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grops - PostScript driver for groff
SYNOPSIS
grops [ -glmv ] [ -bn ] [ -cn ] [ -Fdir ] [ -ppapersize ] [ -Pprologue ] [ -wn ] [ 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 com-
mand with a -Tps option. (Actually, this is the default for groff.) If no files are given, grops will read the
standard input. A filename of - will also cause 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 the groff -P option.
OPTIONS
-bn Workaround broken spoolers and previewers. Normally grops produces output that conforms the Document
Structuring Conventions version 3.0. Unfortunately some spoolers and previewers can't handle such output.
The value of n controls what grops does to its output acceptable to such programs. A value of 0 will
cause grops not to employ any workarounds. Add 1 if no %%BeginDocumentSetup and %%EndDocumentSetup com-
ments 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 out-
put 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. 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 will be
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.
-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 and paperlength commands in the
DESC file; it accepts the same arguments as the papersize command.
-Pprologue-file
Use the file prologue-file (in the font path) as the prologue instead of the default prologue file pro-
logue. 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
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 SS and S. 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.
grops understands various X commands produced using the \X escape sequence; grops will only interpret commands
that begin with a ps: tag.
\X'ps: exec code'
This executes the arbitrary PostScript commands in code. The PostScript currentpoint will be set to the
position of the \X command before executing code. The origin will be at the top left corner of the page,
and y coordinates will increase down the page. A procedure u will be defined that converts groff units to
the coordinate system in effect. For example,
.nr x 1i
\X'ps: exec \nx u 0 rlineto stroke'
will draw a horizontal line one inch long. code may make changes to the graphics state, but any changes
will persist only to the end of the page. A dictionary containing the definitions specified by the def
and mdef will be 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 will 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.
\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 will be scaled so that it has this width and height and trans-
lated 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 will be 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 Conven-
tions and contains a %%BoundingBox comment, then the bounding box can be automatically extracted from
within groff by using the psbb request.
The -mps macros (which are automatically loaded when grops is run by the groff command) include a PSPIC
macro which allows a picture to be easily imported. This has the format
.PSPIC [-L|-R|-I n] file [width [height]]
file is the name of the file containing the illustration; width and height give the desired width and
height of the graphic. The width and height arguments may have scaling indicators attached; the default
scaling indicator is i. This macro will scale the graphic uniformly in the x and y directions so that it
is no more than width wide and height high. By default, the graphic will be horizontally centered. The
-L and -R cause the graphic to be left-aligned and right-aligned respectively. The -I option causes the
graphic to be indented by n.
\X'ps: invis'
\X'ps: endinvis'
No output will be generated for text and drawing commands that are bracketed with these \X commands.
These commands are intended for use when output from troff will be 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 will be unable to display the \(em character and will draw the line, whereas grops
will print the \(em character and ignore the line.
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 device and font
description files supplied for ps device meet all these requirements. afmtodit(1) can be used to create font
files from AFM files. 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 should contain a command
paperlength n
which says that output should be generated which is suitable for printing on a page whose length is n machine
units. Common values are 792000 for letter paper and 841890 for paper in A4 format. Alternatively, it can con-
tain
papersize string
to specify a paper size; see groff_font(5) for more information. Each font description file must contain a com-
mand
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. 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 will assume 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.
grops can automatically include the downloadable fonts necessary to print the document. Any downloadable fonts
which should, when required, be included by grops must be listed in the file
/usr/share/groff/1.18.1/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 will be
searched for using the same mechanism that is used for groff font metric files. The download file itself will
also be 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 Con-
ventions, then grops will interpret any comments in the files sufficiently to ensure that its own output is con-
forming. It will also supply 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 be appear before Garamond-Outline in the PostScript document. grops will handle 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 will not interpret %%DocumentFonts comments. The %%DocumentNeededResources, %%DocumentSuppliedResources,
%%IncludeResource, %%BeginResource and %%EndResource comments (or possibly the old %%DocumentNeededFonts, %%Docu-
mentSuppliedFonts, %%IncludeFont, %%BeginFont and %%EndFont comments) should be used.
TrueType fonts
TrueType fonts can be used with grops if converted first to Type 42 format, an especial PostScript wrapper equiv-
alent to the PFA format mentioned in pfbtops(1). There are several different methods to generate a type42 wrap-
per and most of them involve the use of a PostScript interpreter such as Ghostscript -- see gs(1). Yet, the eas-
iest method involves the use of the application ttftot42. This program uses freetype(3) (version 1.3.1) to gen-
erate type42 font wrappers and well-formed AFM files that can be fed to the afmtodit(1) script to create appro-
priate 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/>.
ENVIRONMENT
GROPS_PROLOGUE
If this is set to foo, then grops will use the file foo (in the font path) instead of the default prologue
file prologue. The option -P overrides this environment variable.
FILES
/usr/share/groff/1.18.1/font/devps/DESC Device description file.
/usr/share/groff/1.18.1/font/devps/F Font description file for font F.
/usr/share/groff/1.18.1/font/devps/download List of downloadable fonts.
/usr/share/groff/1.18.1/font/devps/text.enc Encoding used for text fonts.
/usr/share/groff/1.18.1/tmac/ps.tmac Macros for use with grops; automatically loaded by troffrc
/usr/share/groff/1.18.1/tmac/pspic.tmac Definition of PSPIC macro, automatically loaded by ps.tmac.
/usr/share/groff/1.18.1/tmac/psold.tmac Macros to disable use of characters not present in older PostScript
printers (e.g. `eth' or `thorn').
/tmp/gropsXXXXXX Temporary file.
RELATED
afmtodit(1), groff(1), troff(1), psbb(1), groff_out(5), groff_font(5), groff_char(7)
CATEGORY