Re: [Nmh-workers] man page change review

[Lyndon Nerenberg]

On 2012-10-16, at 8:22 PM, Anthony J. Bentley wrote:

>> Example: I understand that .B and \fB do the
>> same thing, but why is the former preferred?
> 
> I don't know if they do *exactly* the same thing.

\fB says switch to the "physical" font named 'B' (as far as troff is concerned).

.B says I want to print in a "bold" font.

These are not the same thing.  Using .B lets the implementation select an 
appropriate font for the current output device, or for the current context.  
E.g., some systems print .B text using a fixed-width font when driving a 
typesetter device.  In that case, '.B foo' and '\fBfoo\fP' don't generate the 
same output.

--lyndon