GROPS(1) - man - phpMan

 


GROPS(1)
NAME SYNOPSIS DESCRIPTION OPTIONS USAGE FONT INSTALLATION OLD FONTS ENVIRONMENT FILES SEE ALSO
GROPS(1)                               General Commands Manual                              GROPS(1)



NAME
       grops - PostScript driver for groff

SYNOPSIS
       grops [-glmv] [-b n] [-c n] [-F dir] [-I dir] [-p papersize] [-P prologue] [-w n] [file ...]

DESCRIPTION
       grops  translates the output of GNU troff to PostScript.  Normally grops should be invoked by
       using the groff command with a -Tps option.  (Actually, this is the default for  groff.)   If
       no  files  are  given,  grops reads the standard input.  A filename of - also causes grops to
       read the standard input.  PostScript output is written to the standard output.  When grops is
       run by groff options can be passed to grops using groff's -P option.

       Note that grops doesn't produce a valid document structure (conforming to the Document Struc‐
       turing Convention) if called with multiple file arguments.  To print such concatenated output
       it is necessary to deactivate DSC handling in the printing program or previewer.  See section
       “Font Installation” below for a guide how to install fonts for grops.

OPTIONS
       Whitespace is permitted between a command-line option and its argument.

       -bn    Provide workarounds for older printers, broken  spoolers,  and  previewers.   Normally
              grops  produces  output  at  PostScript  LanguageLevel 2 that conforms to the Document
              Structuring Conventions version 3.0.  Some older printers,  spoolers,  and  previewers
              can't  handle such output.  The value of n controls what grops does to make its output
              acceptable to such programs.  A value of 0 causes grops not to employ any workarounds.

              Add 1 if no %%BeginDocumentSetup and %%EndDocumentSetup comments should be  generated;
              this  is needed for early versions of TranScript that get confused by anything between
              the %%EndProlog comment and the first %%Page comment.

              Add 2 if lines in included files beginning with %! should be  stripped  out;  this  is
              needed for Sun's pageview previewer.

              Add 4 if %%Page, %%Trailer and %%EndProlog comments should be stripped out of included
              files; this is needed for spoolers  that  don't  understand  the  %%BeginDocument  and
              %%EndDocument comments.

              Add  8 if the first line of the PostScript output should be %!PS-Adobe-2.0 rather than
              %!PS-Adobe-3.0; this is needed when using Sun's Newsprint with a printer that requires
              page reversal.

              Add  16 if no media size information should be included in the document (this is, nei‐
              ther use %%DocumentMedia nor the setpagedevice PostScript command).  This was the  be‐
              haviour  of  groff  version  1.18.1 and earlier; it is needed for older printers which
              don't understand PostScript LanguageLevel 2.  It is also necessary if  the  output  is
              further processed to get an encapsulated PS (EPS) file – see below.

              The default value can be specified by a

                     broken n

              command in the DESC file.  Otherwise the default value is 0.

       -cn    Print n copies of each page.

       -Fdir  Prepend  directory  dir/devname  to the search path for prologue, font, and device de‐
              scription files; name is the name of the device, usually ps.

       -g     Guess the page length.  This generates PostScript code that guesses the  page  length.
              The  guess  is  correct only if the imageable area is vertically centered on the page.
              This option allows you to generate documents  that  can  be  printed  both  on  letter
              (8.5×11) paper and on A4 paper without change.

       -Idir  This option may be used to add a directory to the search path for files on the command
              line and files named in \X'ps: import' and \X'ps: file' escapes.  The search  path  is
              initialized  with the current directory.  This option may be specified more than once;
              the directories are then searched in the order specified (but before the  current  di‐
              rectory).  If you want to make the current directory be read before other directories,
              add -I. at the appropriate place.

              No directory search is performed for files with an absolute file name.

       -l     Print the document in landscape format.

       -m     Turn manual feed on for the document.

       -ppaper-size
              Set physical dimension of output medium.  This overrides the  papersize,  paperlength,
              and  paperwidth commands in the DESC file; it accepts the same arguments as the paper‐‐
              size command.  See groff_font (5) for details.

       -Pprologue-file
              Use the file prologue-file (in the font path) as the prologue instead of  the  default
              prologue  file  prologue.   This  option overrides the environment variable GROPS_PROLOGUE.

       -wn    Lines should be drawn using a thickness of n thousandths of an em.  If this option  is
              not given, the line thickness defaults to 0.04 em.

       -v     Print the version number.

USAGE
       The  input  to  grops  must  be  in  the  format  output  by  troff(1).  This is described in
       groff_out(5).

       In addition, the device and font description files for the device used must meet certain  re‐
       quirements: The resolution must be an integer multiple of 72 times the sizescale.  The ps de‐
       vice uses a resolution of 72000 and a sizescale of 1000.

       The device description file must contain a valid paper size; see groff_font(5) for  more  in‐
       formation.

       Each font description file must contain a command

              internalname psname

       which says that the PostScript name of the font is psname.  It may also contain a command

              encoding enc_file

       which  says  that  the  PostScript  font  should be reencoded using the encoding described in
       enc_file; this file should consist of a sequence of lines of the form:

              pschar code

       where pschar is the PostScript name of the character, and code is its position in the  encod‐
       ing  expressed  as a decimal integer; valid values are in the range 0 to 255.  Lines starting
       with # and blank lines are ignored.  The code for each character given in the font file  must
       correspond  to the code for the character in encoding file, or to the code in the default en‐
       coding for the font if the PostScript font is not to be reencoded.  This  code  can  be  used
       with  the \N escape sequence in troff to select the character, even if the character does not
       have a groff name.  Every character in the font file must exist in the PostScript  font,  and
       the  widths  given in the font file must match the widths used in the PostScript font.  grops
       assumes that a character with a groff name of space is blank (makes no marks on the page); it
       can make use of such a character to generate more efficient and compact PostScript output.

       Note  that  grops is able to display all glyphs in a PostScript font, not only 256.  enc_file
       (or the default encoding if no encoding file specified) just defines the order of glyphs  for
       the  first  256  characters;  all  other glyphs are accessed with additional encoding vectors
       which grops produces on the fly.

       grops can automatically include the downloadable fonts necessary to print the document.  Such
       fonts  must  be  in  PFA format.  Use pfbtops(1) to convert a Type 1 font in PFB format.  Any
       downloadable fonts which should, when required, be included by grops must be  listed  in  the
       file /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/font/devps/download; this should consist of lines of the form

              font filename

       where  font is the PostScript name of the font, and filename is the name of the file contain‐
       ing the font; lines beginning with # and blank lines are ignored; fields may be separated  by
       tabs or spaces; filename is searched for using the same mechanism that is used for groff font
       metric files.  The download file itself is also searched for using this mechanism; currently,
       only the first found file in the font path is used.

       If  the  file containing a downloadable font or imported document conforms to the Adobe Docu‐
       ment Structuring Conventions, then grops interprets any comments in the files sufficiently to
       ensure  that  its  own output is conforming.  It also supplies any needed font resources that
       are listed in the download file as well as any needed file resources.  It  is  also  able  to
       handle  inter-resource  dependencies.  For example, suppose that you have a downloadable font
       called Garamond, and also a downloadable font called Garamond-Outline which depends on  Gara‐
       mond (typically it would be defined to copy Garamond's font dictionary, and change the Paint‐
       Type), then it is necessary for Garamond to appear before Garamond-Outline in the  PostScript
       document.   grops  handles  this  automatically  provided that the downloadable font file for
       Garamond-Outline indicates its dependence on Garamond by means of  the  Document  Structuring
       Conventions, for example by beginning with the following lines

              %!PS-Adobe-3.0 Resource-Font
              %%DocumentNeededResources: font Garamond
              %%EndComments
              %%IncludeResource: font Garamond

       In this case both Garamond and Garamond-Outline would need to be listed in the download file.
       A downloadable font should not include its own name in a %%DocumentSuppliedResources comment.

       grops  does  not  interpret   %%DocumentFonts   comments.    The   %%DocumentNeededResources,
       %%DocumentSuppliedResources,  %%IncludeResource,  %%BeginResource, and %%EndResource comments
       (or possibly the old %%DocumentNeededFonts, %%DocumentSuppliedFonts, %%IncludeFont,  %%Begin‐‐
       Font, and %%EndFont comments) should be used.

       In  the  default  setup  there  are styles called R, I, B, and BI mounted at font positions 1
       to 4.  The fonts are grouped into families A, BM, C, H, HN, N, P, and  T  having  members  in
       each of these styles:

              AR     AvantGarde-Book
              AI     AvantGarde-BookOblique
              AB     AvantGarde-Demi
              ABI    AvantGarde-DemiOblique
              BMR    Bookman-Light
              BMI    Bookman-LightItalic
              BMB    Bookman-Demi
              BMBI   Bookman-DemiItalic
              CR     Courier
              CI     Courier-Oblique
              CB     Courier-Bold
              CBI    Courier-BoldOblique
              HR     Helvetica
              HI     Helvetica-Oblique
              HB     Helvetica-Bold
              HBI    Helvetica-BoldOblique
              HNR    Helvetica-Narrow
              HNI    Helvetica-Narrow-Oblique
              HNB    Helvetica-Narrow-Bold
              HNBI   Helvetica-Narrow-BoldOblique
              NR     NewCenturySchlbk-Roman
              NI     NewCenturySchlbk-Italic
              NB     NewCenturySchlbk-Bold
              NBI    NewCenturySchlbk-BoldItalic
              PR     Palatino-Roman
              PI     Palatino-Italic
              PB     Palatino-Bold
              PBI    Palatino-BoldItalic
              TR     Times-Roman
              TI     Times-Italic
              TB     Times-Bold
              TBI    Times-BoldItalic

       There is also the following font which is not a member of a family:

              ZCMI   ZapfChancery-MediumItalic

       There are also some special fonts called S for the PS Symbol font, and SS, containing slanted
       lowercase Greek letters taken from PS Symbol.  Zapf Dingbats is available as ZD,  and  a  re‐
       versed version of ZapfDingbats (with symbols pointing in the opposite direction) is available
       as ZDR; most characters in these fonts are unnamed and must be accessed using \N.

       The default color for \m and \M is black; for colors defined in the ‘rgb’ color space setrgb‐‐
       color is used, for ‘cmy’ and ‘cmyk’ setcmykcolor, and for ‘gray’ setgray.  Note that setcmyk‐‐
       color is a PostScript LanguageLevel 2 command and thus not available on some older printers.

       grops understands various X commands produced using the \X escape sequence; grops only inter‐
       prets commands that begin with a ps: tag.

       \X'ps: exec code'
              This  executes the arbitrary PostScript commands in code.  The PostScript currentpoint
              is set to the position of the \X command before executing code.  The origin is at  the
              top  left corner of the page, and y coordinates increase down the page.  A procedure u
              is defined that converts groff units to the coordinate system in effect (provided  the
              user doesn't change the scale).  For example,

                     .nr x 1i
                     \X'ps: exec \nx u 0 rlineto stroke'

              draws  a  horizontal line one inch long.  code may make changes to the graphics state,
              but any changes persist only to the end of the page.  A dictionary containing the def‐
              initions  specified  by  the  def and mdef is on top of the dictionary stack.  If your
              code adds definitions to this dictionary, you should allocate  space  for  them  using
              \X'ps mdef n'.   Any  definitions  persist only until the end of the page.  If you use
              the \Y escape sequence with an argument that names a macro, code can extend over  mul‐
              tiple lines.  For example,

                     .nr x 1i
                     .de y
                     ps: exec
                     \nx u 0 rlineto
                     stroke
                     ..
                     \Yy

              is another way to draw a horizontal line one inch long.  Note the single backslash be‐
              fore ‘nx’ – the only reason to use a number register while defining the macro  ‘y’  is
              to  convert  a user-specified dimension ‘1i’ to internal groff units which are in turn
              converted to PS units with the u procedure.

              grops wraps user-specified PostScript code into a dictionary, nothing more.   In  par‐
              ticular,  it  doesn't  start  and end the inserted code with save and restore, respec‐
              tively.  This must be supplied by the user, if necessary.

       \X'ps: file name'
              This is the same as the exec command except that the PostScript code is read from file
              name.

       \X'ps: def code'
              Place  a  PostScript definition contained in code in the prologue.  There should be at
              most one definition per \X command.  Long definitions can be  split  over  several  \X
              commands;  all  the  code  arguments are simply joined together separated by newlines.
              The definitions are placed in a dictionary which is automatically pushed on  the  dic‐
              tionary  stack  when  an  exec command is executed.  If you use the \Y escape sequence
              with an argument that names a macro, code can extend over multiple lines.

       \X'ps: mdef n code'
              Like def, except that code may contain up to n definitions.  grops needs to  know  how
              many definitions code contains so that it can create an appropriately sized PostScript
              dictionary to contain them.

       \X'ps: import file llx lly urx ury width [ height ]'
              Import a PostScript graphic from file.  The arguments llx, lly, urx, and ury give  the
              bounding  box  of the graphic in the default PostScript coordinate system; they should
              all be integers; llx and lly are the x and y coordinates of the lower left  corner  of
              the  graphic; urx and ury are the x and y coordinates of the upper right corner of the
              graphic; width and height are integers that give the desired width and height in groff
              units of the graphic.

              The  graphic is scaled so that it has this width and height and translated so that the
              lower left corner of the graphic is located at the position associated  with  \X  com‐
              mand.   If the height argument is omitted it is scaled uniformly in the x and y direc‐
              tions so that it has the specified width.

              Note that the contents of the \X command are not interpreted  by  troff;  so  vertical
              space  for  the graphic is not automatically added, and the width and height arguments
              are not allowed to have attached scaling indicators.

              If the PostScript file complies with the Adobe Document  Structuring  Conventions  and
              contains a %%BoundingBox comment, then the bounding box can be automatically extracted
              from within groff by using the psbb request.

              See groff_tmac(5) for a description of the PSPIC macro  which  provides  a  convenient
              high-level interface for inclusion of PostScript graphics.

       \X'ps: invis'
       \X'ps: endinvis'
              No  output is generated for text and drawing commands that are bracketed with these \X
              commands.  These commands are intended for use when output from troff is previewed be‐
              fore being processed with grops; if the previewer is unable to display certain charac‐
              ters or other constructs, then other substitute characters or constructs can  be  used
              for previewing by bracketing them with these \X commands.

              For  example,  gxditview  is  not  able to display a proper \(em character because the
              standard X11 fonts do not provide it; this problem can be overcome  by  executing  the
              following request

                     .char \(em \X'ps: invis'\
                     \Z'\v'-.25m'\h'.05m'\D'l .9m 0'\h'.05m''\
                     \X'ps: endinvis'\(em

              In  this  case,  gxditview is unable to display the \(em character and draws the line,
              whereas grops prints the \(em character and ignores the line (this code is already  in
              file  Xps.tmac  which  is  loaded  if  a document intended for grops is previewed with
              gxditview).

       If a PostScript procedure BPhook has been defined via a ‘ps: def’ or ‘ps: mdef’  device  com‐
       mand,  it  is executed at the beginning of every page (before anything is drawn or written by
       groff).  For example, to underlay the page contents with the word ‘DRAFT’ in light gray,  you
       might use

              .de XX
              ps: def
              /BPhook
              { gsave .9 setgray clippath pathbbox exch 2 copy
                .5 mul exch .5 mul translate atan rotate pop pop
                /NewCenturySchlbk-Roman findfont 200 scalefont setfont
                (DRAFT) dup stringwidth pop -.5 mul -70 moveto show
                grestore }
              def
              ..
              .devicem XX

       Or,  to  cause  lines and polygons to be drawn with square linecaps and mitered linejoins in‐
       stead of the round linecaps and linejoins normally used by grops, use

              .de XX
              ps: def
              /BPhook { 2 setlinecap 0 setlinejoin } def
              ..
              .devicem XX

       (square linecaps, as opposed to butt linecaps (0 setlinecap), give true corners in boxed  ta‐
       bles even though the lines are drawn unconnected).

   Encapsulated PostScript
       grops itself doesn't emit bounding box information.  With the help of Ghostscript the follow‐
       ing simple script, groff2eps, produces an encapsulated PS file.

              #! /bin/sh
              groff -P-b16 $1 > $1.ps
              gs -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=bbox -- $1.ps 2> $1.bbox
              sed -e "/^%%Orientation/r $1.bbox" \
                  -e "/^%!PS-Adobe-3.0/s/$/ EPSF-3.0/" $1.ps > $1.eps
              rm $1.ps $1.bbox

       Just say

              groff2eps foo

       to convert file foo to foo.eps.

   TrueType and other font formats
       TrueType fonts can be used with grops if converted first to Type 42 format, a  special  Post‐
       Script  wrapper equivalent to the PFA format mentioned in pfbtops(1).  There are several dif‐
       ferent methods to generate a type42 wrapper and most of them involve the use of a  PostScript
       interpreter such as Ghostscript – see gs(1).

       Yet,  the  easiest method involves the use of the application ttftot42(1).  This program uses
       freetype(3) (version 1.3.1) to generate type42 font wrappers and well-formed AFM  files  that
       can  be fed to the afmtodit(1) script to create appropriate metric files.  The resulting font
       wrappers should be added to the download file.  ttftot42 source code can be  downloaded  from
       ftp://www.giga.or.at/pub/nih/ttftot42/ftp://www.giga.or.at/pub/nih/ttftot42/⟩.

       Another  solution  for  creating  type42 wrappers is to use FontForge, available from http://
       fontforge.sf.net ⟨http://fontforge.sf.net⟩.  This font editor can convert most  outline  font
       formats.

FONT INSTALLATION
       This  section  gives a summary of the above explanations; it can serve as a step-by-step font
       installation guide for grops.

        •  Convert your font to something groff understands.  This is either  a  PostScript  Type  1
           font in PFA format or a PostScript Type 42 font, together with an AFM file.

           The very first characters in a PFA file look like this:

                  %!PS-AdobeFont-1.0:

           A  PFB  file has this also in the first line, but the string is preceded with some binary
           bytes.

           The very first characters in a Type 42 font file look like this:

                  %!PS-TrueTypeFont

           This is a wrapper format for TrueType fonts.  Old PS printers might not support it  (this
           is, they don't have a built-in TrueType font interpreter).

           If  your font is in PFB format (such fonts normally have .pfb as the file extension), you
           might use groff's pfbtops(1) program to convert it  to  PFA.   For  TrueType  fonts,  try
           ttftot42  or  fontforge.  For all other font formats use fontforge which can convert most
           outline font formats.

        •  Convert the AFM file to a groff font description file with the afmtodit(1)  program.   An
           example call is

                  afmtodit Foo-Bar-Bold.afm textmap FBB

           which  converts  the  metric  file Foo-Bar-Bold.afm to the groff font FBB.  If you have a
           font family which comes with normal, bold, italic, and bold italic faces,  it  is  recom‐
           mended  to  use the letters R, B, I, and BI, respectively, as postfixes in the groff font
           names to make groff's ‘.fam’ request work.  An example is  groff's  built-in  Times-Roman
           font: The font family name is T, and the groff font names are TR, TB, TI, and TBI.

        •  Install  both  the  groff font description files and the fonts in a devps subdirectory of
           the font path which groff finds.  See section “Environment” in troff(1)  for  the  actual
           value of the font path.  Note that groff doesn't use the AFM files (but it is a good idea
           to store them anyway).

        •  Register all fonts which must be downloaded to the printer in  the  devps/download  file.
           Only  the  first  occurrence  of this file in the font path is read.  This means that you
           should copy the default download file to the first directory in your font  path  and  add
           your fonts there.  To continue the above example we assume that the PS font name for Foo-
           Bar-Bold.pfa is ‘XY-Foo-Bar-Bold’ (the PS font name is stored in the  internalname  field
           in the FBB file), thus the following line should be added to download.

                  XY-Foo-Bar-Bold Foo-Bar-Bold.pfa

OLD FONTS
       groff  versions  1.19.2  and  earlier  contain  a slightly different set of the 35 Adobe core
       fonts; the difference is mainly the lack of the ‘Euro’ glyph and a  reduced  set  of  kerning
       pairs.  For backwards compatibility, these old fonts are installed also in the

              /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/oldfont/devps

       directory.

       To  use  them, make sure that grops finds the fonts before the default system fonts (with the
       same names): Either add command-line option -F to grops

              groff -Tps -P-F -P/usr/share/groff/1.22.4/oldfont ...

       or add the directory to groff's font path environment variable

              GROFF_FONT_PATH=/usr/share/groff/1.22.4/oldfont

ENVIRONMENT
       GROPS_PROLOGUE
              If this is set to foo, then grops uses the file foo (in the font path) instead of  the
              default prologue file prologue.  The option -P overrides this environment variable.

       GROFF_FONT_PATH
              A  list of directories in which to search for the devname directory in addition to the
              default ones.  See troff(1) and groff_font(5) for more details.

       SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH
              A timestamp (expressed as seconds since the Unix epoch) to use as the  creation  time‐
              stamp in place of the current time.

FILES
       /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/font/devps/DESC
              Device description file.

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/font/devps/F
              Font description file for font F.

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/font/devps/download
              List of downloadable fonts.

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/font/devps/text.enc
              Encoding used for text fonts.

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/ps.tmac
              Macros for use with grops; automatically loaded by troffrc

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/pspic.tmac
              Definition of PSPIC macro, automatically loaded by ps.tmac.

       /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/tmac/psold.tmac
              Macros  to  disable  use of characters not present in older PostScript printers (e.g.,
              ‘eth’ or ‘thorn’).

       /tmp/gropsXXXXXX
              Temporary file.  See groff(1) for details on the location of temporary files.

SEE ALSO
       afmtodit(1), groff(1),  troff(1),  pfbtops(1),  groff_out(5),  groff_font(5),  groff_char(7),
       groff_tmac(5)

       PostScript    Language    Document    Structuring    Conventions    Specification    ⟨http://
       partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/ps/5001.DSC_Spec.pdf⟩



groff 1.22.4                                23 March 2022                                   GROPS(1)

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