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| -rw-r--r-- | mandoc_char.7 | 26 |
1 files changed, 20 insertions, 6 deletions
diff --git a/mandoc_char.7 b/mandoc_char.7 index f739265a..2c8fe9a3 100644 --- a/mandoc_char.7 +++ b/mandoc_char.7 @@ -35,13 +35,27 @@ documents. .Pp The rendering depends on the .Xr mandoc 1 -output mode; in ASCII output, most characters are completely -unintelligible. -For that reason, using any of the special characters documented here, -except those discussed in the +output mode; it can be inspected by calling +.Xr man 1 +on the +.Nm +manual page with different +.Fl T +arguments. +In ASCII output, the rendering of some characters may be hard +to interpret for the reader. +Many are rendered as descriptive strings like +.Qq <integral> , +.Qq <degree> , +or +.Qq <Gamma> , +which may look ugly, and many are replaced by similar ASCII characters. +In particular, accented characters are usually shown without the accent. +For that reason, try to avoid using any of the special characters +documented here except those discussed in the .Sx DESCRIPTION , -is strongly discouraged; they are supported merely for backwards -compatibility with existing documents. +unless they are essential for explaining the subject matter at hand, +for example when documenting complicated mathematical functions. .Pp In particular, in English manual pages, do not use special-character escape sequences to represent national language characters in author |