NAME¶
grops - PostScript driver for groff
SYNOPSIS¶
[
-glmv] [
-b
n] [
-c n]
[
-F dir] [
-I
dir] [
-p papersize]
[
-P prologue]
[
-w n] [
files ...]
It is possible to have whitespace between a command line option and its
parameter.
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 Structuring 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¶
- -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, neither use %%DocumentMedia nor the
setpagedevice PostScript command). This was the behaviour 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 description 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 directory). 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
papersize 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 requirements: The resolution must be an integer multiple of 72
times the
sizescale. The
ps device 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 information.
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 encoding 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
encoding 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/1.21/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 containing 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 Document 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 Garamond (typically it would be defined to
copy Garamond's font dictionary, and change the PaintType), 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,
%%BeginFont, 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 reversed 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
setrgbcolor is used, for `cmy' and `cmyk'
setcmykcolor, and for `gray'
setgray. Note that
setcmykcolor 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 interprets 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 definitions 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
multiple 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 before `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 particular, it doesn't start and end the inserted code with
save and
restore, respectively. 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 dictionary 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 command. If the height argument is
omitted it is scaled uniformly in the x and y directions 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 before being processed with grops; if the
previewer is unable to display certain characters 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 command, 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 instead 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 tables even though the lines are drawn unconnected).
Encapsulated PostScript¶
grops itself doesn't emit bounding box information. With the help of
Ghostscript the following 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
cat $1.ps \
| sed -e "/^%%Orientation/r$1.bbox" \
-e "/^%!PS-Adobe-3.0/s/$/ EPSF-3.0/" >$1.eps
rm $1.ps $1.bbox
Just say
- groff2eps foo
to convert file
foo to
foo.eps.
TrueType fonts can be used with
grops if converted first to
Type 42 format, a special PostScript wrapper equivalent to the PFA
format mentioned in
pfbtops(1). There are several different 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/
Another solution for creating type42 wrappers is to use FontForge, available
from
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:
- 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:
- 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 recommended 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 the ENVIRONMENT section in the troff(1) man page
which lists 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/1.21/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/1.21/oldfont
...
or add the directory to groff's font path environment variable
- GROFF_FONT_PATH=/usr/share/groff/1.21/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.
FILES¶
- /usr/share/groff/1.21/font/devps/DESC
- Device description file.
- /usr/share/groff/1.21/font/devps/F
- Font description file for font F.
- /usr/share/groff/1.21/font/devps/download
- List of downloadable fonts.
- /usr/share/groff/1.21/font/devps/text.enc
- Encoding used for text fonts.
- /usr/share/groff/1.21/tmac/ps.tmac
- Macros for use with grops; automatically loaded by
troffrc
- /usr/share/groff/1.21/tmac/pspic.tmac
- Definition of PSPIC macro, automatically loaded by
ps.tmac.
- /usr/share/groff/1.21/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
