Provided by: groff_1.23.0-9_amd64 
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.
See also
HP PCL/PJL Reference: PCL 5 Printer Language Technical Reference Manual, Part I
hpftodit(1), groff(1), troff(1), groff_out(5), groff_font(5), groff_char(7)
groff 1.23.0 3 June 2025 grolj4(1)