# Typesetting a Resume with `mandoc(1)`

_Published: May 18, 2022_

## History

My first real resume was written freshman year of college in a haste
because a friend told me his dad's software company was looking to
hire interns. It was a scraped together Word doc that had typos in
the headers because ALLCAPSWORDS were considered acronyms and are
not subject to the red squiggly spell check. I didn't notice until
someone pointed it out to me after sending it out. I didn't get the
job.

Updating a resume was always way low on my todo list--the kind of
thing that didn't happen until it was needed. So this first resume
lived on for years in a similar format. Needless to say, I was never
really proud of how my resume looked.

Towards the end of college, I got really into version controlling
my written assignments. `git` for code wasn't enough--I wanted to
know, without another proofread, that I hadn't fat fingered a typo
into my essay since the last time I proofread it. So I started
writing my non-technical essays in `LaTeX`, which fit well into my
`git` workflow.

I decided somewhere around then that I would one day rewrite my
resume in `LaTeX`; however, there was no need at the time, since I
had already accepted a return offer to MathWorks. So I put it on
hold.

As I moved to Linux and OpenBSD on personal computers, the desire
to leave `docx` behind became even greater; but again, updating a
resume just wasn't fun.  I had better things to do, like write
[Gopher clients](https://sr.ht/~akarle/gc/) using `nc(1)` and
`awk(1)` or [install Plan 9](/blog/exploring-plan9.html).

At this point, it's been years since I've touched `LaTeX`. I don't
have a compiler installed, nor do I remember the Vim setup I had
going that made for a reasonably fast preview cycle. Could I find
it in my [dotfile history](https://sr.ht/~akarle/dotfiles/)? Of
course (`git` for everything!). But the effort to port it kept
looking less appealing until a few months ago when it occurred to
me: _what if I could write a reasonable looking resume in `mdoc(7)`_?
I [had the experience](/blog/my-old-man.html), and UNIX has a long
history of typesetting. It felt like the perfect blend of:

- Easily versionable
- Plaintext / archivable
- Exportable to PDF
- (IMHO) The right amount of nerdy

So I set out to do it.

## The Results

See for yourself:

	$ curl -sS https://alexkarle.com/resume.7 | mandoc -l

There's of course a [PDF version](https://alexkarle.com/akarle.pdf)
too.

Overall, I'm really happy with how it turned out!

## Lessons Learned

Originally I thought I'd try to replicate a more traditional resume.
Or at least hide the fact that it's typeset using a man-page tool.

I discovered pretty quickly though that `mandoc(1)` is focused on
`man` pages and less suited for general typesetting. Reading the
[`roff(7)` man page](https://man.openbsd.org/roff.7#COMPATIBILITY),
things like setting font, margins, etc are pretty limited (which
makes total sense if targeting a terminal more than a printer).

I realized my options were to switch to `groff(1)`, which looks to
be a more fully featured typesetting tool, or double down on the
man-page appearance.

For now, I've chosen the latter, mostly because I think it's a cute
hat tip to one of my favorite tools--`man(1)`.

In lieu of margin/spacing/font adjustments I was able to keep a
relatively compact feeling by:

- Using `.br` (line breaks) instead of `.Pp` (new paragraphs)
- Using `.Sy` (bold font) instead of `.Ss` (subsections) in WORK EXPERIENCE
- Creating a two column work experience layout using a `-tag` list
  (importantly, the list items themselves can be lists for job description!)

	.Bl -tag -width "YYYY-MM - YYYY-MM" -compact
	.It 2021-10 - Present
	.Em Senior Software Engineer
	.Bl -dash -compact
	.It
	Wrote custom CLI tooling for bug triage and local development
	...
	.El
	.El

## Conclusion

For the first time maybe ever, I'm happy with how my resume looks.
I had a blast learning some fine-grained `roff(7)` commands that
don't show up in regular man-pages even though I removed them in
favor of the classic `NAME`, `SYNOPSIS`, ... `SEE ALSO` layout.

I am not a lawyer, so I don't know for sure if traditional software
licenses apply to `mdoc(7)` resumes, but the MIT license does mention
"associated documentation" so I put one in the comments of the
source.

If you like how it looks, feel free to remix it and make it your
own!  If you do, I'd appreciate if you keep the link to this post
and license in the header, but more importantly, I'd love to see
it! My email is in the source :)