FreeBSD Manual Pages
STYLE.MDOC(5) File Formats Manual STYLE.MDOC(5) NAME style.mdoc -- FreeBSD manual page style guide DESCRIPTION This file specifies the preferred style for manual pages in the FreeBSD source tree. NAME Section - Do not quote the document description provided to the .Nd macro. Code Examples - Use literal formatting for examples and literal shell commands, e.g.: Then run .Ql make install clean . which renders as: Then run `make install clean'. The incorrect way would be to use macros like Nm to stylize the command invocation: Then run .Ql Nm make Cm install Cm clean . which renders as: Then run `make install clean'. This pollutes the whatis(1) database, causing `whatis clean' to incor- rectly show the page it was written in. Copyright Header Refer to style(9). HARDWARE Section Driver manuals in section four should have a "HARDWARE" section describing hardware known to work with the driver. This section is drawn verbatim into the Release Hardware Notes, therefore there are several things to note: - The introductory sentence should be in the form: The .Nm driver supports the following $device_class: Followed by the list of supported hardware. This defines what driver the subsection is referring to, and allows the reader to search through the Hardware Notes not only for the device mod- els they have, but also for the device type they are looking to acquire. - The supported hardware should be listed as a bullet list, or if complex- ity requires, a column list. These two list types create very neat sub- sections with clean starting and stopping points. EXAMPLES Section - Format the "EXAMPLES" section in the following way: .Bl -tag -width 0n .It Sy Example 1\&: Doing Something .Pp The following command does something. .Bd -literal -offset 2n .Ic # make -VLEGAL .Ed .It Sy Example 2\&: Doing Something Different .Pp The following command does something different. .Bd -literal -offset 2n .Ic # bectl list .Ed .Pp It is good to know this command. .El which renders as: Example 1: Doing Something The following command does something. # make -VLEGAL Example 2: Doing Something Different The following command does something different. # bectl list It is good to know this command. Lists - The -width argument to the .Bl macro should match the length of the longest rendered item in the list, e.g.: .Bl -tag -width "-a address" .It Fl a Ar address Set the address. .It Fl v Print the version. .El In case the longest item is too long and hurts readability, the recommen- dation is to set the -width argument to `indent', e.g.: .Bl -tag -width "indent" .It Cm build Build the port. .It Cm install Install the port. .It Fl install-missing-packages Install the missing packages. .El Quoting - Use the Dq ("") macro for quoting. Use the Sq (`') macro for quoting in- side quotes. The use of the Qq ("") macro is usually not necessary. Variables - Use Va instead of Dv for sysctl(8) variables like kdb.enter.panic. - Use the angle brackets Aq ("<>") macro for arguments (Ar) when they are mixed with similarly stylized macros like Pa or Va, e.g.: .Va critical_filesystems_ Ns Aq Ar type which renders as: critical_filesystems_<type> instead of: .Va critical_filesystems_ Ns Ar type that would be rendered as: critical_filesystems_type FILES /usr/share/examples/mdoc/ Examples for writing manual pages. SEE ALSO man(1), mandoc(1), mdoc(7), roff(7), style(9) HISTORY This manual page first appeared in FreeBSD 13.0. AUTHORS Mateusz Piotrowski <0mp@FreeBSD.org> FreeBSD 16.0 CURRENT June 13, 2026 STYLE.MDOC(5)
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