1 This file describes recent user-visible changes in groff. Bug fixes are not
2 described. There are more details in the man and info pages.
10 o If the `return' request is called with an argument, it exits twice,
11 namely the current macro and the macro one level higher. This is
12 used to define a wrapper macro for `return' in trace.tmac.
14 o For completeness, two new requests have been added: `dei1' and `ami1'.
15 They are equivalent to `dei' and `ami', respectively, but the macros
16 are executed with compatibility mode off (similar to `de1' and `am1').
21 o Dashed and dotted ellipses have been implemented.
26 o New key character `x' to make tbl call a user-defined macro on a table
27 cell. Patch by Heinz-Jürgen Oertel <hj.oertel@surfeu.de>.
32 o A new script contributed by Eric S. Raymond <esr@thyrsus.com>. It
33 converts a grap diagram into a cropped image. Since it uses gs and the
34 PNM library, virtually all graphics formats are available for output.
39 o New option `-j' to emit output splitted into multiple files.
44 o www.tmac: New macro `JOBNAME' to split output into multiple files.
53 o Input encoding files for latin-9 (a.k.a. latin-0 and ISO 8859-15) and
54 latin-2 (ISO 8859-2) have been added. Example use:
56 groff -Tdvi -mlatin9 my_file > my_file.dvi
58 You still need proper fonts with the necessary glyphs. Out of the box,
59 the groff package supports latin-9 only for -Tps, -Tdvi, and -Tutf8,
60 and latin-2 only for -Tdvi and -Tutf8.
62 o Composite glyphs are now supported. To do this, a subset of the Adobe
63 Glyph List (AGL) Algorithm as described in
65 http://partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/typeforum/unicodegn.html
67 is used to construct glyph names based on Unicode character codes. The
68 existing groff glyph names are frozen; no glyph names which can't be
69 constructed algorithmically will be added in the future.
71 The \[...] escape sequence has been extended to specify multiple glyph
76 this accesses a glyph with the name `u0041_0328'.
78 Some groff glyphs which are useful as composites map to `wrong' Unicode
79 code points. For example, `ho' maps to U+02DB which is a spacing
80 ogonek, whereas a non-spacing ogonek U+0328 is needed for composite
81 glyphs. The new request
85 will change the mapping while a composite glyph name is constructed.
86 To make \[A ho] yield the expected result,
90 is needed. [The new file `composite.tmac' loaded at start-up already
91 contains proper calls to `.composite'.]
93 Please refer to the info pages of groff and to the groff_char man page
96 o A new request `fschar' has been added to define font-specific fallback
97 characters. They are searched after the list of fonts declared with the
98 `fspecial' request but before the list of fonts declared with `special'.
100 o Fallback characters defined with `fschar' can be removed with the
101 new `rfschar' request.
103 o A new request `schar' has been added to define global fallback
104 characters. They are searched after the list of fonts declared with the
105 `special' request but before the already mounted special fonts.
107 o In groff versions 1.18 and 1.18.1, \D'f ...' didn't move the current
108 point horizontally. Despite of being silly, this change has been
109 reverted for backwards compatibility. Consequently, the intermediate
110 output command `Df' also moves the position horizontally again.
112 \D'f ...' is deprecated since it depends on the horizontal resolution of
113 the output device (given with the `hor' parameter in the DESC file).
114 Use the new \D'Fg ...' escape instead.
116 o For orthogonality, new \D subcommands to change the fill color are
123 \D'Fd' (default color)
125 The arguments are the same as with the `defcolor' request. The current
126 position is *not* changed.
128 o The values set with \H and \S are now available in number registers
129 \n[.height] and \n[.slant], respectively.
131 o The `.pe' number register isn't new but hasn't been documented before.
132 It is set to 1 during a page ejection caused by the `bp' request.
134 o The new glyph symbol `tno' is a textual variant of `no'.
136 o The new glyph symbol `+e' represents U+03F5, GREEK LUNATE EPSILON SYMBOL.
137 (Well, it is not really new since it has been previously supported by
138 grolj4.) The mapping for both the dvi and lj4 symbol font has been
139 changed accordingly so that Greek small letter epsilon, `*e', has the
140 same glyph shape as with other devices.
145 o The font `freeeuro.pfa' has been added to provide various default glyph
146 shapes for `eu' and `Eu'.
148 o It is now possible to access all glyphs in a Type 1 font, not only 256
149 (provided the font file created by afmtodit has proper entries). grops
150 constructs additional encoding vectors on the fly if necessary.
152 o The paper size is now emitted via the %%DocumentMedia and PageSize
153 mechanisms so that it is no longer required to tell `gv' or `ps2pdf'
154 about the paper size. The `broken' flag value 16 omits this feature
155 (the used PostScript command `setpagedevice' is a LanguageLevel 2
156 extension) -- if you intend to further process grops output to get an
157 encapsulated PS (EPS) file you must also use this option.
159 Patch by Egil Kvaleberg <egil@kvaleberg.no>.
161 o Non-slanted PostScript metrics have been changed again; they no longer
162 contain negative left italic correction values. This assures correct
168 o The font cmtex10 has been added as the special font `SC' to the DVI fonts.
169 It is used as a font-specific special font for CW and CWI.
171 o New options -l and -p to set landscape orientation and the paper size.
172 grodvi now emits a `papersize' special which is understood by DVI drivers
175 Consequently, the DESC file should contain a `papersize' keyword.
177 o The glyph shapes for \[*f] and \[*e] have been exchanged with \[+f] and
178 \[+e], respectively, to be in sync with all other devices.
180 o Glyphs \[HE] and \[DI] have been replaced with \[u2662] and \[u2661],
181 respectively, since the former two glyphs have a black (filled) shape
182 which grodvi doesn't provide by default (it never has actually).
187 o The glyphs \[*e] and \[+e] have been exchanged to be in sync with
190 o The glyph \[~=] is now called \[|=]. Similar to other devices, \[~=]
191 is now another name for glyph \[~~].
196 o New option `-r'. It is similar to the -i option except it tells grotty to
197 use the `reverse video' attribute to render italic fonts.
202 o New command `figname' to set the name of a picture's output box in TeX
208 o The environment variable `REFER' to override the name of the default
209 database isn't new but hasn't been documented before.
214 o New option `-r' to avoid emission of `.lf' lines.
216 o New option `-t' to emit TeX comment lines (giving current file and the
217 line number) instead of `.lf' lines.
222 o Unencoded glyphs in an AFM file are output also (since grops can now emit
223 multiple encoding vectors for a single font).
225 o New option `-m' to prevent negative left italic correction values.
227 o The mapping and encoding file together with file `DESC' are now searched
228 in the default font directory also. Please refer to the man page of
229 afmtodit for more details.
234 o Larry Kollar <kollar@alltel.net> and others made the man macros more
237 . New command line options -rFT, -rIN, and -rSN to set the vertical
238 location of the footer line, the body text indentation, and the
239 sub-subheading indentation.
241 . New command line option -rHY (similar to the ms macros) to control
244 . New macros `.PT' and `.BT' to print the header and footer strings.
245 They can be replaced with a customized version in `man.local'.
247 . The string `HF' now holds the typeface to print headings and
250 . Similar to the ms macros, the LT register now defaults to LL if not
251 explicitly specified on the command line.
253 o troff's start-up file `troffrc' now includes `papersize.tmac' to set
254 the paper size with the command line option `-dpaper=<size>'.
256 Possible values for `<size>' are the same as the predefined `papersize'
257 values in the DESC file (only lowercase; see the groff_font man page)
258 except a7-d7. An appended `l' (ell) character denotes landscape
259 orientation. Examples: `a4', `c3l', `letterl'.
261 Most output drivers need additional command line switches `-p' and
262 `-l' to override the default paper length and orientation as set in
263 the driver specific DESC file.
265 For example, use the following for PS output on A4 paper in landscape
268 groff -Tps -dpaper=a4l -P-pa4 -P-l -ms foo.ms > foo.ps
277 o The non-slanted PostScript font definition files have been regenerated to
278 include left and right italic correction values. Applying those to a
279 glyph (this is, prepending the glyph with `\,' and appending `\/' to the
280 glyph) sets the glyph width to the real value given by the horizontal
281 bounding box values. Without those escapes, the advance width for the
282 particular glyph is used (which can differ considerably).
284 Most users will neither need this feature nor notice a difference in
285 existing documents (provided \, and \/ is used as advertised, namely for
286 italic fonts only); its main goal is to improve image generation with
289 This is an experimental change, and feedback is welcome.
294 o Added global option `nospaces' to ignore leading and trailing spaces in
300 o The option -w (--linewidth) has been added (similar to other device
301 drivers) to set the default line width.
306 o Support for b-spline and Bezier curves has been added.
311 o New option `--shell' to select the shell under which groffer shall run.
316 o The string `Am' (producing an ampersand) has been added to mdoc for
317 compatibility with NetBSD.
319 o `.IX' is now deprecated for mom; you should use `.IQ' (Indent Quit)
322 o In mom, new inlines `FWD', `BCK', `UP', and `DOWN' deal with horizontal
323 and vertical movements; please refer to contrib/mom/NEWS for more
326 o New macro ENDNOTES_HDRFTR_CENTER for mom to better control headers.
331 o The `papersize' keyword in the DESC file now accepts multiple arguments.
332 It is scanned from left to the right, and the first valid argument is
333 used. This makes it possible to provide a fallback paper size.
337 papersize /etc/papersize a4
339 o A local font directory has been prepended to the default font path; it
340 defaults to /usr/local/share/groff/site-font. Similar to the normal
341 font searching process, files must be placed into a devXXX subdirectory,
344 /usr/local/share/groff/site-font/devps/FOO
346 for a PostScript font definition file FOO.
352 ***************************************************************************
354 * PLEASE READ THE CHANGES BELOW REGARDING GROTTY, GROFF'S TTY FRONTEND. *
356 ***************************************************************************
361 o Color support has been added to troff and pic (and to the device drivers
362 grops, grodvi, grotty, and grohtml -- other preprocessors and drivers will
363 follow). A new function `defcolor' defines colors; the escape sequence
364 `\m' sets the drawing color, the escape sequence `\M' specifies the
365 background color for closed objects created with \D'...' commands.
366 `\m[]' and `\M[]' switch back to the previous color. `\m' and `\M'
367 correspond to the new troff output command sets starting with `m' and
368 `DF'. The device-specific default color is called `default' and can't be
371 Use the `color' request to toggle the usage of colors (default is on); the
372 read-only register `.color' is 0 if colors are not active, and non-zero
375 The old `Df' output command is mapped onto `DFg'; all color output
376 commands don't change the current font position (consequently, `Df'
379 Outputting color can be disabled in troff and groff with the option -c
380 (it is always disabled in compatibility mode). See the section on grotty
381 for the GROFF_NO_SGR environment variable also.
383 For defining color components as fractions between 0 and 1, a new scaling
384 indicator `f' has been introduced: 1f = 65536u. For testing whether a
385 color is defined (with .if and .ie), a new conditional operator `m' is
388 More details can be found in the groff_diff.7 manual page and in
391 o Similar to \m and \M, \f[] switches back to the previous font. \fP
392 (and \f[P]) is still valid for backwards compatibility.
394 o The new escape \F is the same as `.fam'; \F[] switches back to previous
395 family -- \F[P] selects family `P'.
397 o Two new glyph symbols are available: `eu' is the official Euro symbol;
398 `Eu' is a font-specific glyph variant.
400 o The new glyph symbols `t+-', `tdi', and `tmu' are textual variants of
401 `+-', `di', and `mu', respectively.
403 o Latin-1 character 181 (PS name `mu', Unicode name U+00B5 MICRO SIGN) has
404 got the troff glyph name `mc'.
406 o -Tutf8 is now available on EBCDIC hosts.
408 o Strings can take arguments, using this syntax: \*[foo arg1 arg2 ...].
411 .ds xxx This is a \\$1 test.
414 o It is now possible to have whitespace between the first and second dot (or
415 the name of the ending macro) to end a macro definition. Example:
421 . nop Hello, I'm `foo'.
422 . nop I will now define `bar'.
424 . nop Hello, I'm `bar'.
428 o `.fn' is a new string-valued register which returns the (internal) real
429 font name; styles and families are properly concatenated.
431 o Three new read/write registers `seconds', `minutes', and `hours' contain
432 the current time, set at start-up of troff. Use the `af' request to
433 control their output format.
435 o The new request `fchar' can be used to provide fallback characters. It
436 has the same syntax as the `char' request; the only difference is that a
437 character defined with `.char' hides the glyph with the same name in the
438 current font, whereas a character defined with `.fchar' is checked only if
439 the particular glyph isn't found in the current font. This test happens
440 before checking special fonts.
442 o In analogy to the `tmc' request, `.writec' is the same as `.write' but
443 doesn't emit a final newline.
445 o The new request `itc' is a variant of `.it' for which a line interrupted
446 with \c counts as one input line.
448 o Two new requests `ds1' and `as1' which are similar to `ds' and `as' but
449 with compatibility mode disabled during expansion of strings defined by
452 o The syntax of the `substring' request has been changed: The first
453 character in a string now has index 0, the last character has index -1.
454 Note that this is an incompatible change.
456 o To emit strings directly to the intermediate output, a new `output'
457 request has been added; it is similar to `\!' used at the top level.
459 o `.hpf' has been extended. It can now handle most TeX hyphenation
460 pattern files without modification. To do that, the commands \patterns,
461 \hyphenation, and \endinput are recognized. Please refer to groff_diff.7
462 for more information.
464 o `hpfcode' is a new request to provide an input encoding mapping for the
467 o The new request `hpfa' appends hyphenation patterns (`hpf' replaces
468 already existing patterns).
470 o A new request `ami' (append macro indirect) has been added. The first and
471 second parameter of `ami' are taken from string registers rather than
472 directly; this very special request is needed to make `trace.tmac'
473 independent from the escape character (which might even be disabled).
475 o The new request `sizes' is similar to the `sizes' command in DESC files.
476 It expects the same syntax; the data must be on a single line, and the
477 final `0' can be omitted.
479 o `trin' (translate input) is a new request which is similar to `tr' with
480 the exception that the `asciify' request will use the character code (if
481 any) before the character translation. Example:
493 The result is `x a'. Using `tr', the result would be `x x'.
495 o The request `pvs' isn't new, but hasn't been documented before. It
496 adds vertical space after a line has been output. This makes it an
497 alternative to the `ls' request to produce double-spaced documents.
498 The read-only register `.pvs' holds the current amount of the
499 post-vertical line space.
501 o For compatibility with plan 9's troff, multiple `pi' requests are
511 o A new escape sequence `\O' is available to disable and enable glyph
512 output. Please see groff_diff.7 and groff.texinfo for more details.
514 o The escapes `\%', `\&', `\)', and `\:' no longer cause an error in \X;
515 they are ignored now. Additionally `\ ' and `\~' are converted to
516 single space characters.
518 o The default tab distance in nroff mode is now 0.8i to be compatible
521 o Using the latin-1 input character 0xAD (soft hyphen) for the `shc'
522 request was a bad idea. Instead, it is now translated to `\%', and
523 the default hyphenation character is again \[hy]. Note that the glyph
524 \[shc] is not useful for typographic purposes; it only exists to have
525 glyph names for all latin-1 characters.
530 o Peter Schaffter <df191@ncf.ca> has contributed a new major macro package
531 called `mom', mainly for non-scientific writers, which takes care of
532 many typographic issues. It comes with a complete reference (in HTML
533 format) and some examples. `mom' has been designed to format documents
534 for PostScript output only.
536 o Two macros `AT' (AT&T) and `UC' (Univ. of California) have been added to
537 the man macros for compatibility with older BSD releases.
539 o Both the man and mdoc macro packages now use the LL and LT registers for
540 setting the line and title length, respectively (similar to those
541 registers in the ms macro package). If not set on the command line or
542 in a macro file loaded before the macro package itself, they default to
543 78n in nroff mode and 6.5i in troff mode.
545 o The `-xwidth' specifier in the mdoc macro package has been removed. Its
546 functionality is now integrated directly into `-width'. Similarly,
547 `-column' has been extended to provide this functionality also.
549 o A new macro `Ex' has been added to the mdoc macro package to document an
552 o The PSPIC macro has been extended to work with DVI output (`pspic.tmac' is
553 now automatically loaded for -Tdvi), using a dvips special to load the EPS
556 o The trace.tmac package now traces calls to `am' also. Additionally, it
557 works in compatibility mode.
559 o `troff.1' has been split. Differences to UNIX troff are now documented
560 in the new man page `groff_diff.7'.
562 o `groff_mwww.7' has been renamed to `groff_www.7'. The file mwww.tmac
565 o `groff_ms.7' has been completely rewritten. It now contains a complete
566 reference to the ms macros.
568 o `groff_trace.7' documents the trace macro package.
570 o Changes in www.tmac:
572 Note that HTML support is still in alpha change, so it is rather likely
573 that both macro names and macro syntax will change. Some of the macros
574 mentioned below aren't really new but haven't been documented properly
577 The following macros have been renamed:
583 For consistency, the macros `URL', `FTL', and `MTO' now all have the
584 address as the first parameter followed by the description.
586 By default, grohtml generates links to all section headings at the top
587 of the document. Use the new `LK' macro to specify a different place.
589 For specifying the background color and a background image, use the
590 new macros `BCL' and `BGIMG', respectively.
592 The macro `NHR' has been added; it suppresses the generation of top and
593 bottom rules which grohtml emits by default.
595 The new macro `HX' determines the cut-off point for automatic link
596 generation to headings.
598 The image position parameter names in `IMG' have been changed to `-L',
601 New macro `PIMG' for inclusion of a PNG image (it will automatically
602 convert it into an EPS file if not -Thtml is used).
604 New macro `MPIMG' for putting a PNG image into the left or right margin
605 (it will automatically convert it into an EPS file if not
608 New macros `HnS', `HnE' to start and end a header line block.
610 New macro `DC' to produce dropcap characters.
612 New macro `HTL' to generate an HTML title line only but no H1 heading.
614 New macros `ULS' and `ULE' to start and end an unordered list. The new
615 macro `LI' inserts a list item.
620 o The new command line option `-c' disables color output (which is always
621 disabled in compatibility mode).
626 o Two new command line options `-c' and `-C'; the former passes `-c' to
627 grotty (switching to the old output scheme); the latter passes `-C' to
628 groff (enabling compatibility mode).
633 o New keywords `color' (or `colour', `colored', `coloured'), `outline' (or
634 `outlined'), and `shaded' are available. `outline' sets the color of the
635 outline, `shaded' the fill color, and `color' sets both. Example:
637 circle shaded "green" outline "black" ;
639 Filled arrows always use the outline color for filling.
641 Color support for TeX output is not implemented yet.
646 o A new script contributed by Eric S. Raymond <esr@thyrsus.com>. It
647 converts a PIC diagram into a cropped image. Since it uses gs and the PNM
648 library, virtually all graphics formats are available for output.
653 o A new script contributed by Eric S. Raymond <esr@thyrsus.com>. It
654 converts an EQN diagram into a cropped image. Since it uses gs and the PNM
655 library, virtually all graphics formats are available for output.
660 o A new script contributed by Bernd Warken <bwarken@mayn.de>. It displays
661 groff files and man pages on X and tty, taking care of most parameters
667 o Documents using the mom macro package are recognized.
672 o Color support has been added.
674 o A new option `-p' is available to select the output paper size. It has
675 the same syntax as the new `papersize' keyword in the DESC file.
680 o By default, font sizes are now available in the range 5-10000pt, similar
681 to PS fonts. If you want the old behaviour (i.e., font sizes at discrete
682 values only), insert the following at the start of your document:
685 . sizes 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1095 1200 1400 1440 1600 \
686 1728 1800 2000 2074 2200 2400 2488 2800 3600
688 o A new font file HBI (using cmssbxo10; this is slanted sans serif bold
689 extended) has been added.
691 o Two font families are now available: `T' and `H'.
693 o EC and TC fonts have been integrated. Use `-mec' (calling the file
694 ec.tmac) to switch to them. Those fonts give a much better coverage of
695 the symbols defined by groff than the CM fonts.
697 Note that ec.tmac must be called before any language-specific files; it
698 doesn't take care of hcode values.
700 o Color support has been added. For drawing commands, colors are translated
701 to gray values currently.
706 o Color support has been added, using the SGR (ISO 6429, sometimes called
707 ANSI color) escape sequences.
709 o SGR escape sequences are now used by default for underlining and bold
710 printing also, no longer using the backspace character trick. To revert
711 to the old behaviour, use the `-c' switch.
713 Note that you have to use the `-R' option of `less' to make SGR escapes
714 display correctly. On the other hand, terminal programs and consoles like
715 `xterm' which support SGR sequences natively can directly display the
716 output of grotty. Consequently, the options `-b', `-B', `-u', and `-U'
717 work only in combination with `-c' and are ignored silently otherwise.
719 For the `man' program, it may be necessary to add the `-R' option of
720 `less' to the $PAGER environment variable; alternatively, you can use
721 `man's `-P' option (or adapt its configuration file accordingly). See
722 man(1) for more details.
724 o If the environment variable GROFF_NO_SGR is set, SGR output is disabled,
725 reverting to the old behaviour.
727 o A new special \X'tty: sgr n' has been added; if n is non-zero or missing,
728 enable SGR output (the default).
730 o If the new option `-i' is used (only in SGR mode), grotty sends escape
731 sequences to set the italic font attribute instead of the underline
732 attribute for italic fonts. Note that many terminals don't have support
733 for this (including xterm).
738 o Color support for glyphs has been added.
740 o New option `-h' to select the style of headings in HTML output.
742 o New option `-b' to set the background colour to white.
744 o New options `-a' and `-g' to control the number of bits for anti-aliasing
745 used for text and graphics, respectively. Default value is 4; 0 means
748 o groff character/glyph entities now map onto HTML 4 character entities.
753 o Valid paper sizes are now specified as with the new `papersize' keyword
754 in the DESC file. Specifically, the old custom paper type format
755 `custAAAxBBB' is no longer supported.
760 o A new manual page `ditroff.7' is available.
762 o The groff texinfo manual will now be installed, together with a bunch
765 o A new keyword `papersize' has been added to the DESC file format. Its
768 . a predefined paper format (e.g. `A4' or `letter')
770 . a file name pointing to a file which must contain a paper size
771 specification in its first line (e.g. `/etc/papersize')
773 . a custom paper size definition like `35c,4i'
775 See groff_font(5) for more details. This keyword only affects the
776 physical dimensions of the output medium; grops, grolj4, and grolbp use it
777 currently. troff completely ignores it.
782 This is major bug-fixing release which should replace 1.17.1.
787 o The `IMAGE' macro in www.tmac has changed: Now the optional 2nd parameter
788 gives the horizontal image location (left, centered, or right), and the
789 optional 3rd and 4th parameter the image dimensions.
794 This is mainly a bug-fixing release.
799 o Two new requests `de1' and `am1' which are similar to `de' and `am' but
800 with compatibility mode disabled during expansion of macros defined by
803 o Added request `brp'. This is the same as `\p'.
805 o Similar to other versions of troff, the `ns' request now works in all
806 diversions, not only in the top-level one.
808 o New read-only number register `.ns'. Returns 1 if in no-space mode,
814 o Options -p (pic) and -t (tbl) added.
816 o The environment variable GROFF_BIN_PATH is now checked before PATH for
822 o New option `-D dir' to specify a directory in which all images are placed.
824 o New option `-I stem' to specify an image name stame. If not given,
825 `grohtml-XXX' is used (`XXX' is the process ID).
833 o `-mFOO' now searches first for `FOO.tmac' and then for `tmac.FOO'. The
834 old behaviour has been changed to overcome problems with platforms which
835 have an 8+3 file name limit, and platforms which have other versions of
836 troff installed also. Additionally, all macro files have been renamed
837 using the latter scheme to avoid 8+3 name clashes.
839 o The new environment variable GROFF_BIN_PATH is checked for programs groff
840 is calling (preprocessors, troff, and output devices) before PATH. If not
841 set, it defaults to the directory where the groff binary is located.
842 Previously, it was PATH only. The nroff script only uses GROFF_BIN_PATH
843 to find the groff binary but passes both the GROFF_BIN_PATH and PATH
844 environment variables to groff.
849 o The mdoc package has been completely rewritten, using the full power of
850 GNU troff to remove limitations of Unix troff (which is no longer
851 supported). Most important changes are:
854 . Almost all macros are parsed and callable (if it makes sense)
855 . `.Lb': prints library names
856 . `.Nm <punctuation>' now works as expected; `.Nm "" <punctuation>' has
858 . Updated `.St' command
859 . `.Fx': prints FreeBSD
860 . `.Ox': prints OpenBSD
861 . `.Bsx': prints BSD/OS
862 . `.Brq', `.Bro', `.Brc': brace enclosure macros
863 . `.Bd -centered': center lines
864 . `.Bl -xwidth <string>': interpret <string> and use the resulting width
865 . Support for double-sided printing (-rD1 command line switch)
866 . Support for 11pt and 12pt document sizes (-rS11, -rS12 command line
869 `groff_mdoc.7' replaces `groff_mdoc.samples.7'; it now completely
870 documents the mdoc package.
872 Great care has been taken to assure backwards compatibility. If you
873 encounter any abnormal results, please report them to bug-groff@gnu.org.
875 o A new command line option for the `man' macros (similar to the `mdoc'
876 package) has been implemented: `-rcR=1' (now the default in nroff mode)
877 produces one single, very long page instead of multiple pages. `-rcR=0'
880 o The `return' request has been added to return immediately from a macro.
882 o A new request `nop' (no operation) has been added which is similar to
889 can now be written as
895 o `box' and `boxa' are two new requests which behave similarly to `di' and
896 `da' but don't include a partially filled line (which is restored after
897 ending the diversion).
899 o The `asciify' request has been extended to `unformat' space characters
900 and some other escape sequences also.
902 `\ ' is no longer unformatted as a space but remains an unpaddable,
903 unbreakable space character.
905 o The new `unformat' request is similar to `asciify' but only handles space
906 characters and tabs specially if the diversion is reread, retaining font
907 information. This makes it possible to reformat diversions; for example
912 a01 a02 a03 a04 a05 a06 a07 a08 a09 a10.
917 \f[B]b01 b02 b03 b04 b05 b06 b07 b08 b09 b10.\f[P]
922 c01 c02 c03 c04 c05 c06 c07 c08 c09 c10.
929 a01 a02 a03 a04 a05 a06 a07
930 a08 a09 a10. c01 c02 c03 c04
931 c05 c06 c07 c08 c09 c10. b01
932 b02 b03 b04 b05 b06 b07 b08
935 Without the `unformat' request, space characters are converted to word
936 space nodes which are no longer stretchable, and the result would be
938 a01 a02 a03 a04 a05 a06 a07
939 a08 a09 a10. c01 c02 c03 c04
940 c05 c06 c07 c08 c09 c10. b01
941 b02 b03 b04 b05 b06 b07 b08
944 o The new request `linetabs' controls the `line-tabs' mode. In line-tabs
945 mode, tab distances are computed relative to the (current) output line.
946 Otherwise they are taken relative to the input line. For example, the
961 In line-tabs mode, the same code gives
965 The new read-only number register `.linetabs' returns 1 if in line-tabs
966 mode, and 0 otherwise.
968 o Two new requests `tm1' and `tmc' have been added to improve writing
969 messages to the terminal. `tm1' is similar to `tm' but allows leading
970 whitespace. `tmc' is similar to `tm1' but doesn't emit a final newline.
972 o For compatibility with sqtroff, the request `output' has been added.
973 The behaviour is similar to `\!' at the top-level, that is, it directly
974 inserts its argument into the intermediate output format. The syntax
975 is similar to .tm1, allowing leading whitespace.
977 o The new `spreadwarn' request will make troff warn if spaces in an output
978 line are widened by a given limit or more.
980 o Use `warnscale' to change the scaling indicator troff will use for
983 o A new request `dei' (define indirect) has been added. The first and
984 second parameter of `dei' are taken from string registers rather than
985 directly; this very special request is needed to make `trace.tmac'
986 independent from the escape character (which might even be disabled).
988 o It is now possible to save and restore the escape character with two new
989 requests `ecs' and `ecr'.
991 o The new escape sequence \B'...' is an analogon to `\A': If the string
992 within the delimiters is a valid numeric expression, return character `1',
995 o The new escape sequence `\:' inserts a zero-width break point. This is
996 similar to `\%' but without a soft hyphen character.
998 o The `tr' request can now map characters onto `\~'.
1000 o Calling the `fam' request without an argument switches back to the
1001 previous font family.
1003 o The new read-only register `.int' is set to a positive value if the last
1004 output line is interrupted (i.e., if the input line contains `\c').
1006 o The `writem' request is not new, but hasn't been documented before. This
1007 is similar to `write' but instead of a string the contents of a given
1008 macro or string is written to a stream.
1010 o The read/write number register `hp' to get/set the current horizontal
1011 position relative to the input line isn't new but hasn't been documented
1014 o `\X' and `\Y' are now transparent for end-of-sentence recognition.
1016 o The `cu' request in nroff mode now works as documented (i.e., it
1017 underlines spaces also).
1022 o The grog script now works in non-compatibility mode also (which is the
1023 default). As usual, use the `-C' option to activate compatibility mode.
1028 o A new option `-P' resp. a new environment variable `GROPS_PROLOGUE' has
1029 been added to select a different prologue file.
1031 o The effect of the former `-mpsnew' option to access more Type 1 characters
1032 is now the default and no longer available. To get the old behaviour
1033 (i.e., emulation of some glyphs by composition) use `-mpsold'.
1038 o For security reasons the following changes have been done:
1040 . The tmac.safer file has been replaced with a built-in solution; .open,
1041 .opena, .pso, .sy, and .pi are completely disabled in safer mode (which
1042 is the default); to enable these requests the `-U' command line flag
1045 . Files specified with the .mso request or given with the `-m' command
1046 line option, and hyphenation patterns loaded with `.hpf' are no longer
1047 searched in the current directory by default (besides the usual tmac
1048 path). Instead, the home directory is used. To add the current
1049 directory, either use the `-U' or `-M' command line option or set the
1050 GROFF_TMAC_PATH environment variable to an appropriate value.
1052 . troffrc, troffrc-end, and eqnrc are neither searched in the current nor
1053 in the home directory (even if -U is given). Use -M or GROFF_TMAC_PATH
1056 . Similarly, the current directory is no longer part of the font path.
1057 Use the `-F' command line option or the GROFF_FONT_PATH environment
1058 variable if you really need the current directory.
1060 o groff now installs its data files into /usr/local/share/groff/<version> by
1061 default, following the GNU standard. Additionally, a local tmac directory
1062 (by default /usr/local/share/groff/site-tmac) is scanned before the
1063 standard tmac directory. Wrapper files for system-specific macro packages
1064 (if necessary) are put into /usr/local/lib/groff/site-tmac; this directory
1065 is searched before the local tmac directory.
1067 o All programs now have option `-v' to show the version number; they exit
1068 immediately afterwards, following the GNU standards. Additionally,
1069 `--version' and `--help' have been added, doing the obvious actions.
1074 Bug fixes only; no user-visible changes.
1082 The anachronism of calling the man macro package with `-man' has been fixed;
1083 now you can say `-m man' also. The same is true for `ms', `me', `markup',
1084 `mandoc', and `mdoc'.
1086 A new switch `-g' for calling `grn' is available.
1088 A new switch `-G' for calling `grap' is available.
1090 EBCDIC support for tty devices has been added. On such hosts, IBM code page
1091 1047 is available with -Tcp1047 instead of -Tascii and -Tlatin1 (and, for
1092 the moment, -Tutf8). Note that non-tty devices are not yet supported (but
1098 A new command line option to the `man' macros is available: `-rSxx' (with
1099 `xx' either 10, 11, or 12) to set the base document font size to `xx'
1100 points. Additionally, `.SH' now produces larger headings than `.SS'.
1102 To solve a problem with the .PSPIC macro which needs the `-U' switch of
1103 troff to access an external program (psbb), a new request .psbb is now
1104 available to get the bounding box of a PostScript image file. The values
1105 (in PostScript units) are returned in the new read-only number registers
1106 `llx', `lly', `urx', and `ury'. Consequently, .PSPIC has been adapted to
1107 use the new request, and the psbb program has been removed.
1109 A new predefined writable number register, `year', has been added. It
1110 contains the current year.
1112 A new read-only register, `.Y', has been added. It contains the revision
1113 number of the groff package.
1115 `\fP' now behaves as expected in situations like the following where the
1116 font `foo' is undefined:
1119 normal text \f[foo]bar\fP normal text
1121 Previously, the text after \fP appeared as bold.
1123 The `substring' request is not new, but hasn't been documented before.
1125 The predefined `.T' string register (which holds the current output device)
1126 is not new, but hasn't been documented before.
1128 A new request `length' computes the length of a string and returns it in
1131 The macro files `tmac.a4' (for specifying A4 paper format) and `tmac.trace'
1132 (a debugging aid) are now installed also.
1134 A new resource file, `troffrc-end', is now available. It is invoked after
1135 all user-specified macros. Currently used by the html device to include
1136 tmac.html; thus no need for users to specify -mhtml anymore.
1138 The soft hyphen character now has a glyph name: `shc'.
1140 The latin-1 character 173 (PS name `periodcentered') has got the troff glyph
1141 name `pc' and is no longer intermixed with the symbol character `md' (PS
1144 ASCII character 34 (PS name `quotedbl') has got the troff glyph name `dq'
1145 (which is an alias to character `"').
1147 ASCII character 39 (PS name `quoteright') has got the troff glyph name `cq'
1148 (which is an alias to character "'").
1150 Some additions to the font description files have been implemented for
1151 better support of HTML output:
1153 The new format of lines in the `charset' subsection of font description
1156 name metrics type code [entity_name] [-- comment]
1158 Currently, only the font description files in devhtml use the optional
1159 entity_name string to define glyph entities in HTML. Everything after the
1160 entity_name field is ignored; in case this field isn't used, two hyphen
1161 characters are now necessary to start a comment.
1163 Two new requests are available in DESC files (currently used only with
1166 use_charnames_in_special
1167 This command indicates that troff should encode named characters
1168 inside special commands.
1171 requests that troff tells the driver the source file name being
1172 processed. This is achieved by another tcommand: `F filename'.
1177 Bruno Haible <haible@clisp.cons.org> contributed support for UTF8 output.
1182 Added .LINE macro to tmac.arkup.
1184 The obsolete `.LINK' macro has been removed.
1186 .URL, .FTP, and .MAILTO macros now accept an optional third argument which
1187 will be immediately appended to the second argument (to be used with
1188 punctuation, for example).
1193 The font size 11pt has been changed to 10.95pt (as used in LaTeX 2e).
1195 A new font file CWI (using cmitt10; this is typewriter italic) has been
1201 A new driver for Canon CAPSL printers (LBP-4 and LBP-8 series laser
1202 printers). This code has been contributed by Francisco Andres Verdu
1203 <pandres@dragonet.es>.
1208 A new preprocessor to process gremlin pictures. It is based on the
1209 original Berkeley implementation of grn, written by David Slattengren
1210 and Barry Roitblat, and has been adapted to groff by Daniel Senderowicz
1211 <daniel@synchrods.com> and Werner Lemberg <wl@gnu.org>.
1216 Added the `srand' command to set the seed for a new sequence of
1217 pseudo-random numbers to be returned by `rand'.
1222 Simplified installation: The Imakefile will now be configured (by groff's
1228 Three new man pages are available: groff_tmac.5 (documenting how troff macros
1229 are accessed and where they are found), groff.7 (a short reference of the GNU
1230 roff language), and roff.7 (a general survey on GNU troff).
1235 A partial port to win32 (for use with Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0) is now part
1236 of the distribution. It has been contributed by Blake McBride
1237 <blake@florida-software.com>.
1239 More information about programs, macros, documentation, etc., which is
1240 related to groff has been collected in the file `MORE.STUFF'.
1242 VERSION 1.13, 1.14, 1.15
1243 ========================
1245 Bug fixes only; no user-visible changes.
1250 Finally, there are new maintainers for groff. Mailing lists and a CVS
1251 repository are available also. See the file README for details. Not all
1252 reported bugs could be fixed, so please send mails again if something is
1255 Most of the installation problems should have vanished now (most
1256 notably the $(tmac_wrap) bug).
1258 There is now a man page called groff_man.7 which documents the basics of the
1259 -man macros. It has been originally written by Susan G. Kleinmann
1262 A (still incomplete) groff reference manual in texinfo format originally
1263 contributed by Trent A. Fisher <trent@gnurd.portland.or.us>.
1265 me.man and msafer.man have been renamed to groff_me.man
1266 resp. groff_msafer.man for consistency.
1268 Default strings for macros in doc-common resp. tmac.an no longer contain the
1271 groff should now be Y2k safe (fixes contributed by Paul Eggert
1272 <eggert@twinsun.com>).
1274 Following the GNU standards, groff will now use the prefix `/usr/local/' as
1275 the default instead of replacing an existent groff binary.
1277 groff, troff, nroff, and pic now support the -U flag to activate unsafe
1278 behaviour (without -msafer); the -S flag for using the -msafer macros is now
1284 This is a new output device for producing HTML output contributed by Gaius
1285 Mulley <gaius@glam.ac.uk>. It is still very alpha but has been included
1286 into the distribution so that a lot of people have a chance to test it. Bug
1287 reports are highly welcome.
1292 Duplex printing support has been contributed by Jeffrey Copeland
1298 Added -I option for defining include paths (patch contributed by Peter
1299 Miller <peterm@jna.com.au>).
1304 Fallback resources added (patch contributed by Larry Jones
1305 <larry.jones@sdrc.com>).
1307 Will now support 8 gray levels.
1312 New version 1.32 (contributed by Joergen Haegg <jh@axis.com>).
1317 Complete documentation for pic is now in the file doc/pic.ms. It was
1318 contributed by Eric S. Raymond, <esr@thyrsus.com>, who is emphatically
1319 *not* volunteering to take over groff as he is way overworked with
1320 half a dozen other projects.
1325 The directory where data files are installed has been changed from
1326 /usr/local/lib/groff to /usr/local/share/groff to comply with the
1327 latest GNU coding standards.
1329 By default groff programs with Unix equivalents are installed with a
1330 "g" prefix unless there is an existing (non-groff) troff installation.
1332 A new approach is used to make system macro packages available to
1333 groff. Instead of simply including /usr/lib/tmac in the list of
1334 directories searched by groff, the installation process creates for
1335 each system macro package a wrapper macro package in the groff macro
1336 directory that references the system macro package. The groff macro
1337 packages are now installed with a leading "g" prefix if there is a
1338 system version of the same macro package, and otherwise without the
1339 "g" prefix, with the exception that the groff version of -me which is
1340 always installed as -me.
1342 There is a new device, lj4, for the HP LaserJet 4 (and PCL5
1348 groff has a -S option that prevents the use of unsafe features in pic
1349 and troff. This uses a new -S option of pic and the -msafer macros
1355 The `blm' request specifies a macro to be invoked when a blank line is
1361 A -S (safer) option disables the sh command.
1366 The -m option enables manual feed.
1371 \(rn will now produce a character that has the traditional metrics,
1372 and will form corners with \(ul and \(br. This means that it will not
1373 align properly with \(sr. Instead there's a new character
1374 \[radicalex] which aligns with \(sr; this is used by eqn for doing
1380 The `pso' request allows you to read from the standard output of a
1386 The PSPIC macro has options to allow the horizontal alignment of the
1387 graphic to be specified.
1395 The escape sequence \V[xxx] will interpolate the value of the
1396 environment variable xxx.
1401 The decimalpoint option can be used to specify the character to be
1402 recognized as the decimal point character in place of the default
1411 The environment variable GROFF_COMMAND_PREFIX can be used to control
1412 whether groff looks for `gtroff' or `troff' (similarily for the
1418 Multilingual hyphenation is supported by new `hpf' and `hla' requests,
1419 and by a `\n[.hla]' number register. The -H option has been removed.
1420 Files of hyphenation patterns can have comments.
1422 When a font cannot be found, troff gives a warning (of type `font',
1423 enabled by default) instead of an error.
1425 There's a new request `trnt' that's like `tr' except that it doesn't
1426 apply to text transparently throughput into a diversion with \!.
1431 There is a `nokeep' option which tells tbl not to use diversions to
1432 try to keep the table on one page.
1437 Setting the parameter `nroff' to a non-zero value causes `ndefine' to
1438 behave like `define' and `tdefine' to be ignored. This is done by
1439 eqnrc when the current device is ascii or latin1. There's a `neqn'
1440 script that just does `eqn -Tascii'.
1445 grotty uses whatever page length was specified using the `pl' request
1446 rather than using the paperlength command in the DESC file. The
1447 paperwidth command in the DESC file is also ignored.
1452 The programs in groff that have Unix counterparts can now be installed
1453 without a leading `g' prefix. See the `g' variable in the Makefile.
1455 The g?nroff script simulates the nroff command using groff.
1457 New special characters \(+h, \(+f, \(+p, \(Fn, \(Bq, \(bq, \(aq, \(lz,
1458 \(an. See groff_char(7).
1460 ^L is now a legal input character.
1465 The Xps pseudo-device has disappeared. Instead there is a new -X
1466 option that tells groff to use gxditview instead of the usual
1467 postprocessor. (So instead of -TXps, use -XTps or just -X if your
1468 default device is ps.)
1470 The postprocessor to be used for a particular device is now specified
1471 by a `postpro' command in the DESC file rather than being compiled
1472 into groff. Similarly the command to be used for printing (with the
1473 -l option) is now specified by a `print' command in the DESC file.
1475 The groff command no longer specifies eqnchar as an input file for
1476 eqn. Instead eqn automatically loads a file `eqnrc'. The groff
1477 command no longer passes the -D option to eqn. Instead eqnrc sets the
1478 draw_lines parameter.
1480 The groff command no longer tells troff to load a device-specific
1481 macro file. This is handled instead by the `troffrc' file, which is
1482 always loaded by troff.
1484 The shell script version of groff has been removed.
1489 The `rchar' request removes a character definition established with `char'.
1491 Compatibility mode is disabled and the escape character is set to `\'
1492 while a character definition is being processed.
1494 The `\#' escape sequence is like `\"' except that the terminating
1497 The `shc' request tells troff which character to insert (instead of
1498 the default \(hy) when a word is hyphenated at a line break.
1500 A font name of 0 (zero) in the DESC file will cause no font to be
1501 mounted on the corresponding font position. This is useful for
1502 arranging that special fonts are mounted on positions on which users
1503 are not likely explicitly to mount fonts. All groff devices now avoid
1504 initially mounting fonts on positions 5-9.
1506 The `do' request allows a single request or macro to be interpreted
1507 with compatibility mode disabled.
1509 troff automatically loads a file `troffrc' before any other input file.
1510 This can be prevented with the -R option. This file is responsible
1511 for loading the device-specific macros.
1516 The -x option has been removed and a -n option has been added. By
1517 default, pic now assumes that the postprocessor supports groff
1518 extensions. The -n option tells pic to generate output that works
1519 with ditroff drivers. The -z option now applies only to TeX mode.
1521 The -p option has been removed. Instead if the -n option is not
1522 specified, pic generates output that uses \X'ps: ...' if the \n(0p
1523 register is non-zero and tmac.ps sets this register to 1.
1525 In places where you could 1st or 5th you can now say `i'th or `i+1'th
1526 (the quotes are required).
1531 Eqn now automatically reads a file `eqnrc' from the macro directory.
1532 This performs the same role that the eqnchar files used to. This can
1533 be prevented by the -R option.
1535 Setting the draw_lines parameter to a non-zero value causes lines to
1536 be drawn using \D rather than \l. The -D option is now obsolete.
1538 `uparrow', `downarrow' and `updownarrow' can be used with `left' and
1541 The amount of extra space added before and after lines containing
1542 equations can be controlled using the `body_height' and `body_depth'
1548 Font description files have been regenerated from newer AFM files.
1549 You can get access to the additional characters present in the text
1550 fonts in newer PostScript printers by using -mpsnew.
1552 The default value of the -b option is specified by a `broken' command
1555 With the -g option, grops will generate PostScript code that guesses
1556 the page height. This allows documents to be printed on both letter
1557 (8.5x11) and A4 paper without change.
1562 ISO Latin-1 characters are available with -Tdvi. Format groff_char(7)
1563 with groff -Tdvi for more information.
1568 The -mtty-char macros contain additional character definitions for
1574 In previous releases the groff -me macros treated the $r and $R number
1575 registers in a way that was incompatible with the BSD -me macros. The
1576 reason for this was that the approach used by the BSD -me macros does
1577 not work with low resolution devices such as -TX75 and -TX100.
1578 However, this caused problems with existing -me documents. In this
1579 release, the vertical spacing is controlled by the $v and $V registers
1580 which have the same meaning as $r and $R in earlier groff releases.
1581 In addition, if the $r or $R register is set to a value that would be
1582 correct for for the BSD -me macros and a low resolution device is not
1583 being used, then an appropriate value for the $v or $V register will
1584 be derived from the $r or $R register.
1586 The groff -me macros work with -C and (I think) with Unix troff.
1588 For backward compatibility with BSD -me, the \*{ and \*} strings are
1589 also available as \*[ and \*]. Of course, \*[ will only be usable
1592 The \*T string has been deleted. Use \*(Tm instead.
1597 The `n', Space and Return keys are bound to the Next Page action. The
1598 `p', BackSpace and Delete keys are bound to the Previous Page action.
1599 The `q' key is bound to the Quit action.
1601 The `r' key is bound to a rerasterize action that reruns groff, and
1602 redisplays the current page.
1610 There is a alternative assignment operator `:=' which interacts
1611 differently with blocks.
1613 There is a new command `command', which allows the values of variables
1614 to be passed through to troff or TeX.
1616 The `print' command now accepts multiple arguments.
1618 String comparison expressions (using `==' or `!=') are allowed in more
1624 Horizontal and vertical lines drawn with \D'l ...' will be rendered
1625 using -, | and + characters. This is intended to give reasonable
1626 results with boxed tables. It won't work well with pic.
1631 The -mdoc macros have been upgraded to the version in the second
1632 Berkeley networking release. This version is not completely
1633 compatible with earlier versions; the old version is still available
1634 as -mdoc.old. The grog script has been enhanced so that it can
1635 usually determine whether a document requires the old or new versions.
1637 With -TX75, -TX100 and -TXps, the PSPIC macro will produce a box
1638 around where the picture would appear with -Tps.
1643 An implementation of the -mm macros is included.
1645 The directory in which temporary files are created can be controlled
1646 by setting the GROFF_TMPDIR or TMPDIR environment variables.
1651 Some MS-DOS support (see pic/make-dos-dist).
1656 There are two new \X commands (\X'ps: invis' and \X'ps: endinvis')
1657 which make it possible to have substitute characters that are
1658 displayed when previewing with -TXps but ignored when printing with
1664 Support for scalable fonts.
1669 No changes other than bug fixes.
1674 There is an implementation of refer and associated programs. groff -R
1675 preprocesses with grefer; no mechanism is provided for passing
1676 arguments to grefer because most grefer options have equivalent
1677 commands which can be included in the file. grog also supports refer.
1679 There is an alternative perl implementation of the grog script.
1681 The code field in lines in the charset section of font description
1682 files is now allowed to contain an arbitrary integer (previously it
1683 was required to lie between 0 and 255). Currently grops and grodvi
1684 use only the low order 8 bits of the value. Grodvi will use the
1685 complete value; however, this is unlikely to be useful with
1686 traditional TeX tools (.tfm files only allow 8 bit character codes.)
1688 Left and right double quotes can be obtained with \(lq and \(rq
1691 There is a new program called pfbtops which translates PostScript
1692 fonts in pfb format to ASCII.
1694 A slightly modified version of the Berkeley tmac.doc is included.
1699 In long escape names the closing ] is now required to be at the same
1700 input level as the opening [.
1702 The \A'S' escape sequence returns 1 or 0 according as S is or is not
1703 suitable for use as a name.
1705 \~ produces an unbreakable space that can be stretched when the line
1708 The `mso' request is like the `so' request except that it searches for
1709 the file in the same directories in which tmac.X is searched for when
1710 the -mX option is given.
1712 The escape sequence `\R' is similar to the `nr' request.
1717 A new `special' primitive allows you to add new types of unary
1718 constructs by writing a troff macro.
1723 The implementation no longer uses gperf.
1728 The compile-time -DBROKEN_SPOOLER option has been replaced by a
1729 BROKEN_SPOOLER_FLAGS option. This allows more precise control over
1730 how grops should workaround broken spoolers and previewers. There is
1731 a new -b option that can change this at run-time.
1733 Grops now generates PostScript that complies with version 3.0 of the
1734 Document Structuring Convention.
1736 The resource management component of grops (the part that deals with
1737 imported documents and downloadable fonts) has been rewritten and now
1738 supports version 3.0 of the Document Structuring Conventions. The
1739 %%DocumentFonts comment is no longer supported; you must use the
1740 %%Document{Needed,Supplied}{Fonts,Resources} comments instead
1743 tmac.psatk contains some macros that support the mechanism used by the
1744 Andrew Toolkit for including PostScript graphics in troff documents.
1749 Parts of xditview have been rewritten so that it can be used with the
1750 output of gtroff -Tps. groff -TXps will run gtroff -Tps with
1753 There is a new menu entry `Print' which brings up a dialog box for
1754 specifying a command with which the file being previewed should be
1757 Xditview now uses imake.
1762 The groff command now understands the gtroff `-a' and `-i' options.
1764 With the `m' and `n' scale indicators, the scale factor is rounded
1765 horizontally before being applied. This makes (almost) no difference
1766 for devices with `hor' equal to 1, but it makes groff with -Tascii or
1767 -Tlatin1 behave more like nroff in its treatment of these scale
1768 indicators. Accordingly tmac.tty now calls the `nroff' request so
1769 that the `n' condition will be true.
1771 The device-specific macros (tmac.ps, tmac.dvi, tmac.tty and tmac.X)
1772 have been made to work at least somewhat with -C. In particular the
1773 special characters defined by these macros now work with -C.
1775 groff -Tdvi -p will now pass pic the -x flag; this will enable filling
1776 of arrowheads and boxes, provided that your dvi driver supports the
1777 latest version of the tpic specials.
1782 There is a new `-N' option that tells eqn not to allow newlines in
1783 delimiters. This allows eqn to recover better from missing closing
1784 delimiters. The groff command will pass on a `-N' option to eqn.
1789 You can now use psfig with grops. See the file ps/psfig.diff. I do
1790 not recommend using psfig for new documents.
1792 The command \X'ps: file F' is similar to \X'ps: exec ...' except that
1793 the PostScript code is read from the file F instead of being contained
1794 within the \X command. This was added to support psfig.
1799 There are font files HB and HI corresponding to cmsssbx10 and cmssi10.
1804 The groff -me macros now work with the -C option. As a result, they
1805 may also work with Unix nroff/troff.
1807 In -me, the $r and $R number registers now contain the line spacing as
1808 a percentage of the pointsize expressed in units (normally about 120).
1809 The previous definition was useless with low resolution devices such
1815 A -ms-like macro-package is now included.
1817 The name for the Icelandic lowercase eth character has been changed
1823 There is a new request `nroff', which makes the `n' built-in condition
1824 true and the `t' built-in condition false; also a new request `troff'
1825 which undoes the effect of the `nroff' request. This is intended only
1826 for backward compatibility: it is usually better to test \n(.H or
1827 \n(.V or to use the `c' built-in condition.
1829 The \R escape sequence has been deleted. Use \E instead.
1831 There are `break' and `continue' requests for use with the `while'
1834 There is a request `hym' that can ensure that when the current
1835 adjustment mode is not `b' a line will not be hyphenated if it is no
1836 more than a given amount short, and a request `hys' that can ensure
1837 that when the current adjustment mode is `b' a line will not be
1838 hyphenated if it can be justified by adding no more than a given
1839 amount of extra space to each word space.
1841 There is a request `rj' similar to `ce' that right justifies lines.
1843 A warning of type `space' will be given when a call is made to an
1844 undefined request or macro with a name longer than two characters, and
1845 the first two characters of the name make a name that is defined.
1846 This is intended to find places where a space has been omitted been a
1847 request or macro and its argument. This type of warning is enabled by
1853 A comma is permitted between the arguments to the `reset' command.
1855 For use with TeX, there is a new `-c' option that makes gpic treat
1856 lines beginning with `.' in a way that is more compatible with tpic
1862 It is no longer necessary to add `space 0' at the beginning of
1863 complicated equations inside pictures.
1865 `prime' is now treated as an ordinary character, as in Unix eqn. The
1866 previous behaviour of `prime' as an operator can now be obtained using
1872 There are two new devices X75-12 and X100-12 which are the same as X75
1873 and X100 except that they are optimized for documents that use mostly
1879 The installation process has been refined to make it easy for you to
1880 share groff with someone who has the same type of machine as you but
1881 does not have a C++ compiler. See the end of the INSTALL file for
1884 There is a man page for the tfmtodit program which explains how to use
1885 your own fonts with groff -Tdvi.
1887 There is a man page for afmtodit which explains how to use your own
1888 PostScript fonts with groff -Tps.
1890 The \N escape sequence is now fully supported. It can now be used to
1891 access any character in a font by its output code, even if it doesn't
1892 have a groff name. This is made possible by a convention in the font
1893 files that a character name of `---' refers to an unnamed character.
1894 The drivers now all support the `N' command required for this. The font
1895 description files have been updated to include unnamed characters.
1897 The `x' command in font description files has been removed: instead
1898 any unknown commands are automatically made available to the drivers.
1899 If you constructed your own font files with an earlier version of
1900 tfmtodit or afmtodit, you must construct them again using the current
1903 Characters between 0200 and 0237 octal are no longer legal input
1904 characters. Note that these are not used in ISO 8859.
1906 A command called `grog' has been added, similar to the `doctype'
1907 command described in Kernighan and Pike.
1912 The groff command has some new options: -V prints the pipeline
1913 instead of executing it; -P passes an argument to the postprocessor,
1914 -L passes an argument to the spooler.
1916 There is a C++ implementation of the groff command. This handles some
1917 things slightly better than the shell script. In particular, it can
1918 correctly handle arguments containing characters that have a special
1919 meaning to the shell; it can give an error message when child
1920 processes other than the last in the pipeline terminate abnormally;
1921 its exit status can take account of the exit statuses of all its child
1922 processes; it is a little more efficient; when geqn is used, it
1923 searches for the eqnchar file in the same way that font metric files
1924 are searched for, rather than expecting to find it in one particular
1930 There is font translation feature: For example, you can tell gtroff to
1931 use font `HR' whenever font `H' is requested with the line
1933 This would be useful for a document that uses `H' to refer to
1936 There are some new number registers: `.kern' contains the current kern
1937 mode, `.lg' the current ligature mode, `.x' the major version number,
1938 `.y' the minor version number, `.ce' the number of lines to be
1939 centered in the current environment, `.trunc' the amount of vertical
1940 space truncated by the most recently sprung vertical position trap,
1941 `.ne' the amount of vertical space needed in the last `ne' request
1942 that caused a vertical position trap to be sprung.
1944 The `cf' request now behaves sensibly in a diversion. If used in a
1945 diversion, it will now arrange for the file to be copied to the output
1946 when the diversion is reread.
1948 There is a new request `trf' (transparent file) similar to `cf', but
1951 There is a new escape sequence `\Y[xxx]', roughly equivalent to
1952 `\X'\*[xxx]'', except that the contents of string or macro xxx are not
1953 interpreted, and xxx may contain newlines. This requires an output
1954 format extension; the drivers have been modified to understand this.
1955 Grops has also been modified to cope with newlines in the arguments to
1956 \X commands; grops has a new \X command mdef, which is like def except
1957 that it has a first argument giving the number of definitions.
1959 There is a new warning category `escape' which warns about unknown
1962 The `fp' request now takes an optional third argument giving the external
1965 The `\_' character is now automatically translated to `\(ul' as in troff.
1967 The environment variable `GROFF_HYPHEN' gives the name of the file
1968 containing the hyphenation patterns.
1970 There is a `\C'xxx'' escape sequence equivalent to `\[xxx]'.
1972 Characters ", ', ), ], *, \(dg are now initially transparent for the purposes
1973 of end of sentence recognition.
1975 There is an anti-recursion feature in the `char' request, so you can
1976 say `.char \(bu \s+2\(bu\s-2'.
1978 The limit on the number of font positions has been removed.
1979 Accordingly `\n[.fp]' never returns 0.
1981 The restriction on the number of numbered environments has been removed.
1983 There is a new escape sequence `\E' that makes it possible to
1984 guarantee that an escape sequence won't get interpreted in copy-mode.
1985 The `\R' escape sequence is accordingly now deprecated.
1990 Arguments of the form `X anything X' (in the `copy thru', `sh', `for',
1991 `if' and `define' constructs) can now be of the form `{ anything }'.
1993 If the `linethick' variable is negative (as it now is initially),
1994 lines will be drawn with a thickness proportional to the current point
1997 The `rand' function now takes no arguments and returns a number between
1998 0 and 1. The old syntax is still supported.
2000 `^' can be used in expressions to indicate exponentiation.
2002 In the `for' construct the argument to the by clause can be prefixed
2003 by `*' to indicate that the increment is multiplicative.
2005 A bare expression may be used as an attribute. If the current
2006 direction is `dir', then an attribute `expr' is equivalent to
2009 There is a `sprintf' construct that allows numbers to be formatted and used
2010 wherever a quoted string can be used.
2012 The height of a text object without an explicit height attribute is
2013 the number of text strings associated with the object times the value
2014 of the `textht' variable.
2016 The maximum height and width of a picture is controlled by the
2017 `maxpswid' and `maxpsht' variables.
2022 Gtbl can now handle gracefully the situation where the `ce' request
2023 has been applied to a table.
2028 The `ifdef' primitive has been generalized.
2030 A tilde accent can be put underneath a box using `utilde'. This
2031 defined using a general `uaccent' primitive.
2036 There is a new PostScript font downloading scheme which handles font
2037 downloading for imported illustrations. Previously, the name of the
2038 file containing the font was given in the `x download' line in the
2039 groff font metric file. Now, there is a `download' file which says
2040 for each PostScript font name which file contains that font. Grops
2041 can also now handle inter-font dependencies, where one downloadable
2042 font depends on some other (possibly downloadable) font.
2044 The `T' font has been removed. The characters it used to provide are
2045 now provided by `char' definitions in tmac.ps. TSymbol.ps has also
2046 been removed, and the tweaks it provided are now provided by `char'