4.6.5.1 Text settings

The FAM string, a GNU extension, sets the font family for body text; the default is ‘T’. The PS and VS registers set the type size and vertical spacing (distance between text baselines), respectively. The font family and type size are ignored on terminals. Set these parameters before the first call of a heading, paragraphing, or (non-date) document description macro to apply them to headers, footers, and (for FAM) footnotes.

Which font families are available depends on the output device; as a convention, T selects a serif family (“Times”), H a sans-serif family (“Helvetica”), and C a monospaced family (“Courier”). The man page for the output driver documents its font repertoire. Consult the groff(1) man page for lists of available output devices and their drivers.

The hyphenation mode (as used by the hy request) is set from the HY register. Setting HY to ‘0’ is equivalent to using the nh request. This is a Research Tenth Edition Unix extension.