1GROPS(1) General Commands Manual GROPS(1)
2
6 grops - PostScript driver for groff
7
9 grops [-glmv] [-b n] [-c n] [-F dir] [-I dir] [-p papersize]
10 [-P prologue] [-w n] [file ...]
11
13 grops translates the output of GNU troff to PostScript. Normally grops
14 should be invoked by using the groff command with a -Tps option. (Ac‐
15 tually, this is the default for groff.) If no files are given, grops
16 reads the standard input. A filename of - also causes grops to read
17 the standard input. PostScript output is written to the standard out‐
18 put. When grops is run by groff options can be passed to grops using
19 groff's -P option.
20 Note that grops doesn't produce a valid document structure (conforming
22 to the Document Structuring Convention) if called with multiple file
23 arguments. To print such concatenated output it is necessary to deac‐
24 tivate DSC handling in the printing program or previewer. See section
25 “Font Installation” below for a guide how to install fonts for grops.
26
28 Whitespace is permitted between a command-line option and its argument.
29 -bn Provide workarounds for older printers, broken spoolers, and
31 previewers. Normally grops produces output at PostScript Lan‐
32 guageLevel 2 that conforms to the Document Structuring Conven‐
33 tions version 3.0. Some older printers, spoolers, and preview‐
34 ers can't handle such output. The value of n controls what
35 grops does to make its output acceptable to such programs. A
36 value of 0 causes grops not to employ any workarounds.
37 Add 1 if no %%BeginDocumentSetup and %%EndDocumentSetup comments
39 should be generated; this is needed for early versions of Tran‐
40 Script that get confused by anything between the %%EndProlog
41 comment and the first %%Page comment.
42 Add 2 if lines in included files beginning with %! should be
44 stripped out; this is needed for Sun's pageview previewer.
45 Add 4 if %%Page, %%Trailer and %%EndProlog comments should be
47 stripped out of included files; this is needed for spoolers that
48 don't understand the %%BeginDocument and %%EndDocument comments.
49 Add 8 if the first line of the PostScript output should be %!PS-
51 Adobe-2.0 rather than %!PS-Adobe-3.0; this is needed when using
52 Sun's Newsprint with a printer that requires page reversal.
53 Add 16 if no media size information should be included in the
55 document (this is, neither use %%DocumentMedia nor the set‐
56 pagedevice PostScript command). This was the behaviour of groff
57 version 1.18.1 and earlier; it is needed for older printers
58 which don't understand PostScript LanguageLevel 2. It is also
59 necessary if the output is further processed to get an encapsu‐
60 lated PS (EPS) file – see below.
61 The default value can be specified by a
63 broken n
65 command in the DESC file. Otherwise the default value is 0.
67 -cn Print n copies of each page.
69 -Fdir Prepend directory dir/devname to the search path for prologue,
71 font, and device description files; name is the name of the de‐
72 vice, usually ps.
73 -g Guess the page length. This generates PostScript code that
75 guesses the page length. The guess is correct only if the im‐
76 ageable area is vertically centered on the page. This option
77 allows you to generate documents that can be printed both on
78 letter (8.5×11) paper and on A4 paper without change.
79 -Idir This option may be used to add a directory to the search path
81 for files on the command line and files named in \X'ps: import'
82 and \X'ps: file' escapes. The search path is initialized with
83 the current directory. This option may be specified more than
84 once; the directories are then searched in the order specified
85 (but before the current directory). If you want to make the
86 current directory be read before other directories, add -I. at
87 the appropriate place.
88 No directory search is performed for files with an absolute file
90 name.
91 -l Print the document in landscape format.
93 -m Turn manual feed on for the document.
95 -ppaper-size
97 Set physical dimension of output medium. This overrides the pa‐
98 persize, paperlength, and paperwidth commands in the DESC file;
99 it accepts the same arguments as the papersize command. See
100 groff_font (5) for details.
101 -Pprologue-file
103 Use the file prologue-file (in the font path) as the prologue
104 instead of the default prologue file prologue. This option
105 overrides the environment variable GROPS_PROLOGUE.
106 -wn Lines should be drawn using a thickness of n thousandths of an
108 em. If this option is not given, the line thickness defaults to
109 0.04 em.
110 -v Print the version number.
112
114 The input to grops must be in the format output by troff(1). This is
115 described in groff_out(5).
116 In addition, the device and font description files for the device used
118 must meet certain requirements: The resolution must be an integer mul‐
119 tiple of 72 times the sizescale. The ps device uses a resolution of
120 72000 and a sizescale of 1000.
121 The device description file must contain a valid paper size; see
123 groff_font(5) for more information.
124 Each font description file must contain a command
126 internalname psname
128 which says that the PostScript name of the font is psname. It may also
130 contain a command
131 encoding enc_file
133 which says that the PostScript font should be reencoded using the en‐
135 coding described in enc_file; this file should consist of a sequence of
136 lines of the form:
137 pschar code
139 where pschar is the PostScript name of the character, and code is its
141 position in the encoding expressed as a decimal integer; valid values
142 are in the range 0 to 255. Lines starting with # and blank lines are
143 ignored. The code for each character given in the font file must cor‐
144 respond to the code for the character in encoding file, or to the code
145 in the default encoding for the font if the PostScript font is not to
146 be reencoded. This code can be used with the \N escape sequence in
147 troff to select the character, even if the character does not have a
148 groff name. Every character in the font file must exist in the Post‐
149 Script font, and the widths given in the font file must match the
150 widths used in the PostScript font. grops assumes that a character
151 with a groff name of space is blank (makes no marks on the page); it
152 can make use of such a character to generate more efficient and compact
153 PostScript output.
154 Note that grops is able to display all glyphs in a PostScript font, not
156 only 256. enc_file (or the default encoding if no encoding file speci‐
157 fied) just defines the order of glyphs for the first 256 characters;
158 all other glyphs are accessed with additional encoding vectors which
159 grops produces on the fly.
160 grops can automatically include the downloadable fonts necessary to
162 print the document. Such fonts must be in PFA format. Use pfbtops(1)
163 to convert a Type 1 font in PFB format. Any downloadable fonts which
164 should, when required, be included by grops must be listed in the file
165 /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/font/devps/download; this should consist of
166 lines of the form
167 font filename
169 where font is the PostScript name of the font, and filename is the name
171 of the file containing the font; lines beginning with # and blank lines
172 are ignored; fields may be separated by tabs or spaces; filename is
173 searched for using the same mechanism that is used for groff font met‐
174 ric files. The download file itself is also searched for using this
175 mechanism; currently, only the first found file in the font path is
176 used.
177 If the file containing a downloadable font or imported document con‐
179 forms to the Adobe Document Structuring Conventions, then grops inter‐
180 prets any comments in the files sufficiently to ensure that its own
181 output is conforming. It also supplies any needed font resources that
182 are listed in the download file as well as any needed file resources.
183 It is also able to handle inter-resource dependencies. For example,
184 suppose that you have a downloadable font called Garamond, and also a
185 downloadable font called Garamond-Outline which depends on Garamond
186 (typically it would be defined to copy Garamond's font dictionary, and
187 change the PaintType), then it is necessary for Garamond to appear be‐
188 fore Garamond-Outline in the PostScript document. grops handles this
189 automatically provided that the downloadable font file for Garamond-
190 Outline indicates its dependence on Garamond by means of the Document
191 Structuring Conventions, for example by beginning with the following
192 lines
193 %!PS-Adobe-3.0 Resource-Font
195 %%DocumentNeededResources: font Garamond
196 %%EndComments
197 %%IncludeResource: font Garamond
198 In this case both Garamond and Garamond-Outline would need to be listed
200 in the download file. A downloadable font should not include its own
201 name in a %%DocumentSuppliedResources comment.
202 grops does not interpret %%DocumentFonts comments. The %%Document‐
204 NeededResources, %%DocumentSuppliedResources, %%IncludeResource,
205 %%BeginResource, and %%EndResource comments (or possibly the old
206 %%DocumentNeededFonts, %%DocumentSuppliedFonts, %%IncludeFont, %%Begin‐
207 Font, and %%EndFont comments) should be used.
208 In the default setup there are styles called R, I, B, and BI mounted at
210 font positions 1 to 4. The fonts are grouped into families A, BM, C,
211 H, HN, N, P, and T having members in each of these styles:
212 AR AvantGarde-Book
214 AI AvantGarde-BookOblique
215 AB AvantGarde-Demi
216 ABI AvantGarde-DemiOblique
217 BMR Bookman-Light
218 BMI Bookman-LightItalic
219 BMB Bookman-Demi
220 BMBI Bookman-DemiItalic
221 CR Courier
222 CI Courier-Oblique
223 CB Courier-Bold
224 CBI Courier-BoldOblique
225 HR Helvetica
226 HI Helvetica-Oblique
227 HB Helvetica-Bold
228 HBI Helvetica-BoldOblique
229 HNR Helvetica-Narrow
230 HNI Helvetica-Narrow-Oblique
231 HNB Helvetica-Narrow-Bold
232 HNBI Helvetica-Narrow-BoldOblique
233 NR NewCenturySchlbk-Roman
234 NI NewCenturySchlbk-Italic
235 NB NewCenturySchlbk-Bold
236 NBI NewCenturySchlbk-BoldItalic
237 PR Palatino-Roman
238 PI Palatino-Italic
239 PB Palatino-Bold
240 PBI Palatino-BoldItalic
241 TR Times-Roman
242 TI Times-Italic
243 TB Times-Bold
244 TBI Times-BoldItalic
245 There is also the following font which is not a member of a family:
247 ZCMI ZapfChancery-MediumItalic
249 There are also some special fonts called S for the PS Symbol font, and
251 SS, containing slanted lowercase Greek letters taken from PS Symbol.
252 Zapf Dingbats is available as ZD, and a reversed version of ZapfDing‐
253 bats (with symbols pointing in the opposite direction) is available as
254 ZDR; most characters in these fonts are unnamed and must be accessed
255 using \N.
256 The default color for \m and \M is black; for colors defined in the
258 ‘rgb’ color space setrgbcolor is used, for ‘cmy’ and ‘cmyk’ setcmyk‐
259 color, and for ‘gray’ setgray. Note that setcmykcolor is a PostScript
260 LanguageLevel 2 command and thus not available on some older printers.
261 grops understands various X commands produced using the \X escape se‐
263 quence; grops only interprets commands that begin with a ps: tag.
264 \X'ps: exec code'
266 This executes the arbitrary PostScript commands in code. The
267 PostScript currentpoint is set to the position of the \X command
268 before executing code. The origin is at the top left corner of
269 the page, and y coordinates increase down the page. A proce‐
270 dure u is defined that converts groff units to the coordinate
271 system in effect (provided the user doesn't change the scale).
272 For example,
273 .nr x 1i
275 \X'ps: exec \nx u 0 rlineto stroke'
276 draws a horizontal line one inch long. code may make changes to
278 the graphics state, but any changes persist only to the end of
279 the page. A dictionary containing the definitions specified by
280 the def and mdef is on top of the dictionary stack. If your
281 code adds definitions to this dictionary, you should allocate
282 space for them using \X'ps mdef n'. Any definitions persist
283 only until the end of the page. If you use the \Y escape se‐
284 quence with an argument that names a macro, code can extend over
285 multiple lines. For example,
286 .nr x 1i
288 .de y
289 ps: exec
290 \nx u 0 rlineto
291 stroke
292 ..
293 \Yy
294 is another way to draw a horizontal line one inch long. Note
296 the single backslash before ‘nx’ – the only reason to use a num‐
297 ber register while defining the macro ‘y’ is to convert a user-
298 specified dimension ‘1i’ to internal groff units which are in
299 turn converted to PS units with the u procedure.
300 grops wraps user-specified PostScript code into a dictionary,
302 nothing more. In particular, it doesn't start and end the in‐
303 serted code with save and restore, respectively. This must be
304 supplied by the user, if necessary.
305 \X'ps: file name'
307 This is the same as the exec command except that the PostScript
308 code is read from file name.
309 \X'ps: def code'
311 Place a PostScript definition contained in code in the prologue.
312 There should be at most one definition per \X command. Long
313 definitions can be split over several \X commands; all the code
314 arguments are simply joined together separated by newlines. The
315 definitions are placed in a dictionary which is automatically
316 pushed on the dictionary stack when an exec command is executed.
317 If you use the \Y escape sequence with an argument that names a
318 macro, code can extend over multiple lines.
319 \X'ps: mdef n code'
321 Like def, except that code may contain up to n definitions.
322 grops needs to know how many definitions code contains so that
323 it can create an appropriately sized PostScript dictionary to
324 contain them.
325 \X'ps: import file llx lly urx ury width [ height ]'
327 Import a PostScript graphic from file. The arguments llx, lly,
328 urx, and ury give the bounding box of the graphic in the default
329 PostScript coordinate system; they should all be integers; llx
330 and lly are the x and y coordinates of the lower left corner of
331 the graphic; urx and ury are the x and y coordinates of the up‐
332 per right corner of the graphic; width and height are integers
333 that give the desired width and height in groff units of the
334 graphic.
335 The graphic is scaled so that it has this width and height and
337 translated so that the lower left corner of the graphic is lo‐
338 cated at the position associated with \X command. If the height
339 argument is omitted it is scaled uniformly in the x and y direc‐
340 tions so that it has the specified width.
341 Note that the contents of the \X command are not interpreted by
343 troff; so vertical space for the graphic is not automatically
344 added, and the width and height arguments are not allowed to
345 have attached scaling indicators.
346 If the PostScript file complies with the Adobe Document Struc‐
348 turing Conventions and contains a %%BoundingBox comment, then
349 the bounding box can be automatically extracted from within
350 groff by using the psbb request.
351 See groff_tmac(5) for a description of the PSPIC macro which
353 provides a convenient high-level interface for inclusion of
354 PostScript graphics.
355 \X'ps: invis'
357 \X'ps: endinvis'
358 No output is generated for text and drawing commands that are
359 bracketed with these \X commands. These commands are intended
360 for use when output from troff is previewed before being pro‐
361 cessed with grops; if the previewer is unable to display certain
362 characters or other constructs, then other substitute characters
363 or constructs can be used for previewing by bracketing them with
364 these \X commands.
365 For example, gxditview is not able to display a proper \(em
367 character because the standard X11 fonts do not provide it; this
368 problem can be overcome by executing the following request
369 .char \(em \X'ps: invis'\
371 \Z'\v'-.25m'\h'.05m'\D'l .9m 0'\h'.05m''\
372 \X'ps: endinvis'\(em
373 In this case, gxditview is unable to display the \(em character
375 and draws the line, whereas grops prints the \(em character and
376 ignores the line (this code is already in file Xps.tmac which is
377 loaded if a document intended for grops is previewed with
378 gxditview).
379 If a PostScript procedure BPhook has been defined via a ‘ps: def’ or
381 ‘ps: mdef’ device command, it is executed at the beginning of every
382 page (before anything is drawn or written by groff). For example, to
383 underlay the page contents with the word ‘DRAFT’ in light gray, you
384 might use
385 .de XX
387 ps: def
388 /BPhook
389 { gsave .9 setgray clippath pathbbox exch 2 copy
390 .5 mul exch .5 mul translate atan rotate pop pop
391 /NewCenturySchlbk-Roman findfont 200 scalefont setfont
392 (DRAFT) dup stringwidth pop -.5 mul -70 moveto show
393 grestore }
394 def
395 ..
396 .devicem XX
397 Or, to cause lines and polygons to be drawn with square linecaps and
399 mitered linejoins instead of the round linecaps and linejoins normally
400 used by grops, use
401 .de XX
403 ps: def
404 /BPhook { 2 setlinecap 0 setlinejoin } def
405 ..
406 .devicem XX
407 (square linecaps, as opposed to butt linecaps (0 setlinecap), give true
409 corners in boxed tables even though the lines are drawn unconnected).
410 Encapsulated PostScript
412 grops itself doesn't emit bounding box information. With the help of
413 Ghostscript the following simple script, groff2eps, produces an encap‐
414 sulated PS file.
415 #! /bin/sh
417 groff -P-b16 $1 > $1.ps
418 gs -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=bbox -- $1.ps 2> $1.bbox
419 sed -e "/^%%Orientation/r $1.bbox" \
420 -e "/^%!PS-Adobe-3.0/s/$/ EPSF-3.0/" $1.ps > $1.eps
421 rm $1.ps $1.bbox
422 Just say
424 groff2eps foo
426 to convert file foo to foo.eps.
428 TrueType and other font formats
430 TrueType fonts can be used with grops if converted first to Type 42
431 format, a special PostScript wrapper equivalent to the PFA format men‐
432 tioned in pfbtops(1). There are several different methods to generate
433 a type42 wrapper and most of them involve the use of a PostScript in‐
434 terpreter such as Ghostscript – see gs(1).
435 Yet, the easiest method involves the use of the application
437 ttftot42(1). This program uses freetype(3) (version 1.3.1) to generate
438 type42 font wrappers and well-formed AFM files that can be fed to the
439 afmtodit(1) script to create appropriate metric files. The resulting
440 font wrappers should be added to the download file. ttftot42 source
441 code can be downloaded from ftp://www.giga.or.at/pub/nih/ttftot42/
442 ⟨ftp://www.giga.or.at/pub/nih/ttftot42/⟩.
443 Another solution for creating type42 wrappers is to use FontForge,
445 available from http://fontforge.sf.net ⟨http://fontforge.sf.net⟩. This
446 font editor can convert most outline font formats.
447
449 This section gives a summary of the above explanations; it can serve as
450 a step-by-step font installation guide for grops.
451 • Convert your font to something groff understands. This is either a
453 PostScript Type 1 font in PFA format or a PostScript Type 42 font,
454 together with an AFM file.
455 The very first characters in a PFA file look like this:
457 %!PS-AdobeFont-1.0:
459 A PFB file has this also in the first line, but the string is pre‐
461 ceded with some binary bytes.
462 The very first characters in a Type 42 font file look like this:
464 %!PS-TrueTypeFont
466 This is a wrapper format for TrueType fonts. Old PS printers might
468 not support it (this is, they don't have a built-in TrueType font
469 interpreter).
470 If your font is in PFB format (such fonts normally have .pfb as the
472 file extension), you might use groff's pfbtops(1) program to con‐
473 vert it to PFA. For TrueType fonts, try ttftot42 or fontforge.
474 For all other font formats use fontforge which can convert most
475 outline font formats.
476 • Convert the AFM file to a groff font description file with the
478 afmtodit(1) program. An example call is
479 afmtodit Foo-Bar-Bold.afm textmap FBB
481 which converts the metric file Foo-Bar-Bold.afm to the groff font
483 FBB. If you have a font family which comes with normal, bold,
484 italic, and bold italic faces, it is recommended to use the letters
485 R, B, I, and BI, respectively, as postfixes in the groff font names
486 to make groff's ‘.fam’ request work. An example is groff's built-
487 in Times-Roman font: The font family name is T, and the groff font
488 names are TR, TB, TI, and TBI.
489 • Install both the groff font description files and the fonts in a
491 devps subdirectory of the font path which groff finds. See section
492 “Environment” in troff(1) for the actual value of the font path.
493 Note that groff doesn't use the AFM files (but it is a good idea to
494 store them anyway).
495 • Register all fonts which must be downloaded to the printer in the
497 devps/download file. Only the first occurrence of this file in the
498 font path is read. This means that you should copy the default
499 download file to the first directory in your font path and add your
500 fonts there. To continue the above example we assume that the PS
501 font name for Foo-Bar-Bold.pfa is ‘XY-Foo-Bar-Bold’ (the PS font
502 name is stored in the internalname field in the FBB file), thus the
503 following line should be added to download.
504 XY-Foo-Bar-Bold Foo-Bar-Bold.pfa
506
508 groff versions 1.19.2 and earlier contain a slightly different set of
509 the 35 Adobe core fonts; the difference is mainly the lack of the
510 ‘Euro’ glyph and a reduced set of kerning pairs. For backwards compat‐
511 ibility, these old fonts are installed also in the
512 /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/oldfont/devps
514 directory.
516 To use them, make sure that grops finds the fonts before the default
518 system fonts (with the same names): Either add command-line option -F
519 to grops
520 groff -Tps -P-F -P/usr/share/groff/1.22.4/oldfont ...
522 or add the directory to groff's font path environment variable
524 GROFF_FONT_PATH=/usr/share/groff/1.22.4/oldfont
526
528 GROPS_PROLOGUE
529 If this is set to foo, then grops uses the file foo (in the font
530 path) instead of the default prologue file prologue. The option
531 -P overrides this environment variable.
532 GROFF_FONT_PATH
534 A list of directories in which to search for the devname direc‐
535 tory in addition to the default ones. See troff(1) and
536 groff_font(5) for more details.
537 SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH
539 A timestamp (expressed as seconds since the Unix epoch) to use
540 as the creation timestamp in place of the current time.
541
543 /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/font/devps/DESC
544 Device description file.
545 /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/font/devps/F
547 Font description file for font F.
548 /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/font/devps/download
550 List of downloadable fonts.
551 /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/font/devps/text.enc
553 Encoding used for text fonts.
554 /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/ps.tmac
556 Macros for use with grops; automatically loaded by troffrc
557 /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/pspic.tmac
559 Definition of PSPIC macro, automatically loaded by ps.tmac.
560 /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/psold.tmac
562 Macros to disable use of characters not present in older Post‐
563 Script printers (e.g., ‘eth’ or ‘thorn’).
564 /tmp/gropsXXXXXX
566 Temporary file. See groff(1) for details on the location of
567 temporary files.
568
570 afmtodit(1), groff(1), troff(1), pfbtops(1), groff_out(5),
571 groff_font(5), groff_char(7), groff_tmac(5)
572 PostScript Language Document Structuring Conventions Specification
574 ⟨http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/ps/5001.DSC_Spec.pdf⟩
575groff 1.22.4 19 January 2023 GROPS(1)