Ubuntu Manpage: grolj4 - groff output driver for HP LaserJet 4 and compatible printers

Name

       grolj4 - groff output driver for HP LaserJet 4 and compatible printers

Synopsis

       grolj4 [-l] [-c num-copies] [-d [n]] [-F font-directory] [-p paper-format] [-w line-width]
              [file ...]

       grolj4 --help

       grolj4 -v
       grolj4 --version

Description

This GNU roff output driver translates the output of troff(1) into a PCL5 format suitable
for an HP LaserJet 4 printer. Normally, grolj4 is invoked by groff(1) when the latter is
given the “-T lj4” option. (In this installation, ps is the default output device.) Use
groff's -P option to pass any options shown above to grolj4. If no file arguments are
given, or if file is “-”, grolj4 reads the standard input stream. Output is written to
the standard output stream.

Typefaces
grolj4 supports the standard four styles: R (roman), I (italic), B (bold), and BI (bold-
italic). Fonts are grouped into families A, C, G, O, T, TN, U, and UC having members in
each style.

AB Arial Bold
ABI Arial Bold Italic
AI Arial Italic
AR Arial Roman
CB Courier Bold
CBI Courier Bold Italic
CI Courier Italic
CR Courier Roman
GB Garamond Halbfett
GBI Garamond Kursiv Halbfett
GI Garamond Kursiv
GR Garamond Antiqua
OB CG Omega Bold
OBI CG Omega Bold Italic
OI CG Omega Italic
OR CG Omega Roman
OB CG Omega Bold
OBI CG Omega Bold Italic
OI CG Omega Italic
OR CG Omega Roman
TB CG Times Bold
TBI CG Times Bold Italic
TI CG Times Italic
TR CG Times Roman
TNRB M Times Bold
TNRBI M Times Bold Italic
TNRI M Times Italic
TNRR M Times Roman
UB Univers Bold
UBI Univers Bold Italic
UI Univers Medium Italic
UR Univers Medium
UCB Univers Condensed Bold
UCBI Univers Condensed Bold Italic
UCI Univers Condensed Medium Italic
UCR Univers Condensed Medium

The following fonts are not members of a family.

ALBB Albertus Extra Bold
ALBR Albertus Medium
AOB Antique Olive Bold
AOI Antique Olive Italic
AOR Antique Olive Roman
CLARENDON Clarendon
CORONET Coronet
LGB Letter Gothic Bold
LGI Letter Gothic Italic
LGR Letter Gothic Roman
MARIGOLD Marigold

The special font is S (PostScript Symbol); SYMBOL (M Symbol), and WINGDINGS (Wingdings)
are also available but not mounted by default.

Paper format and device description file
grolj4 supports paper formats “A4”, “B5”, “C5”, “com10”, “DL”, “executive”, “legal”,
“letter”, and “monarch”. These are matched case-insensitively. The -p option overrides
any setting in the device description file DESC. If neither specifies a paper format,
“letter” is assumed.

Font description files
grolj4 recognizes four font description file directives in addition to those documented in
groff_font(5).

pclweight n
Set the stroke weight to n, an integer in the range -7 to +7; the default is 0.

pclstyle n
Set the style to n, an integer in the range 0 to 32767; the default is 0.

pclproportional n
Set the proportional spacing Boolean flag to n, which can be either 0 or 1; the
default is 0.

pcltypeface n
Set the typeface family to n, an integer in the range 0 to 65535; the default is 0.

Drawing commands
An additional drawing command is recognized as an extension to those documented in
groff(7).

\D'R dh dv'
Draw a rule (solid black rectangle) with one corner at the drawing position, and
the diagonally opposite corner at the drawing position +(dh,dv), at which the
drawing position will be afterward. This generates a PCL fill rectangle command,
and so will work on printers that do not support HP-GL/2, unlike the other \D
commands.

Fonts
Nominally, all Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 4-series and newer printers have the same internal
fonts: 45 scalable fonts and one bitmapped Lineprinter font. The scalable fonts are
available in sizes between 0.25 points and 999.75 points, in 0.25-point increments; the
Lineprinter font is available only in 8.5-point size.

The LaserJet font files included with groff assume that all printers since the LaserJet 4
are identical. There are some differences between fonts in the earlier and more recent
printers, however. The LaserJet 4 printer used Agfa Intellifont technology for 35 of the
internal scalable fonts; the remaining 10 scalable fonts were TrueType. Beginning with
the LaserJet 4000-series printers introduced in 1997, all scalable internal fonts have
been TrueType. The number of printable glyphs differs slightly between Intellifont and
TrueType fonts (generally, the TrueType fonts include more glyphs), and there are some
minor differences in glyph metrics. Differences among printer models are described in the
PCL 5 Comparison Guide and the PCL 5 Comparison Guide Addendum (for printers introduced
since approximately 2001).

LaserJet printers reference a glyph by a combination of a 256-glyph symbol set and an
index within that symbol set. Many glyphs appear in more than one symbol set; all
combinations of symbol set and index that reference the same glyph are equivalent. For
each glyph, hpftodit(1) searches a list of symbol sets, and selects the first set that
contains the glyph. The printing code generated by hpftodit is an integer that encodes a
numerical value for the symbol set in the high byte(s), and the index in the low byte.
See groff_font(5) for a complete description of the font file format; symbol sets are
described in greater detail in the PCL 5 Printer Language Technical Reference Manual.

Two of the scalable fonts, Symbol and Wingdings, are bound to 256-glyph symbol sets; the
remaining scalable fonts, as well as the Lineprinter font, support numerous symbol sets,
sufficient to enable printing of more than 600 glyphs.

The metrics generated by hpftodit assume that the DESC file contains values of 1200 for
res and 6350 for unitwidth, or any combination (e.g., 2400 and 3175) for which
res × unitwidth = 7620000. Although HP PCL 5 LaserJet printers support an internal
resolution of 7200 units per inch, they use a 16-bit signed integer for positioning; if
devlj4 is to support U.S. ledger paper (11 in × 17 in; in = inch), the maximum usable
resolution is 32767 ÷ 17, or 1927 units per inch, which rounds down to 1200 units per
inch. If the largest required paper dimension is less (e.g., 8.5 in × 11 in, or A5), a
greater res (and lesser unitwidth) can be specified.

Font metrics for Intellifont fonts were provided by Tagged Font Metric (TFM) files
originally developed by Agfa/Compugraphic. The TFM files provided for these fonts
supported 600+ glyphs and contained extensive lists of kerning pairs.

To accommodate developers who had become accustomed to TFM files, HP also provided TFM
files for the 10 TrueType fonts included in the LaserJet 4. The TFM files for TrueType
fonts generally included less information than the Intellifont TFMs, supporting fewer
glyphs, and in most cases, providing no kerning information. By the time the
LaserJet 4000 printer was introduced, most developers had migrated to other means of
obtaining font metrics, and support for new TFM files was very limited. The TFM files
provided for the TrueType fonts in the LaserJet 4000 support only the Latin 2 (ISO 8859-2)
symbol set, and include no kerning information; consequently, they are of little value for
any but the most rudimentary documents.

Because the Intellifont TFM files contain considerably more information, they generally
are preferable to the TrueType TFM files even for use with the TrueType fonts in the newer
printers. The metrics for the TrueType fonts are very close, though not identical, to
those for the earlier Intellifont fonts of the same names. Although most output using the
Intellifont metrics with the newer printers is quite acceptable, a few glyphs may fail to
print as expected. The differences in glyph metrics may be particularly noticeable with
composite parentheses, brackets, and braces used by eqn(1). A script, located in /usr/
share/groff/1.23.0/font/devlj4/generate, can be used to adjust the metrics for these
glyphs in the special font “S” for use with printers that have all TrueType fonts.

At the time HP last supported TFM files, only version 1.0 of the Unicode standard was
available. Consequently, many glyphs lacking assigned code points were assigned by HP to
the Private Use Area (PUA). Later versions of the Unicode standard included code points
outside the PUA for many of these glyphs. The HP-supplied TrueType TFM files use the PUA
assignments; TFM files generated from more recent TrueType font files require the later
Unicode values to access the same glyphs. Consequently, two different mapping files may
be required: one for the HP-supplied TFM files, and one for more recent TFM files.

Options

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

       -c num-copies
              Format num-copies copies of each page.

       -d [n] Use duplex mode n: 1 is long-side binding (default), and 2 is short-side binding.

       -F font-directory
              Prepend  directory  font-directory/devname  to  the search path for font and device
              description files; name is the name of the device, usually lj4.

       -l     Format the document in landscape orientation.

       -p paper-format
              Set the paper format to paper-format,  which  must  be  a  valid  paper  format  as
              described above.

       -w line-width
              Set  the  default line thickness to line-width thousandths of an em; the default is
              40 (0.04 em).

Environment

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

Files

       /usr/share/groff/1.23.0/font/devlj4/DESC
              describes the lj4 output device.

       /usr/share/groff/1.23.0/font/devlj4/F
              describes the font known as F on device lj4.

       /usr/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/lj4.tmac
              defines  macros  for use with the lj4 output device.  It is automatically loaded by
              troffrc when the lj4 output device is selected.

Bugs

       Small dots.