Provided by: groff-base_1.23.0-3build2_amd64 bug

Name

       grops - groff output driver for PostScript

Synopsis

       grops [-glm] [-b brokenness-flags] [-c num-copies] [-F font-directory] [-I inclusion-
             directory] [-p paper-format] [-P prologue-file] [-w rule-thickness] [file ...]

       grops --help

       grops -v
       grops --version

Description

       The GNU roff PostScript output driver translates the output of troff(1)  into  PostScript.
       Normally,  grops  is invoked by groff(1) when the latter is given the “-T ps” option.  (In
       this installation, ps is the default output device.)  Use groff's -P option  to  pass  any
       options  shown  above to grops.  If no file arguments are given, or if file is “-”, grotty
       reads the standard input stream.  Output is written to the standard output stream.

       When called with multiple file arguments, grops doesn't produce a valid document structure
       (one  conforming  to  the  Document  Structuring Conventions).  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 to installing fonts for grops.

Options

       --help displays a usage message, while -v and --version show version information; all exit
       afterward.

       -b n   Work  around  problems  with  spoolers,  previewers, and older printers.  Normally,
              grops produces output at PostScript LanguageLevel 2 that conforms to version 3.0 of
              the  Document Structuring Conventions.  Some software and devices can't handle such
              a data stream.  The value of n determines  what  grops  does  to  make  its  output
              acceptable  to  such  consumers.  If n is 0, grops employs no workarounds, which is
              the default; it can be changed by modifying the broken directive  in  grops's  DESC
              file.

              Add  1  to  suppress  generation  of  %%BeginDocumentSetup  and  %%EndDocumentSetup
              comments; this is needed for early versions of  TranScript  that  get  confused  by
              anything between the %%EndProlog comment and the first %%Page comment.

              Add  2  to  omit  lines  in  included  files beginning with %!, which confuse Sun's
              pageview previewer.

              Add 4 to omit lines in included files beginning with %%Page, %%Trailer  and  %%End‐
              Prolog;  this  is  needed  for  spoolers  that don't understand %%BeginDocument and
              %%EndDocument comments.

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

              Add 16 to omit media size information (that is, output  neither  a  %%DocumentMedia
              comment  nor the setpagedevice PostScript command).  This was the behavior of groff
              1.18.1 and  earlier;  it  is  needed  for  older  printers  that  don't  understand
              PostScript  LanguageLevel  2,  and  is  also  necessary  if  the  output is further
              processed to produce an EPS file; see subsection “Escapsulated PostScript” below.

       -c n   Output n copies of each page.

       -F dir Prepend directory dir/devname to the search path for font  and  device  description
              and PostScript prologue files; name is the name of the device, usually ps.

       -g     Generate  PostScript  code  to guess 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 on both U.S. letter and A4 paper formats
              without change.

       -I dir Search the directory dir for files named in \X'ps: file' and \X'ps: import'  escape
              sequences.   -I  may be specified more than once; each dir is searched in the given
              order.  To search the current working directory before others, add “-I  .”  at  the
              desired place; it is otherwise searched last.

       -l     Use landscape orientation rather than portrait.

       -m     Turn on manual feed for the document.

       -p fmt Set  physical  dimensions  of output medium, overriding the papersize, paperlength,
              and paperwidth directives in the DESC file.  fmt can be any  argument  accepted  by
              the papersize directive; see groff_font(5).

       -P prologue
              Use  the  file  prologue,  sought  in the groff font search path, as the PostScript
              prologue, overriding the default (see section “Files” below)  and  the  environment
              variable GROPS_PROLOGUE.

       -w n   Draw  rules  (lines)  with  a  thickness  of  n  thousandths of an em.  The default
              thickness is 40 (0.04 em).

Usage

       The input to grops must be in the format output by troff(1),  described  in  groff_out(5).
       In  addition,  the device and font description files for the device used must meet certain
       requirements.  The device  resolution  must  be  an  integer  multiple  of  72  times  the
       sizescale.    The  device  description  file  must  contain  a  valid  paper  format;  see
       groff_font(5).  Each font description file must contain a directive
              internalname psname
       which says that the PostScript name of the font is psname.

       A font description file may also contain a directive
              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 description 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  it  does  not  have a groff glyph name.  Every character in the font
       description file must exist in the PostScript font, and  the  widths  given  in  the  font
       description  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.

       grops  is  able  to  display  all glyphs in a PostScript font; it is not limited to 256 of
       them.  enc-file (or the default encoding if no encoding file is  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 embed fonts in a document that are  necessary  to  render  it;  this  is  called
       “downloading”.  Such fonts must be in PFA format.  Use pfbtops(1) to convert a Type 1 font
       in PFB format.  Downloadable fonts must be listed a download file containing lines of  the
       form
              psname file
       where  psname  is  the  PostScript  name  of  the  font,  and file is the name of the file
       containing it; lines beginning with # and blank lines are ignored; fields may be separated
       by  tabs  or  spaces.   file  is  sought  using  the same mechanism as that for groff font
       description files.  The  download  file  itself  is  also  sought  using  this  mechanism;
       currently,  only  the  first matching file found in the device and font description search
       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  %%DocumentSupplied‐
       Resources comment.

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

       The default stroke and fill color is black.  For colors defined in the “rgb” color  space,
       setrgbcolor  is  used;  for  “cmy”  and  “cmyk”,  setcmykcolor;  and  for “gray”, setgray.
       setcmykcolor is a PostScript LanguageLevel 2 command and thus not available on some  older
       printers.

   Typefaces
       Styles  called  R,  I, B, and BI mounted at font positions 1 to 4.  Text fonts are grouped
       into families A, BM, C, H, HN, N, P, and T, each 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

       Another text font is not a member of a family.

              ZCMI   ZapfChancery-MediumItalic

       Special fonts include S, the PostScript  Symbol  font;  ZD,  Zapf  Dingbats;  SS  (slanted
       symbol),  which  contains  oblique  forms  of lowercase Greek letters derived from Symbol;
       EURO, which offers a Euro glyph for use with old devices lacking it; and ZDR,  a  reversed
       version  of  ZapfDingbats  (with symbols flipped about the vertical axis).  Most glyphs in
       these fonts are unnamed and must be accessed using \N.  The last three  are  not  standard
       PostScript  fonts,  but  supplied  by groff and therefore included in the default download
       file.

   Device control commands
       grops recognizes  device  control  commands  produced  by  the  \X  escape  sequence,  but
       interprets only those that begin with a “ps:” tag.

       \X'ps: exec code'
              Execute the arbitrary PostScript commands code.  The PostScript currentpoint is set
              to the groff drawing position when the \X escape  sequence  is  interpreted  before
              executing  code.   The  origin is at the top left corner of the page; x coordinates
              increase to the right, and y coordinates down the page.  A procedure u  is  defined
              that  converts  groff  basic 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 commands 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.   The  single  backslash
              before  “nx”—the  only  reason to use a register while defining the macro “y”—is to
              convert a user-specified dimension “1i” to groff basic  units  which  are  in  turn
              converted to PostScript 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 basic 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 axes so that it has the specified width.

              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 input 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
       control 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.   The  following  script,  groff2eps,
       produces an EPS 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

       You can then use “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 PostScript
       wrapper equivalent to the PFA format described in pfbtops(1).  Several  methods  exist  to
       generate  a Type 42 wrapper; some of them involve the use of a PostScript interpreter such
       as Ghostscript—see gs(1).

       One approach is to use FontForge ⟨https://fontforge.org/⟩, a font editor that can  convert
       most  outline  font  formats.   Here's an example of using the Roboto Slab Serif font with
       groff.  Several variables are used so that you can more easily  adapt  it  into  your  own
       script.

           MAP=/usr/share/groff/1.23.0/font/devps/generate/text.map
           TTF=/usr/share/fonts/truetype/roboto/slab/RobotoSlab-Regular.ttf
           BASE=$(basename "$TTF")
           INT=${BASE%.ttf}
           PFA=$INT.pfa
           AFM=$INT.afm
           GFN=RSR
           DIR=$HOME/.local/groff/font
           mkdir -p "$DIR"/devps
           fontforge -lang=ff -c "Open(\"$TTF\");\
           Generate(\"$DIR/devps/$PFA\");"
           afmtodit "$DIR/devps/$AFM" "$MAP" "$DIR/devps/$GFN"
           printf "$BASE\t$PFA\n" >> "$DIR/devps/download"

       fontforge and afmtodit may generate warnings depending on the attributes of the font.  The
       test procedure is simple.

           printf ".ft RSR\nHello, world!\n" | groff -F "$DIR" > hello.ps

       Once you're satisfied that the font works, you may want to generate any available  related
       styles  (for instance, Roboto Slab also has “Bold”, “Light”, and “Thin” styles) and set up
       GROFF_FONT_PATH in your environment to include the directory you keep the generated  fonts
       in so that you don't have to use the -F option.

Font installation

       The following is a step-by-step font installation guide for grops.

       • Convert  your  font to something groff understands.  This is a PostScript Type 1 font in
         PFA format or a PostScript Type 42 font, together with an AFM file.  A PFA  file  begins
         as follows.
                %!PS-AdobeFont-1.0:
         A  PFB  file contains this string as well, preceded by some non-printing bytes.  If your
         font is in PFB format, use groff's  pfbtops(1)  program  to  convert  it  to  PFA.   For
         TrueType  and other font formats, we recommend fontforge, which can convert most outline
         font formats.  A Type 42 font file begins as follows.
                %!PS-TrueTypeFont
         This is a wrapper format for TrueType fonts.  Old PostScript printers might not  support
         them  (that  is,  they  might  not  have  a built-in TrueType font interpreter).  In the
         following steps, we will  consider  the  use  of  CTAN's  BrushScriptX-Italic  ⟨https://
         ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/brushscr⟩ font in PFA format.

       • Convert the AFM file to a groff font description file with the afmtodit(1) program.  For
         instance,
                $ afmtodit BrushScriptX-Italic.afm text.map BSI
         converts  the  Adobe  Font  Metric  file  BrushScriptX-Italic.afm  to  the  groff   font
         description file BSI.

         If  you  have  a  font  family which provides regular upright (roman), bold, italic, and
         bold-italic styles (where “italic” may be “oblique” or “slanted”),  we  recommend  using
         the  letters R, B, I, and BI, respectively, as suffixes to the groff font family name to
         enable groff's font family and style selection features.  An example is groff's built-in
         support  for  Times:  the font family name is abbreviated as T, and the groff font names
         are therefore TR, TB, TI, and TBI.  In our example, however, the  BrushScriptX  font  is
         available in a single style only, italic.

       • Install  the  groff  font description file(s) in a devps subdirectory in the search path
         that groff uses for device and font file descriptions.  See the GROFF_FONT_PATH entry in
         section  “Environment” of troff(1) for the current value of the font search path.  While
         groff doesn't directly use AFM files, it is a good idea to store them alongside its font
         description files.

       • Register  fonts  in  the  devps/download  file  so  they can be located for embedding in
         PostScript files grops generates.  Only the first download file encountered in the  font
         search  path  is read.  If in doubt, copy the default download file (see section “Files”
         below) to the first directory in the font search path and add  your  fonts  there.   The
         PostScript font name used by grops is stored in the internalname field in the groff font
         description file.  (This name does not necessarily resemble the font's file  name.)   We
         add the following line to download.
                BrushScriptX-Italic→BrushScriptX-Italic.pfa
         A tab character, depicted as →, separates the fields.

       • Test the selection and embedding of the new font.
                printf "\\f[BSI]Hello, world!\n" | groff -T ps -P -e >hello.ps
                see hello.pdf

Old fonts

       groff  versions  1.19.2  and earlier contained descriptions of a slightly different set of
       the base 35 PostScript level 2 fonts defined by Adobe.  The older set has 229 glyphs and a
       larger  set  of  kerning  pairs; the newer one has 314 glyphs and includes the Euro glyph.
       For backwards compatibility, these old font descriptions are also installed in  the  /usr/
       share/groff/1.23.0/oldfont/devps directory.

       To  use  them,  make sure that grops finds the fonts before the default system fonts (with
       the same names): either give grops the -F command-line option,
              $ groff -Tps -P-F -P/usr/share/groff/1.23.0/oldfont ...
       or add the directory to groff's  font  and  device  description  search  path  environment
       variable,
              $ GROFF_FONT_PATH=/usr/share/groff/1.23.0/oldfont \
                     groff -Tps ...
       when the command runs.

Environment

       GROFF_FONT_PATH
              A  list  of  directories in which to seek the selected output device's directory of
              device and font description files.  See troff(1) and groff_font(5).

       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.

       SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH
              A timestamp (expressed as seconds since the  Unix  epoch)  to  use  as  the  output
              creation  timestamp  in place of the current time.  The time is converted to human-
              readable form using gmtime(3) and asctime(3), and recorded in a PostScript comment.

       TZ     The time zone to use when converting the current time to human-readable  form;  see
              tzset(3).   If  SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH is used, it is always converted to human-readable
              form using UTC.

Files

       /usr/share/groff/1.23.0/font/devps/DESC
              describes the ps output device.

       /usr/share/groff/1.23.0/font/devps/F
              describes the font known as F on device ps.

       /usr/share/groff/1.23.0/font/devps/download
              lists fonts available for embedding within the PostScript document (or download  to
              the device).

       /usr/share/groff/1.23.0/font/devps/prologue
              is the default PostScript prologue prefixed to every output file.

       /usr/share/groff/1.23.0/font/devps/text.enc
              describes  the  encoding  scheme used by most PostScript Type 1 fonts; the encoding
              directive of font description files for the ps device refers to it.

       /usr/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/ps.tmac
              defines macros for use with the ps output device.  It is  automatically  loaded  by
              troffrc when the ps output device is selected.

       /usr/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/pspic.tmac
              defines  the PSPIC macro for embedding images in a document; see groff_tmac(5).  It
              is automatically loaded by troffrc.

       /usr/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/psold.tmac
              provides replacement glyphs for text fonts that lack complete coverage of  the  ISO
              Latin-1  character  set;  using it, groff can produce glyphs like eth (ð) and thorn
              (þ) that older PostScript printers do not natively support.

       grops creates temporary files using the template “gropsXXXXXX”; see groff(1)  for  details
       on their storage location.

See also

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

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