GNU Emacs Manual - Nroff Mode

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## Nroff Mode

Nroff mode is a mode like Text mode but modified to handle nroff commands present in the text. Invoke `M-x nroff-mode` to enter this mode. It differs from Text mode in only a few ways. All nroff command lines are considered paragraph separators, so that filling will never garble the nroff commands. Pages are separated by ``.bp'` commands. Comments start with backslash-doublequote. Also, three special commands are provided that are not in Text mode:

`M-n`
  Move to the beginning of the next line that isn't an nroff command (`forward-text-line`). An argument is a repeat count.
`M-p`
  Like `M-n` but move up (`backward-text-line`).
`M-?`
  Prints in the echo area the number of text lines (lines that are not nroff commands) in the region (`count-text-lines`).

The other feature of Nroff mode is that you can turn on Electric Nroff mode. This is a minor mode that you can turn on or off with `M-x electric-nroff-mode` (see section Minor Modes). When the mode is on, each time you use `RET` to end a line that contains an nroff command that opens a kind of grouping, the matching nroff command to close that grouping is automatically inserted on the following line. For example, if you are at the beginning of a line and type `. ( b `RET``, this inserts the matching command ``.)b'` on a new line following point.

If you use Outline minor mode with Nroff mode (see section Outline Mode), heading lines are lines of the form ``.H'` followed by a number (the header level).

Entering Nroff mode runs the hook `text-mode-hook`, followed by the hook `nroff-mode-hook` (see section Hooks).

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