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SCDOC(5) File Formats Manual SCDOC(5) NAME scdoc - document format for writing manual pages SYNTAX Input files must use the UTF-8 encoding. Preamble Each scdoc file must begin with the following preamble: NAME(section) ["left_footer" ["center_header"]] NAME is the name of the man page you are writing, and section is the sec- tion you're writing for (see man(1) for information on manual sections). left_footer and center_header are optional arguments which set the text po- sitioned at those locations in the generated man page, and must be sur- rounded with double quotes. Section headers Each section of your man page should begin with something similar to the following: # HEADER NAME Subsection headers are also understood - use two hashes. Each header must have an empty line on either side. Paragraphs Begin a new paragraph with an empty line. Line breaks Insert a line break by ending a line with ++. The result looks like this. Formatting Text can be made bold or underlined with asterisks and underscores: *bold* or _underlined_. Underscores in the_middle_of_words will be disregarded. Indentation You may indent lines with tab characters (\t) to indent them by 4 spaces in the output. Indented lines may not contain headers. The result looks something like this. You may use multiple lines and most formatting. Deindent to return to normal, or indent again to increase your indentation depth. Lists You may start bulleted lists with dashes (-), like so: - Item 1 - Item 2 - Subitem 1 - Subitem 2 - Item 3 The result looks like this: * Item 1 * Item 2 * Subitem 1 * Subitem 2 * Item 3 You may also extend long entries onto another line by giving it the same indent level, plus two spaces. They will be rendered as a single list en- try. - Item 1 is pretty long so let's break it up onto two lines - Item 2 is shorter - But its children can go on for a while * Item 1 is pretty long so let's break it up onto two lines * Item 2 is shorter * But its children can go on for a while Numbered lists Numbered lists are similar to normal lists, but begin with periods (.) in- stead of dashes (-), like so: . Item 1 . Item 2 . Item 3, with multiple lines 1. Item 1 2. Item 2 3. Item 3, with multiple lines Tables To begin a table, add an empty line followed by any number of rows. Each line of a table should start with | or : to start a new row or column respectively (or space to continue the previous cell on multiple lines), followed by [ or - or ] to align the contents to the left, center, or right, followed by a space and the contents of that cell. You may use a space instead of an alignment specifier to inherit the alignment of the same column in the previous row. Each row must have the same number of columns; empty columns are permitted. The first character of the first row is not limited to | and has special meaning. [ will produce a table with borders around each cell. | will pro- duce a table with no borders. ] will produce a table with one border around the whole table. To conclude your table, add an empty line after the last row. [[ *Foo* :- _Bar_ :- | *Row 1* : Hello :] world! | *Row 2* _ : aaa<<a!a : a,c ! +-------+-----------+--------+ | Foo | Bar | | +-------+-----------+--------+ | Row 1 | Hello | world! | +-------+---------_-+--------+ | Row 2 | aaa<<a!a | a,c ! | +-------+-----------+--------+ You may also cause columns to expand to fill the available space with < (left align), = (center align), and > (right align), like so: [[ *Normal column* :< Expanded column | *Foo* : Bar +---------------+---------------------------------------------------------+ | Normal column | Expanded column | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------------+ | Foo | Bar | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------------+ Literal text You may turn off scdoc formatting and output literal text with escape codes and literal blocks. Inserting a \ into your source will cause the subse- quent symbol to be treated as a literal and copied directly to the output. You may also make blocks of literal syntax like so: ``` _This formatting_ will *not* be interpreted by scdoc. ``` These blocks will be indented one level. Note that literal text is shown literally in the man viewer - that is, it's not a means for inserting your own roff macros into the output. Note that \ is still interpreted within literal blocks, which for example can be useful to output ``` inside of a literal block. Comments Lines beginning with ; and a space are ignored. ; This is a comment CONVENTIONS By convention, all scdoc documents should be hard wrapped at 80 columns. SEE ALSO scdoc(1) AUTHORS Maintained by Drew DeVault <sir@cmpwn.com>. Up-to-date sources can be found at https://git.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/scdoc and bugs/patches can be submitted by email to ~sircmpwn/public-inbox@lists.sr.ht. 2026-07-30 SCDOC(5)
NAME | SYNTAX | CONVENTIONS | SEE ALSO | AUTHORS
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