1GROFF_FONT(5) File Formats Manual GROFF_FONT(5)
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6 groff_font - format of groff device and font description files
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9 The groff font format is roughly a superset of the ditroff font format.
10 The font files for device name are stored in a directory devname.
11 There are two types of file: a device description file called DESC and
12 for each font F a font file called F. These are text files; unlike the
13 ditroff font format, there is no associated binary format.
14 DESC file format
16 The DESC file can contain the following types of line as shown below.
17 Later entries in the file override previous values.
18 charset
20 This line and everything following in the file are ignored. It
21 is allowed for the sake of backwards compatibility.
22 family fam
24 The default font family is fam.
25 fonts n F1 F2 F3...Fn
27 Fonts F1...Fn will be mounted in the font positions m+1,...,m+n
28 where m is the number of styles. This command may extend over
29 more than one line. A font name of 0 will cause no font to be
30 mounted on the corresponding font position.
31 hor n The horizontal resolution is n machine units.
33 paperheight n
35 The physical vertical dimension of the output medium in machine
36 units. This isn't used by troff itself; currently, only grops
37 uses it.
38 paperwidth n
40 The physical horizontal dimension of the output medium in
41 machine units. This isn't used by troff. Currently, only the
42 grolbp output device uses it.
43 papersize string
45 Select a paper size. Valid values for string are the ISO paper
46 types A0-A7, B0-B7, C0-C7, D0-D7, DL, and the US paper types
47 letter, legal, tabloid, ledger, statement, executive, com10, and
48 monarch. Case is not significant for string if it holds prede‐
49 fined paper types. Alternatively, string can be a file name
50 (e.g. `/etc/papersize'); if the file can be opened, groff reads
51 the first line and tests for the above paper sizes. Finally,
52 string can be a custom paper size in the format length,width (no
53 spaces before and after the comma). Both length and width must
54 have a unit appended; valid values are `i' for inches, `c' for
55 centimeters, `p' for points, and `P' for picas. Example:
56 12c,235p. An argument which starts with a digit is always
57 treated as a custom paper format. papersize sets both the ver‐
58 tical and horizontal dimension of the output medium.
59 More than one argument can be specified; groff scans from left
61 to right and uses the first valid paper specification.
62 pass_filenames
64 Make troff tell the driver the source file name being processed.
65 This is achieved by another tcommand: F filename.
66 postpro program
68 Use program as the postprocessor.
69 prepro program
71 Call program as a preprocessor.
72 print program
74 Use program as the spooler program for printing. If omitted,
75 the -l and -L options of groff are ignored.
76 res n There are n machine units per inch.
78 sizes s1 s2...sn 0
80 This means that the device has fonts at s1, s2,...sn scaled
81 points. The list of sizes must be terminated by a 0. Each si
82 can also be a range of sizes m-n. The list can extend over more
83 than one line.
84 sizescale n
86 The scale factor for pointsizes. By default this has a value of
87 1. One scaled point is equal to one point/n. The arguments to
88 the unitwidth and sizes commands are given in scaled points.
89 styles S1 S2...Sm
91 The first m font positions will be associated with styles
92 S1...Sm.
93 tcommand
95 This means that the postprocessor can handle the t and u output
96 commands.
97 unitwidth n
99 Quantities in the font files are given in machine units for
100 fonts whose point size is n scaled points.
101 use_charnames_in_special
103 This command indicates that troff should encode named characters
104 inside special commands.
105 vert n The vertical resolution is n machine units.
107 The res, unitwidth, fonts, and sizes lines are compulsory. Other com‐
109 mands are ignored by troff but may be used by postprocessors to store
110 arbitrary information about the device in the DESC file.
111 Here a list of obsolete keywords which are recognized by groff but com‐
113 pletely ignored: spare1, spare2, biggestfont.
114 Font file format
116 A font file has two sections. The first section is a sequence of lines
117 each containing a sequence of blank delimited words; the first word in
118 the line is a key, and subsequent words give a value for that key.
119 ligatures lig1 lig2...lign [0]
121 Characters lig1, lig2, ..., lign are ligatures; possible liga‐
122 tures are ff, fi, fl, ffi and ffl. For backwards compatibility,
123 the list of ligatures may be terminated with a 0. The list of
124 ligatures may not extend over more than one line.
125 name F The name of the font is F.
127 slant n
129 The characters of the font have a slant of n degrees. (Positive
130 means forward.)
131 spacewidth n
133 The normal width of a space is n.
134 special
136 The font is special; this means that when a character is
137 requested that is not present in the current font, it will be
138 searched for in any special fonts that are mounted.
139 Other commands are ignored by troff but may be used by postprocessors
141 to store arbitrary information about the font in the font file.
142 The first section can contain comments which start with the # character
144 and extend to the end of a line.
145 The second section contains one or two subsections. It must contain a
147 charset subsection and it may also contain a kernpairs subsection.
148 These subsections can appear in any order. Each subsection starts with
149 a word on a line by itself.
150 The word charset starts the charset subsection. The charset line is
152 followed by a sequence of lines. Each line gives information for one
153 character. A line comprises a number of fields separated by blanks or
154 tabs. The format is
155 name metrics type code [entity_name] [-- comment]
157 name identifies the character: if name is a single character c then it
159 corresponds to the groff input character c; if it is of the form \c
160 where c is a single character, then it corresponds to the special char‐
161 acter \[c]; otherwise it corresponds to the groff input character
162 \[name]. If it is exactly two characters xx it can be entered as \(xx.
163 Note that single-letter special characters can't be accessed as \c; the
164 only exception is `\-' which is identical to `\[-]'. The name --- is
165 special and indicates that the character is unnamed; such characters
166 can only be used by means of the \N escape sequence in troff.
167 Groff supports eight-bit characters; however some utilities have diffi‐
169 culties with eight-bit characters. For this reason, there is a conven‐
170 tion that the name charn is equivalent to the single character whose
171 code is n. For example, char163 would be equivalent to the character
172 with code 163 which is the pounds sterling sign in ISO Latin-1.
173 The type field gives the character type:
175 1 means the character has a descender, for example, p;
177 2 means the character has an ascender, for example, b;
179 3 means the character has both an ascender and a descender, for
181 example, (.
182 The code field gives the code which the postprocessor uses to print the
184 character. The character can also be input to groff using this code by
185 means of the \N escape sequence. The code can be any integer. If it
186 starts with a 0 it will be interpreted as octal; if it starts with 0x
187 or 0X it will be intepreted as hexadecimal. Note, however, that the \N
188 escape sequence only accepts a decimal integer.
189 The entity_name field gives an ascii string identifying the glyph which
191 the postprocessor uses to print the character. This field is optional
192 and has been introduced so that the html device driver can encode its
193 character set. For example, the character `\[Po]' is represented as
194 `£' in html 4.0.
195 Anything on the line after the encoding field resp. after `--' will be
197 ignored.
198 The metrics field has the form (in one line; it is broken here for the
200 sake of readability):
201 width[,height[,depth[,italic-correction
203 [,left-italic-correction[,subscript-correction]]]]]
204 There must not be any spaces between these subfields. Missing sub‐
206 fields are assumed to be 0. The subfields are all decimal integers.
207 Since there is no associated binary format, these values are not
208 required to fit into a variable of type char as they are in ditroff.
209 The width subfields gives the width of the character. The height sub‐
210 field gives the height of the character (upwards is positive); if a
211 character does not extend above the baseline, it should be given a zero
212 height, rather than a negative height. The depth subfield gives the
213 depth of the character, that is, the distance below the lowest point
214 below the baseline to which the character extends (downwards is posi‐
215 tive); if a character does not extend below above the baseline, it
216 should be given a zero depth, rather than a negative depth. The
217 italic-correction subfield gives the amount of space that should be
218 added after the character when it is immediately to be followed by a
219 character from a roman font. The left-italic-correction subfield gives
220 the amount of space that should be added before the character when it
221 is immediately to be preceded by a character from a roman font. The
222 subscript-correction gives the amount of space that should be added
223 after a character before adding a subscript. This should be less than
224 the italic correction.
225 A line in the charset section can also have the format
227 name "
229 This indicates that name is just another name for the character men‐
231 tioned in the preceding line.
232 The word kernpairs starts the kernpairs section. This contains a
234 sequence of lines of the form:
235 c1 c2 n
237 This means that when character c1 appears next to character c2 the
239 space between them should be increased by n. Most entries in kernpairs
240 section will have a negative value for n.
241
243 /usr/share/groff/1.18.1.4/font/devname/DESC
244 Device description file for device name.
245 /usr/share/groff/1.18.1.4/font/devname/F
247 Font file for font F of device name.
248
250 groff_out(5), troff(1).
251Groff Version 1.18.1.4 12 September 2002 GROFF_FONT(5)