UNIX° TEXT PROCESSING

Comparing mm and ms

If you have both ms and mm on your system, you may be interested in looking at both packages, perhaps evaluating features. In general, ms has many of the same capabilities as mm. However, it lacks some essential features, such as automatically numbered lists and table of contents generation. On the other hand, it is much easier to learn the internals of ms, and therefore easier to extend it with your own macros.

▪   Paragraphs   ▪

The basic paragraph types are block and indented.

ms	mm	Description
.P	.LP	Begin a block paragraph.
.P 1	.PP	Begin a paragraph with indented first line.

In mm, the default paragraph type can be changed from block to indented by setting the number register Pt to 1 or 2. The ms macros lack this generalizing mechanism.

▪   Justification   ▪

When using the nroff formatter, mm does not justify the right margin. .SA 1 turns on justification for both formatters. .SA 0 turns it off.

The ms macros do not provide a macro for inhibiting the normal justification of paragraphs. However, the .na request can be used to do this.

▪   Displays   ▪

Displays are produced in a very similar way in both macro packages, using the DS/DE pair of macros. In mm, display are left justified; in ms, displays are indented. The options that allow you to change the placement of the display are basically the same.

The mm macros provide for static and ...