M] Mu N \[*N] Nu O \[*O] Omicron <Pi> \[*P] Pi <Psi> \[*Q] Psi P \[*R] Rho <Sigma> \[*S] Sigma T \[*T] Tau Y \[*U] Upsilon <Omega> \[*W] Omega X \[*X] Chi H \[*Y] Eta Z \[*Z] Zeta <alpha> \[*a] alpha <beta> \[*b] beta <xi> \[*c] xi <delta> \[*d] delta <epsilon> \[*e] epsilon <phi> \[*f] phi <phi> \[+f] phi1 variant phi <gamma> \[*g] gamma <theta> \[*h] theta <theta> \[+h] theta1 variant theta <iota> \[*i] iota <kappa> \[*k] kappa <lambda> \[*l] lambda <mu> \[*m] mu <nu> \[*n] nu o \[*o] omicron <pi> \[*p] pi <pi> \[+p] omega1 variant pi, looking like omega <psi> \[*q] psi <rho> \[*r] rho <sigma> \[*s] sigma <tau> \[*t] tau <upsilon> \[*u] upsilon <omega> \[*w] omega <chi> \[*x] chi <eta> \[*y] eta <zeta> \[*z] zeta <sigma> \[ts] sigma1 terminal sigma Card symbols C \[CL] club club suit S \[SP] spade spade suit H \[HE] heart heart suit D \[DI] diamond diamond suit AUTHOR Copyright (C) 1989-2000, 2001, 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc. This document is distributed under the terms of the FDL (GNU Free Documen- tation License) version 1.1 or later. You should have received a copy of the FDL on your system, it is also available on-line at the GNU copyleft site <http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html>. This document is part of groff, the GNU roff distribution. It was written by James Clark <jjc@jclark.com> with additions by Werner Lemberg <wl@gnu.org> and Bernd Warken <bwarken@mayn.de>. SEE ALSO groff(1) the GNU roff formatter. groff(7) a short reference of the groff formatting language. An extension to the troff character set for Europe, E.G. Keizer, K.J. Si- monsen, J. Akkerhuis; EUUG Newsletter, Volume 9, No. 2, Summer 1989 The Unicode Standard <http://www.unicode.org> Groff Version 1.18.1 30 July 2026 GROFF_CHAR(7)
NAME | DESCRIPTION | REFERENCE | AUTHOR | SEE ALSO
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