dvipdft.1: Some remarks and a patch with editorial changes for this man page

Input file is dvipdft.1

Output from "mandoc -T lint  dvipdft.1": (shortened list)

     20 STYLE: whitespace at end of input line
     10 WARNING: skipping paragraph macro

Find trailing whitespace with:
grep -n -e ' $' -e ' \\f.$' -e ' \\"' <man page>

-.-.

Output from
test-nroff -mandoc -t -Kutf8 -ww -z dvipdft.1: (shortened list)

      1 trailing whitespace [-w trail]

Find trailing whitespace with:
grep -n -e ' $' -e ' \\f.$' -e ' \\"' <man page>

-.-.

Lines containing '\c':
(found with 'grep -n -A 1')

10:.I filename\c
11-.RB [ .dvi ]

-.-.

Remove space characters (whitespace) at the end of lines.
Use "git apply ... --whitespace=fix" to fix extra space issues, or use
global configuration "core.whitespace".

See more information in the attachment "trailing whitespace".

Number of lines affected is

20

-.-.

Wrong distance (not two spaces, not a new line character (\n)) between
sentences in the input file.

  Separate the sentences and subordinate clauses; each begins on a new
line.  See man-pages(7) ("Conventions for source file layout") and
"info groff" ("Input Conventions").

  The best procedure is to always start a new sentence on a new line,
at least, if you are typing on a computer.

Remember coding: Only one command ("sentence") on each (logical) line.

E-mail: Easier to quote exactly the relevant lines.

Generally: Easier to edit the sentence.

Patches: Less unaffected text.

Search for two adjacent words is easier, when they belong to the same line,
and the same phrase.

  The amount of space between sentences in the output can then be
controlled with the ".ss" request.

Mark a final abbreviation point as such by suffixing it with "\&".

Some sentences (etc.) do not begin on a new line.

Split (sometimes) lines after a punctuation mark; before a conjunction.

  Lines with only one (or two) space(s) between sentences could be split,
so latter sentences begin on a new line.

Use

#!/usr/bin/sh

sed -e '/^\./n' \
-e 's/\([[:alpha:]]\)\.  */\1.\n/g' $1

to split lines after a sentence period.
Check result with the difference between the formatted outputs.
See also the attachment "general.bugs"

34:\fBdvipdft\fP was written by Mark A. Wicks and Thomas Esser.

-.-.

Put a parenthetical sentence, phrase on a separate line,
if not part of a code.
See man-pages(7), item "semantic newline".

dvipdft.1:40:should be directed to me (and not to the primary author)\&.

-.-.

No need for '\&' to be in front of a period (.),
if there is a character in front of it.

Remove with "sed -e 's/\(.\)\\&\./\1./g'".

The number of lines with such use is 6

-.-.

Only one space character is after a possible end of sentence
(after a punctuation, that can end a sentence).

dvipdft.1:34:\fBdvipdft\fP was written by Mark A. Wicks and Thomas Esser.

-.-.

Remove quotes when there is a printable
but no space character between them
and the quotes are not for emphasis (markup),
for example as an argument to a macro.

dvipdft.1:1:.TH "dvipdft" "1" "May 2004" "teTeX" "teTeX" 
dvipdft.1:3:.SH "NAME" 
dvipdft.1:6:.SH "SYNOPSIS" 
dvipdft.1:13:.SH "DESCRIPTION" 
dvipdft.1:20:.SH "OPTIONS" 
dvipdft.1:28:.SH "BUGS" 
dvipdft.1:32:.SH "AUTHOR" 

-.-.

Remove a space character after a macro call.

1:.TH "dvipdft" "1" "May 2004" "teTeX" "teTeX" 
2:.PP 
3:.SH "NAME" 
5:.PP 
6:.SH "SYNOPSIS" 
7:.PP 
12:.PP 
13:.SH "DESCRIPTION" 
14:.PP 
20:.SH "OPTIONS" 
24:.SH "SEE ALSO" 
25:.IP 
27:.PP 
28:.SH "BUGS" 
29:.PP 
31:.PP 
32:.SH "AUTHOR" 
33:.PP 
35:.PP 

-.-.

Output from "test-nroff  -mandoc -t -K utf8 -rF0 -rHY=0 -rCHECKSTYLE=0 -ww -z ":

troff:<stdin>:18: warning: trailing whitespace [-w trail]

-.-

Generally:

Split (sometimes) lines after a punctuation mark; before a conjunction.

-.-

Tables:

  Use the preprocessor 'tbl' to make tables.

  Put data, that are wider than the header in the (centered) last column,
in a "T{...\nT}" block(, when the table gets wider than the output line).

  Table headings, that are wider than any data in the corresponding
column, do not need to be centered, so left adjustment (l, L) is
sufficient.

--- dvipdft.1	2026-06-03 20:45:19.325658950 +0000
+++ dvipdft.1.new	2026-06-03 20:59:17.209835098 +0000
@@ -1,40 +1,27 @@
-.TH "dvipdft" "1" "May 2004" "teTeX" "teTeX" 
-.PP 
-.SH "NAME" 
+.TH dvipdft 1 "May 2004" teTeX teTeX
+.SH NAME
 dvipdft \- create thumbnail images for use with dvipdfm
-.PP 
-.SH "SYNOPSIS" 
-.PP 
+.SH SYNOPSIS
 .B dvipdft
-.RI [ DVIPDFM-OPTIONS \&.\&.\&.]
-.I filename\c
+.RI [ DVIPDFM-OPTIONS \&...\&]
+.I filename\/\c
 .RB [ .dvi ]
-.PP 
-.SH "DESCRIPTION" 
-.PP 
+.SH DESCRIPTION
 .B dvipdft
 creates thumbnail pictures of the pages in your file
 and subsequently runs dvipdfm to create a PDF file with these
-thumbnails. 
-.PP
-.SH "OPTIONS" 
-.HP
+thumbnails.
+.SH OPTIONS
 All options are simply handed on to dvipdfm
-.HP
-.SH "SEE ALSO" 
-.IP 
+.SH SEE ALSO
 \fBdvipdfm\fP(1)
-.PP 
-.SH "BUGS" 
-.PP 
-None known\&.
-.PP 
-.SH "AUTHOR" 
-.PP 
-\fBdvipdft\fP was written by Mark A. Wicks and Thomas Esser.
-.PP 
-This manual page was written by Frank K\[:u]ster <frank@kuesterei\&.ch>,
-for the Debian GNU/Linux system\&.  It may be used by others without
-contacting the author\&.  Any mistakes or omissions in the manual page
+.SH BUGS
+None known.
+.SH AUTHOR
+\fBdvipdft\fP was written by Mark A.\& Wicks and Thomas Esser.
+.PP
+This manual page was written by Frank K\[:u]ster <[email protected]>,
+for the Debian GNU/Linux system.  It may be used by others without
+contacting the author.  Any mistakes or omissions in the manual page
 are my fault; inquiries about or corrections to this manual page
-should be directed to me (and not to the primary author)\&.
+should be directed to me (and not to the primary author).

  Check the output from "lintian" in the Debian distribution.

  Any program (person), that produces man pages, should check the output
for defects by using (both groff and nroff)

[gn]roff -mandoc -t -ww -b -z -K utf8 <man page>

  To find most trailing spaces use

grep -n -e ' $' -e ' \\f.$' -e ' \\"' <man page>

  The same goes for man pages that are used as an input.

-.-

  For a style guide use

  mandoc -T lint

-.-

  For general input conventions consult the man page "nroff(7)" (item
"Input conventions") or the Texinfo manual about the same item.

-.-

  Any "autogenerator" should check its products with the above mentioned
'groff', 'mandoc', and additionally with 'nroff ...'.

  It should also check its input files for too long (> 80) lines.

  This is just a simple quality control measure.

  The "autogenerator" may have to be corrected to get a better man page,
the source file may, and any additional file may.

-.-

  Common defects:

  Not removing trailing spaces (in in- and output).
  The reason for these trailing spaces should be found and eliminated.

  "git" has a "tool" to point out whitespace,
see for example "git-apply(1)" and git-config(1)")

-.-

  Not beginning each input sentence on a new line.

Line length and patch size should thus be reduced when that has been fixed.

  The script "reportbug" uses 'quoted-printable' encoding when a line is
longer than 1024 characters in an 'ascii' file.

  See man-pages(7), item "semantic newline".

-.-

The difference between the formatted output of the original
and patched file can be seen with:

  nroff -mandoc <file1> > <out1>
  nroff -mandoc <file2> > <out2>
  diff -d -u <out1> <out2>

and for groff, using

\"printf '%s\n%s\n' '.kern 0' '.ss 12 0' | groff -mandoc -Z - \"

instead of 'nroff -mandoc'

  Add the option '-t', if the file contains a table.

  Read the output from 'diff -d -u ...' with 'less -R' or similar.

-.-.

  If 'man' (man-db) is used to check the manual for warnings,
the following must be set:

  The option "-warnings=w"

  The environmental variable:

export MAN_KEEP_STDERR=yes (or any non-empty value)

  or

  (produce only warnings):

export MANROFFOPT="-ww -b -z"

export MAN_KEEP_STDERR=yes (or any non-empty value)

-.-