| TBL(7) | Miscellaneous Information Manual | TBL(7) |
tbl —
tbl language formats tables. It is used within
mdoc(7) and
man(7) pages. This manual describes the subset
of the tbl language accepted by the
mandoc(1) utility.
Each table is started with a
roff(7) TS macro,
consist of at most one line of Options,
one or more Layout lines, one or more
Data lines, and ends with a
TE macro. All input must be 7-bit ASCII.
The following options are available. Some of them require arguments enclosed in parentheses:
allboxboxframe.centercentre.decimalpointn layout key. This is a GNU extension.delimdoubleboxdoubleframe.expandlinesizenokeepnospacesnowarntabTS or
T& macro. Each layout line specifies how one line
of Data is formatted. The last layout line ends
with a full stop. It also applies to all remaining data lines. Multiple layout
lines can be joined by commas on a single physical input line.
Each layout line consists of one or more layout cell specifications, optionally separated by whitespace. The following case-insensitive key characters start a new cell specification:
crlnss
layout cell. It is an error if a column span follows a
_ or = cell, or comes
first on a layout line. The combined cell as a whole consumes only one
cell of the corresponding data line.a^^ layout
cell. It is an error to invoke a vertical span on the first layout line.
Unlike a horizontal span, a vertical span consumes a data cell and
discards the content._-.=Each cell key may be followed by zero or more of the following case-insensitive modifiers:
bdee modifier.fimpvtuwxx
modifier.z|||If a modifier consists of decimal digits, it specifies a minimum
spacing in units of n between this column and the
next column to the right. The default is 3. If there is a vertical line, it
is drawn inside the spacing.
tab characters.
If a data cell contains only the two bytes
‘\^’, the cell above spans to this
row, as if the layout specification of this cell were
^.
If a data cell contains only the single character
‘_’ or
‘=’, a single or double horizontal
line is drawn across the cell, joining its neighbours. If a data cell
contains only the two character sequence
‘\_’ or
‘\=’, a single or double horizontal
line is drawn inside the cell, not joining its neighbours. If a data line
contains nothing but the single character
‘_’ or
‘=’, a horizontal line across the
whole table is inserted without consuming a layout row.
In place of any data cell, a text block can be used. It starts
with T{ at the end of a physical input line. Input
line breaks inside the text block neither end the text block nor its data
cell. It only ends if T} occurs at the beginning of
a physical input line and is followed by an end-of-cell indicator. If the
T} is followed by the end of the physical input
line, the text block, the data cell, and the data line ends at this point.
If the T} is followed by the
tab character, only the text block and the data cell
end, but the data line continues with the data cell following the
tab character. If T} is
followed by any other character, it does not end the text block, which
instead continues to the following physical input line.
.TS rb c lb r ci l. r center l ri ce le right c left .TE
| r | center | l |
| ri | ce | le |
| right | c | left |
Some ports in OpenBSD 6.1 to show number alignment and line drawing:
.TS box tab(:); r| l r n. software:version _ AFL:2.39b Mutt:1.8.0 Ruby:1.8.7.374 TeX Live:2015 .TE
| software | version |
| AFL | 2.39b |
| Mutt | 1.8.0 |
| Ruby | 1.8.7.374 |
| TeX Live | 2015 |
Spans and skipping width calculations:
.TS box tab(:); lz s | rt lt| cb| ^ ^ | rz s. left:r l:center: :right .TE
| left | r | |
| l | center | |
| right | ||
Text blocks, specifying spacings and specifying and equalizing
column widths, putting lines into individual cells, and overriding
allbox:
.TS
allbox tab(:);
le le||7 lw10.
The fourth line:_:line 1
of this column:=:line 2
determines:_:line 3
the column width.:T{
This text is too wide to fit into a column of width 17.
T}:line 4
T{
No break here.
T}::line 5
.TE
| The fourth line | _ | line 1 |
| of this column | = | line 2 |
| determines | _ | line 3 |
| the column width. | This text is too wide to fit into a column of width 17. | line 4 |
| No break here. | line 5 |
These examples were constructed to demonstrate many
tbl features in a compact way. In real manual pages,
keep tables as simple as possible. They usually look better, are less
fragile, and are more portable.
tbl doesn't support
mdoc(7) and
man(7) macros and
eqn(7) equations inside tables.
M. E. Lesk, Tbl—A Program to Format Tables, June 11, 1976.
tbl reference was written by
Kristaps Dzonsons
<kristaps@bsd.lv> and
-T utf8 output mode, heavy
lines are drawn instead of double lines. This cannot be improved because the
Unicode standard only provides an incomplete set of box drawing characters
with double lines, whereas it provides a full set of box drawing characters
with heavy lines. It is unlikely this can be improved in the future because
the box drawing characters are already marked in Unicode as characters
intended only for backward compatibility with legacy systems, and their use is
not encouraged. So it seems unlikely that the missing ones might get added in
the future.
| March 2, 2019 | x86_64 |