Learn the UNIX/Linux command line
Home Man Pages
EQN(1) EQN(1)
NAME
eqn - format equations for troff
SYNOPSIS
eqn [ -rvCNR ] [ -dxy ] [ -Tname ] [ -Mdir ] [ -fF ] [ -sn ] [ -pn ]
[ -mn ] [ files... ]
It is possible to have whitespace between a command line option and
its parameter.
DESCRIPTION
This manual page describes the GNU version of eqn, which is part of
the groff document formatting system. eqn compiles descriptions of
equations embedded within troff input files into commands that are
understood by troff. Normally, it should be invoked using the -e
option of groff. The syntax is quite compatible with Unix eqn. The
output of GNU eqn cannot be processed with Unix troff; it must be pro-
cessed with GNU troff. If no files are given on the command line, the
standard input will be read. A filename of - will cause the standard
input to be read.
eqn searches for the file eqnrc in the directories given with the -M
option first, then in /usr/lib/groff/site-tmac, /usr/share/groff/site-
tmac, and finally in the standard macro directory
/usr/share/groff/1.18.1.1/tmac. If it exists, eqn will process it
before the other input files. The -R option prevents this.
GNU eqn does not provide the functionality of neqn: it does not sup-
port low-resolution, typewriter-like devices (although it may work
adequately for very simple input).
OPTIONS
-dxy Specify delimiters x and y for the left and right end, respec-
tively, of in-line equations. Any delim statements in the
source file overrides this.
-C Recognize .EQ and .EN even when followed by a character other
than space or newline.
-N Don't allow newlines within delimiters. This option allows eqn
to recover better from missing closing delimiters.
-v Print the version number.
-r Only one size reduction.
-mn The minimum point-size is n. eqn will not reduce the size of
subscripts or superscripts to a smaller size than n.
-Tname The output is for device name. The only effect of this is to
define a macro name with a value of 1. Typically eqnrc will
use this to provide definitions appropriate for the output
device. The default output device is ps.
-Mdir Search dir for eqnrc before the default directories.
-R Don't load eqnrc.
-fF This is equivalent to a gfont F command.
-sn This is equivalent to a gsize n command. This option is depre-
cated. eqn will normally set equations at whatever the current
point size is when the equation is encountered.
-pn This says that subscripts and superscripts should be n points
smaller than the surrounding text. This option is deprecated.
Normally eqn makes sets subscripts and superscripts at 70% of
the size of the surrounding text.
USAGE
Only the differences between GNU eqn and Unix eqn are described here.
Most of the new features of GNU eqn are based on TeX. There are some
references to the differences between TeX and GNU eqn below; these may
safely be ignored if you do not know TeX.
Automatic spacing
eqn gives each component of an equation a type, and adjusts the spac-
ing between components using that type. Possible types are:
ordinary an ordinary character such as 1 or x;
operator a large operator such as ?;
binary a binary operator such as +;
relation a relation such as =;
opening a opening bracket such as (;
closing a closing bracket such as );
punctuation a punctuation character such as ,;
inner a subformula contained within brackets;
suppress spacing that suppresses automatic spacing adjustment.
Components of an equation get a type in one of two ways.
type t e
This yields an equation component that contains e but that has
type t, where t is one of the types mentioned above. For exam-
ple, times is defined as
type "binary" \(mu
The name of the type doesn't have to be quoted, but quoting
protects from macro expansion.
chartype t text
Unquoted groups of characters are split up into individual
characters, and the type of each character is looked up; this
changes the type that is stored for each character; it says
that the characters in text from now on have type t. For exam-
ple,
chartype "punctuation" .,;:
would make the characters .,;: have type punctuation whenever
they subsequently appeared in an equation. The type t can also
be letter or digit; in these cases chartype changes the font
type of the characters. See the Fonts subsection.
New primitives
e1 smallover e2
This is similar to over; smallover reduces the size of e1 and
e2; it also puts less vertical space between e1 or e2 and the
fraction bar. The over primitive corresponds to the TeX \over
primitive in display styles; smallover corresponds to \over in
non-display styles.
vcenter e
This vertically centers e about the math axis. The math axis
is the vertical position about which characters such as + and -
are centered; also it is the vertical position used for the bar
of fractions. For example, sum is defined as
{ type "operator" vcenter size +5 \(*S }
e1 accent e2
This sets e2 as an accent over e1. e2 is assumed to be at the
correct height for a lowercase letter; e2 will be moved down
according if e1 is taller or shorter than a lowercase letter.
For example, hat is defined as
accent { "^" }
dotdot, dot, tilde, vec and dyad are also defined using the
accent primitive.
e1 uaccent e2
This sets e2 as an accent under e1. e2 is assumed to be at the
correct height for a character without a descender; e2 will be
moved down if e1 has a descender. utilde is pre-defined using
uaccent as a tilde accent below the baseline.
split "text"
This has the same effect as simply
text
but text is not subject to macro expansion because it is
quoted; text will be split up and the spacing between individ-
ual characters will be adjusted.
nosplit text
This has the same effect as
"text"
but because text is not quoted it will be subject to macro
expansion; text will not be split up and the spacing between
individual characters will not be adjusted.
e opprime
This is a variant of prime that acts as an operator on e. It
produces a different result from prime in a case such as
A opprime sub 1: with opprime the 1 will be tucked under the
prime as a subscript to the A (as is conventional in mathemati-
cal typesetting), whereas with prime the 1 will be a subscript
to the prime character. The precedence of opprime is the same
as that of bar and under, which is higher than that of every-
thing except accent and uaccent. In unquoted text a ' that is
not the first character will be treated like opprime.
special text e
This constructs a new object from e using a troff(1) macro
named text. When the macro is called, the string 0s will con-
tain the output for e, and the number registers 0w, 0h, 0d,
0skern and 0skew will contain the width, height, depth, sub-
script kern, and skew of e. (The subscript kern of an object
says how much a subscript on that object should be tucked in;
the skew of an object says how far to the right of the center
of the object an accent over the object should be placed.) The
macro must modify 0s so that it will output the desired result
with its origin at the current point, and increase the current
horizontal position by the width of the object. The number
registers must also be modified so that they correspond to the
result.
For example, suppose you wanted a construct that 'cancels' an
expression by drawing a diagonal line through it.
.EQ
define cancel 'special Ca'
.EN
.de Ca
.ds 0s \Z'\\*(0s'\v'\\n(0du'\D'l \\n(0wu -\\n(0hu-\\n(0du'\v'\\n(0hu'
..
Then you could cancel an expression e with cancel { e }
Here's a more complicated construct that draws a box round an
expression:
.EQ
define box 'special Bx'
.EN
.de Bx
.ds 0s \Z'\h'1n'\\*(0s'\
\Z'\v'\\n(0du+1n'\D'l \\n(0wu+2n 0'\D'l 0 -\\n(0hu-\\n(0du-2n'\
\D'l -\\n(0wu-2n 0'\D'l 0 \\n(0hu+\\n(0du+2n''\h'\\n(0wu+2n'
.nr 0w +2n
.nr 0d +1n
.nr 0h +1n
..
Customization
The appearance of equations is controlled by a large number of parame-
ters. These can be set using the set command.
set p n
This sets parameter p to value n ; n is an integer. For exam-
ple,
set x_height 45
says that eqn should assume an x height of 0.45 ems.
Possible parameters are as follows. Values are in units of
hundredths of an em unless otherwise stated. These descrip-
tions are intended to be expository rather than definitive.
minimum_size eqn will not set anything at a smaller
point-size than this. The value is in
points.
fat_offset The fat primitive emboldens an equation
by overprinting two copies of the equa-
tion horizontally offset by this
amount.
over_hang A fraction bar will be longer by twice
this amount than the maximum of the
widths of the numerator and denomina-
tor; in other words, it will overhang
the numerator and denominator by at
least this amount.
accent_width When bar or under is applied to a sin-
gle character, the line will be this
long. Normally, bar or under produces
a line whose length is the width of the
object to which it applies; in the case
of a single character, this tends to
produce a line that looks too long.
delimiter_factor Extensible delimiters produced with the
left and right primitives will have a
combined height and depth of at least
this many thousandths of twice the max-
imum amount by which the sub-equation
that the delimiters enclose extends
away from the axis.
delimiter_shortfall Extensible delimiters produced with the
left and right primitives will have a
combined height and depth not less than
the difference of twice the maximum
amount by which the sub-equation that
the delimiters enclose extends away
from the axis and this amount.
null_delimiter_space This much horizontal space is inserted
on each side of a fraction.
script_space The width of subscripts and super-
scripts is increased by this amount.
thin_space This amount of space is automatically
inserted after punctuation characters.
medium_space This amount of space is automatically
inserted on either side of binary oper-
ators.
thick_space This amount of space is automatically
inserted on either side of relations.
x_height The height of lowercase letters without
ascenders such as x.
axis_height The height above the baseline of the
center of characters such as + and -.
It is important that this value is cor-
rect for the font you are using.
default_rule_thickness This should set to the thickness of the
\(ru character, or the thickness of
horizontal lines produced with the \D
escape sequence.
num1 The over command will shift up the
numerator by at least this amount.
num2 The smallover command will shift up the
numerator by at least this amount.
denom1 The over command will shift down the
denominator by at least this amount.
denom2 The smallover command will shift down
the denominator by at least this
amount.
sup1 Normally superscripts will be shifted
up by at least this amount.
sup2 Superscripts within superscripts or
upper limits or numerators of smallover
fractions will be shifted up by at
least this amount. This is usually
less than sup1.
sup3 Superscripts within denominators or
square roots or subscripts or lower
limits will be shifted up by at least
this amount. This is usually less than
sup2.
sub1 Subscripts will normally be shifted
down by at least this amount.
sub2 When there is both a subscript and a
superscript, the subscript will be
shifted down by at least this amount.
sup_drop The baseline of a superscript will be
no more than this much amount below the
top of the object on which the super-
script is set.
sub_drop The baseline of a subscript will be at
least this much below the bottom of the
object on which the subscript is set.
big_op_spacing1 The baseline of an upper limit will be
at least this much above the top of the
object on which the limit is set.
big_op_spacing2 The baseline of a lower limit will be
at least this much below the bottom of
the object on which the limit is set.
big_op_spacing3 The bottom of an upper limit will be at
least this much above the top of the
object on which the limit is set.
big_op_spacing4 The top of a lower limit will be at
least this much below the bottom of the
object on which the limit is set.
big_op_spacing5 This much vertical space will be added
above and below limits.
baseline_sep The baselines of the rows in a pile or
matrix will normally be this far apart.
In most cases this should be equal to
the sum of num1 and denom1.
shift_down The midpoint between the top baseline
and the bottom baseline in a matrix or
pile will be shifted down by this much
from the axis. In most cases this
should be equal to axis_height.
column_sep This much space will be added between
columns in a matrix.
matrix_side_sep This much space will be added at each
side of a matrix.
draw_lines If this is non-zero, lines will be
drawn using the \D escape sequence,
rather than with the \l escape sequence
and the \(ru character.
body_height The amount by which the height of the
equation exceeds this will be added as
extra space before the line containing
the equation (using \x.) The default
value is 85.
body_depth The amount by which the depth of the
equation exceeds this will be added as
extra space after the line containing
the equation (using \x.) The default
value is 35.
nroff If this is non-zero, then ndefine will
behave like define and tdefine will be
ignored, otherwise tdefine will behave
like define and ndefine will be
ignored. The default value is 0 (This
is typically changed to 1 by the eqnrc
file for the ascii, latin1, utf8, and
cp1047 devices.)
A more precise description of the role of many of these parame-
ters can be found in Appendix H of The TeXbook.
Macros
Macros can take arguments. In a macro body, $n where n is between 1
and 9, will be replaced by the n-th argument if the macro is called
with arguments; if there are fewer than n arguments, it will be
replaced by nothing. A word containing a left parenthesis where the
part of the word before the left parenthesis has been defined using
the define command will be recognized as a macro call with arguments;
characters following the left parenthesis up to a matching right
parenthesis will be treated as comma-separated arguments; commas
inside nested parentheses do not terminate an argument.
sdefine name X anything X
This is like the define command, but name will not be recog-
nized if called with arguments.
include "file"
Include the contents of file. Lines of file beginning with .EQ
or .EN will be ignored.
ifdef name X anything X
If name has been defined by define (or has been automatically
defined because name is the output device) process anything;
otherwise ignore anything. X can be any character not appear-
ing in anything.
Fonts
eqn normally uses at least two fonts to set an equation: an italic
font for letters, and a roman font for everything else. The existing
gfont command changes the font that is used as the italic font. By
default this is I. The font that is used as the roman font can be
changed using the new grfont command.
grfont f
Set the roman font to f.
The italic primitive uses the current italic font set by gfont; the
roman primitive uses the current roman font set by grfont. There is
also a new gbfont command, which changes the font used by the bold
primitive. If you only use the roman, italic and bold primitives to
changes fonts within an equation, you can change all the fonts used by
your equations just by using gfont, grfont and gbfont commands.
You can control which characters are treated as letters (and therefore
set in italics) by using the chartype command described above. A type
of letter will cause a character to be set in italic type. A type of
digit will cause a character to be set in roman type.
FILES
/usr/share/groff/1.18.1.1/tmac/eqnrc
Initialization file.
BUGS
Inline equations will be set at the point size that is current at the
beginning of the input line.
SEE ALSO
groff(1), troff(1), groff_font(5), The TeXbook
Groff Version 1.18.1.1 05 October 2001 EQN(1)
UNIX/Linux commands referenced on this page: