1 Copyright (C) 1989-2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008
2 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
5 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
6 notice and this notice are preserved.
8 This file describes recent user-visible changes in groff. Bug fixes are not
9 described. There are more details in the man and info pages.
17 o XHTML support has been added to grohtml and can be specified by
18 -Txhtml. This option also utilizes the MathML capability of
19 eqn and combines the outputs of both in the final XHTML file.
20 Users can also specify the `-P-V' option together with `-Txhtml'
21 in groff. This has the effect of creating an XHTML validator
22 button at the bottom of each page.
24 o Some options have been added to control a new preprocessor,
25 `preconv' (see below): `-k' activates it, `-K' sets the input
26 encoding, and `-D' sets the default encoding.
28 o A new environment variable `GROFF_ENCODING' sets the encoding
29 of input files; it implies command option `-k'.
34 o Two new requests `device' and `devicem' have been added which are
35 equivalents to the \X and \Y escapes, respectively.
37 o A new read-only number register `.br' is available which is set to 1
38 if a macro is called as .foo and to 0 if called as 'foo. This allows to
39 reliably modify requests.
44 . ie \\n[.br] .bp@orig
49 o A new request `fzoom' has been added to adjust the optical size of a
50 font in relation to the others. The zoom factor is given in integer
51 multiples of 1/1000th. In the following example, the CR font is
52 magnified by 10% (the zoom factor is 1.1).
57 Palatino and \f[CR]Courier\f[]
59 The new number register `.zoom' holds the zoom value of the current font,
60 in multiples of 1/1000th.
62 o The `cflags' request has been extended with a new flag value 64, to be
63 used in combination with values 2 (break before character) and 4 (break
64 after character). If set, the hyphenation codes of the surrounding
65 characters are ignored.
67 o A new debugging request, `pev', has been added to print all of the current
68 known environments to stderr. It first prints the state of the current
69 environment, then iterates through all of the known environments, printing
70 each except the one that is current.
72 o A new escape `\$^' has been added. It represents the parameters of a
73 macro as if they were an argument to the `ds' request. This is used by
76 o A new read-only number register `.O' is available which returns the
77 current suppression level as set by the `\O' escape.
79 o The space width emitted by the `\|' and `\^' escape sequences can be
80 controlled on a per-font basis. If there is a glyph named `\|' or `\^',
81 respectively (note the leading backslash), defined in the current font
82 file, use this glyph's width instead of the default value.
84 This behaviour is not new, but hasn't been documented before.
89 o Two new command line options `-w' and `-W' are accepted and passed to
90 groff to enable and disable warning messages, respectively.
95 o This is a new preprocessor to convert various input encodings to something
96 groff understands (this is, ASCII and \[uXXXX] entities, with `XXXX' a
97 hexadecimal number with 4 to 6 digits, representing a Unicode input code).
98 Normally, preconv should be invoked with options `-k' and `-K' of groff.
99 See the preconv man page for details.
104 o int(x) now really behaves as documented: It truncates the non-integer part
105 of x, this is, it rounds towards zero and not towards the next integer
106 less than or equal to x.
108 o Pic now supports up to 32 macro arguments (and up to 16 on EBCDIC
111 o Heinz-Jürgen Örtel contributed code for two new keywords, `xslanted' and
112 `yslanted', which can change the shape of boxes into arbitrary
118 o Latest versions of DWB tbl introduced an `x' column specifier for a single
119 column expanded to the line width. GNU tbl has now been extended to
120 support even multiple `x' specifiers within a table.
122 o To avoid collision with the new `x' specifier, a block formatting macro
123 must now be selected with specifier letter `m'.
128 o Eric S. Raymond has added a new device type to eqn, MathML. When
129 -TMathML is enabled, eqn now emits MathML formula markup rather than
130 groff commands. The new groff -Txhtml device uses this.
135 o The preprocessor `chem' was added. `chem' is a roff language to generate
136 chemical structure diagrams. It generates `pic' output.
141 o The PS font definition files have been regenerated with newer AFM versions
142 from Adobe's 35 core fonts as present in most Level 2 PS printers. The
143 changes are minor (most notably, the addition of the `Euro' glyph and an
144 extended set of kerning values).
146 For backwards compatibility, the old set of font definition files is still
147 available; for details please read the man page of grops.
152 o \D'p...' is now supported if the polygon consists entirely of horizontal
158 o XHTML support has been added.
160 o New command line option `-V' (to be used in XHTML mode) to produce an
161 XHTML validator button.
163 o New command line option `-y' to produce a right-justified groff signature
164 at the end of the document (in combination with option `-V').
169 o Support for keyboard navigation has been improved.
171 o Similar to other X11 applications, there are now two resource files,
172 `GXditview' and `GXditview-color'.
177 o `groffer' version 1.* exists now in a shell and a Perl version.
182 o New option `-c' to output more font information as comments.
184 o New option `-k' to suppress output of kerning data.
186 o New option `-f NAME' to set the internal name of the groff font.
191 o -mandoc now supports multiple man pages (in either man or mdoc format).
193 o Fabrice Ménard contributed locales support. In particular, it is now
194 possible to get French localization of the main macro packages (-ms, -mm,
195 -me, and -mom, but not -man and -mdoc which are localized differently) by
196 appending `-mfr' to the list of macro packages. Example:
198 groff -ms -mfr foo > foo.ps
200 Note that latin-9 input encoding is used for French (to support the `oe'
203 o Swedish macro localization (with `-msv') has been added.
205 o German macro localization (with `-mde' and `-mden' for traditional and
206 new orthography, respectively) has been added.
208 o Czech macro localization (with `-mcs') has been added.
210 Note that latin-2 input encoding is used for Czech.
212 o A new macro `Dx' has been added to the mdoc package which identifies the
215 o If mdoc is used to print multiple man pages (together with the -rcR=0
216 command line option), each man page now starts a new page.
218 o -mtrace has been considerably improved, now showing number and string
219 register assignments, among other things. See the groff_trace man page
222 o The PSPIC macro now works with all devices (producing a hollow
223 rectangle on devices which don't support inclusion of PS images) and
224 is loaded in troffrc at start-up.
226 o A new auxiliary macro package `62bit' has been added which provides some
227 macros for adding, multiplying, and dividing signed 62bit integers (mainly
228 to handle normal groff number operations without risking overflow errors).
230 o For -ms, Eric S. Raymond contributed support for ancient Bell Labs
231 localisms `.SC', `.UC', `.P1', and `.P2'. The latter three are enabled
232 only after .SC is called.
234 o A new string, `SN-STYLE', has been added to the ms macros, controlling
235 the formatting of section numbers in headings defined by `.NH'.
244 o Analogously to the .ft and \f pair, two new requests `gcolor' and
245 `fcolor' (which pair with \m and \M, respectively) have been added to
246 set the glyph and background colours.
248 o A new read-only, string-valued register `.sty' returns the name of the
251 o Two new conditional operators `F <name>' and `S <name>' have been added.
252 `F' is true if a font <name> exists. `S' is true if a style <name> has
255 o Cyrillic characters have been added to the `utf8' and `html' output
261 o The `by' argument in a `for' loop can now be negative if it is additive.
262 For the multiplicative case, it must be greater than zero.
267 o The following keywords aren't new but haven't been documented previously:
269 undef NAME (to undefine a macro)
270 copy "FILE" (a synonym for `include')
271 space n (to modify the vertical spacing before and after
274 o The following macros aren't new but haven't been documented previously:
276 Alpha, ..., Omega (the same as `ALPHA', ..., `OMEGA')
277 ldots (three dots on the base line)
278 dollar (a dollar glyph)
280 o The following keywords have been extended. Again, this isn't new but
281 hasn't been documented previously:
290 cpile n { ... } (set vertical spacing between rows to N)
295 o This device driver has been raised to beta stage; its set of tags should
298 o New command line option `-s' to set the base point size.
300 o New command line option `-S' to set the split level while generating
306 o Experimental support for zero-width and double-width characters.
311 o On platforms which have the X Window System this program is now built and
312 installed automatically.
317 o This program to create font definition files for xditview isn't new but
318 hasn't been installed previously.
323 o A security problem (reported as CAN-2004-0969) has been fixed.
328 o A new script contributed by Mike Bianchi. It compares two groff, nroff,
329 or troff documents and creates an output with added margin characters
330 (using `.mc') to indicate the differences.
335 o A new wrapper script contributed by Keith Marshall to easily create PDF
336 documents with groff.
343 . Support for fractional point sizes: A value for the `PS', `VS', `FPS',
344 and `VPS' register larger than or equal to 1000 is always divided by
345 1000. For example, `.nr PS 10250' sets the document's font size to
348 . The `Ds' and `De' macros provided in ms since groff version 1.19 have
349 been removed; the equivalent `DS' and `DE' macros should be used
350 instead. X11 documents which actually use `Ds' and `De' always load a
351 specific macro file from the X11 distribution (`macros.t') which
352 provides proper definitions for the two macros.
354 . The following registers have been added for improving layout control:
357 Defines number of lines following `LP', `PP', `QP', `IP' or `XP' which
358 must be kept together, before any automatic page break.
361 Sets number of lines of following paragraph which must be kept with a
362 heading, defined by `NH' or `SH', before any automatic page break.
365 Sets the first level of heading (set with `NH') which keeps the
366 same point size as body text.
369 Sets the point size increment for each level of heading (set with
370 `NH'), below the threshold level set by `GROWPS'; e.g., if
371 \n[PS] = 10, \n[GROWPS] = 3 and \n[PSINCR] = 2.0p, then `.NH 1'
372 produces 14pt headings, `.NH 2' produces 12pt, and all other
373 levels remain at 10pt (because \n[PS] = 10).
375 . The `SH' macro now accepts a numeric argument, to make heading size
376 match that of `NH' with same argument value when the `GROWPS'/`PSINCR'
379 Please refer to the documentation of the ms package for other, minor
384 The section type set with the `++' request is available in the `_M'
385 register. This isn't new but hasn't been documented before.
389 The `HR' macro no longer causes an empty line for non-HTML devices.
391 A new macro `HEAD' has been added to directly add data to the
392 <head>...</head> block.
394 New macros `OLS' and `OLE' to start and end an ordered list.
396 New macros `DLS' and `DLE' to start and end a definition list.
401 o A new macro package contributed by Keith Marshall which implements PDF
402 marks. This is in alpha stage currently.
407 o Two new keywords to the DESC file have been added which are needed for
408 grohtml: `image_generator' and `unscaled_charwidths'. The former gives
409 the name of the program which creates PNG images, and the latter makes
410 troff always use unscaled character widths.
419 o The argument of the command line option `-I' is now also passed to troff
420 and grops, specifying a directory to search for files on the command line,
421 files named in `so' and `psbb' requests, and files named in \X'ps: file'
422 and \X'ps: import' escapes.
424 o If option `-V' is used more than once, the commands are both printed
425 on standard error and run.
430 o Two new read-only, string-valued registers `.m' and `.M' return the
431 name of the current drawing and background color, respectively.
433 o New read-only register `.U' which is set to 1 if in safer mode and set
434 to 0 if in unsafe mode.
436 o An input encoding file for latin-5 (a.k.a. ISO 8859-9) has been added.
439 groff -Tdvi -mlatin5 my_file > my_file.dvi
441 Note that some output devices don't support all glyphs of this encoding.
443 o If the `return' request is called with an argument, it exits twice,
444 namely the current macro and the macro one level higher. This is
445 used to define a wrapper macro for `return' in trace.tmac.
447 o For completeness, two new requests have been added: `dei1' and `ami1'.
448 They are equivalent to `dei' and `ami', respectively, but the macros
449 are executed with compatibility mode off (similar to `de1' and `am1').
451 o New command line option `-I' to specify a directory for files (both
452 those on the command line and those named in `psbb' requests). This is
453 also handled by the groff wrapper program.
455 o Since version 1.19 you can say `.vs 0'. Older versions emit a warning
456 and convert this to `.vs \n[.V]'.
458 This hasn't been documented properly. Note that `.vs 0' isn't saved in a
459 diversion since it doesn't result in vertical motion.
464 o Dashed and dotted ellipses have been implemented.
469 o New specifier `x' to make tbl call a user-defined macro on a table
470 cell. Patch by Heinz-Jürgen Oertel <hj.oertel@surfeu.de>.
475 o A new script contributed by Eric S. Raymond <esr@thyrsus.com>. It
476 converts a grap diagram into a cropped image. Since it uses gs and the
477 PNM library, virtually all graphics formats are available for output.
478 [Note that the grap program itself isn't part of the groff package;
479 see the file MORE.STUFF how to obtain grap.]
484 o New option `-j' to emit output split into multiple files.
489 o New command line option `-I' to specify a directory to search for files
490 on the command line and files named in \X'ps: import' and \X'ps: file'
491 escapes. This is also handled by the groff wrapper program.
493 o The default value for the `broken' keyword in the DESC file is now 0.
498 o A new man page `lj4_font(5)' documents how fonts are accessed with
501 o The built-in fonts for LJ4 and newer PCL 5 devices have been completely
502 revised, mainly to access as much glyphs as possible. The provided
503 metric files should be compatible with recent PCL 5 printers also.
504 Additionally, font description files have been added for the Arial and
505 Times New Roman family, the MS symbol, and Wingdings fonts.
510 o New option `-x' to prevent use of built-in Adobe Glyph List.
515 o Completely revised to handle HP TrueType metric files also. See the
516 hpftodit manual page for more details.
521 o This version is a rewrite of groffer in many parts, but it is kept in
522 the old single script style.
524 New options: --text, --mode text, --tty-viewer, --X, --mode X,
525 --X-viewer, --html, --mode html, --html-view, --apropos-data,
526 --apropos-devel, --apropos-progs.
528 New documentation file: README_SH.
530 Enhancement of the configuration files and the `apropos' handling.
535 o www.tmac: New macro `JOBNAME' to split output into multiple files.
537 o In mdoc, multiple calls to `.Lb' are now supported in the LIBRARY
547 o Input encoding files for latin-9 (a.k.a. latin-0 and ISO 8859-15) and
548 latin-2 (ISO 8859-2) have been added. Example use:
550 groff -Tdvi -mlatin9 my_file > my_file.dvi
552 You still need proper fonts with the necessary glyphs. Out of the box,
553 the groff package supports latin-9 only for -Tps, -Tdvi, and -Tutf8,
554 and latin-2 only for -Tdvi and -Tutf8.
556 o Composite glyphs are now supported. To do this, a subset of the Adobe
557 Glyph List (AGL) Algorithm as described in
559 http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/opentype/index_glyph.html
561 is used to construct glyph names based on Unicode character codes. The
562 existing groff glyph names are frozen; no glyph names which can't be
563 constructed algorithmically will be added in the future.
565 The \[...] escape sequence has been extended to specify multiple glyph
570 this accesses a glyph with the name `u0041_0328'.
572 Some groff glyphs which are useful as composites map to `wrong' Unicode
573 code points. For example, `ho' maps to U+02DB which is a spacing
574 ogonek, whereas a non-spacing ogonek U+0328 is needed for composite
575 glyphs. The new request
579 changes the mapping while a composite glyph name is constructed.
580 To make \[A ho] yield the expected result,
584 is needed. [The new file `composite.tmac' loaded at start-up already
585 contains proper calls to `.composite'.]
587 Please refer to the info pages of groff and to the groff_char man page
590 o A new request `fschar' has been added to define font-specific fallback
591 characters. They are searched after the list of fonts declared with the
592 `fspecial' request but before the list of fonts declared with `special'.
594 o Fallback characters defined with `fschar' can be removed with the
595 new `rfschar' request.
597 o A new request `schar' has been added to define global fallback
598 characters. They are searched after the list of fonts declared with the
599 `special' request but before the already mounted special fonts.
601 o In groff versions 1.18 and 1.18.1, \D'f ...' didn't move the current
602 point horizontally. Despite of being silly, this change has been
603 reverted for backwards compatibility. Consequently, the intermediate
604 output command `Df' also moves the position horizontally again.
606 \D'f ...' is deprecated since it depends on the horizontal resolution of
607 the output device (given with the `hor' parameter in the DESC file).
608 Use the new \D'Fg ...' escape instead.
610 o For orthogonality, new \D subcommands to change the fill color are
617 \D'Fd' (default color)
619 The arguments are the same as with the `defcolor' request. The current
620 position is *not* changed.
622 o The values set with \H and \S are now available in number registers
623 \n[.height] and \n[.slant], respectively.
625 o The `.pe' number register isn't new but hasn't been documented before.
626 It is set to 1 during a page ejection caused by the `bp' request.
628 o The new glyph symbol `tno' is a textual variant of `no'.
630 o The new glyph symbol `+e' represents U+03F5, GREEK LUNATE EPSILON SYMBOL.
631 (Well, it is not really new since it has been previously supported by
632 grolj4.) The mapping for both the dvi and lj4 symbol font has been
633 changed accordingly so that Greek small letter epsilon, `*e', has the
634 same glyph shape as with other devices.
639 o The font `freeeuro.pfa' has been added to provide various default glyph
640 shapes for `eu' and `Eu'.
642 o It is now possible to access all glyphs in a Type 1 font, not only 256
643 (provided the font file created by afmtodit has proper entries). grops
644 constructs additional encoding vectors on the fly if necessary.
646 o The paper size is now emitted via the %%DocumentMedia and PageSize
647 mechanisms so that it is no longer required to tell `gv' or `ps2pdf'
648 about the paper size. The `broken' flag value 16 omits this feature
649 (the used PostScript command `setpagedevice' is a LanguageLevel 2
650 extension) -- if you intend to further process grops output to get an
651 encapsulated PS (EPS) file you must also use this option.
653 Patch by Egil Kvaleberg <egil@kvaleberg.no>.
655 o Non-slanted PostScript metrics have been changed again; they no longer
656 contain negative left italic correction values. This assures correct
662 o The font cmtex10 has been added as the special font `SC' to the DVI fonts.
663 It is used as a font-specific special font for CW and CWI.
665 o New options -l and -p to set landscape orientation and the paper size.
666 grodvi now emits a `papersize' special which is understood by DVI drivers
669 Consequently, the DESC file should contain a `papersize' keyword.
671 o The glyph shapes for \[*f] and \[*e] have been exchanged with \[+f] and
672 \[+e], respectively, to be in sync with all other devices.
674 o Glyphs \[HE] and \[DI] have been replaced with \[u2662] and \[u2661],
675 respectively, since the former two glyphs have a black (filled) shape
676 which grodvi doesn't provide by default (it never has actually).
681 o The glyphs \[*e] and \[+e] have been exchanged to be in sync with
684 o The glyph \[~=] is now called \[|=]. Similar to other devices, \[~=]
685 is now another name for glyph \[~~].
690 o New option `-r'. It is similar to the -i option except it tells grotty to
691 use the `reverse video' attribute to render italic fonts.
696 o New command `figname' to set the name of a picture's output box in TeX
702 o The environment variable `REFER' to override the name of the default
703 database isn't new but hasn't been documented before.
708 o New option `-r' to avoid emission of `.lf' lines.
710 o New option `-t' to emit TeX comment lines (giving current file and the
711 line number) instead of `.lf' lines.
716 o Unencoded glyphs in an AFM file are output also (since grops can now emit
717 multiple encoding vectors for a single font).
719 o New option `-m' to prevent negative left italic correction values.
721 o The mapping and encoding file together with file `DESC' are now searched
722 in the default font directory also. Please refer to the man page of
723 afmtodit for more details.
728 o Larry Kollar <kollar@alltel.net> and others made the man macros more
731 . New command line options -rFT, -rIN, and -rSN to set the vertical
732 location of the footer line, the body text indentation, and the
733 sub-subheading indentation.
735 . New command line option -rHY (similar to the ms macros) to control
738 . New macros `.PT' and `.BT' to print the header and footer strings.
739 They can be replaced with a customized version in `man.local'.
741 . The string `HF' now holds the typeface to print headings and
744 . Similar to the ms macros, the LT register now defaults to LL if not
745 explicitly specified on the command line.
747 o troff's start-up file `troffrc' now includes `papersize.tmac' to set
748 the paper size with the command line option `-dpaper=<size>'.
750 Possible values for `<size>' are the same as the predefined `papersize'
751 values in the DESC file (only lowercase; see the groff_font man page)
752 except a7-d7. An appended `l' (ell) character denotes landscape
753 orientation. Examples: `a4', `c3l', `letterl'.
755 Most output drivers need additional command line switches `-p' and
756 `-l' to override the default paper length and orientation as set in
757 the driver specific DESC file.
759 For example, use the following for PS output on A4 paper in landscape
762 groff -Tps -dpaper=a4l -P-pa4 -P-l -ms foo.ms > foo.ps
771 o The non-slanted PostScript font definition files have been regenerated to
772 include left and right italic correction values. Applying those to a
773 glyph (this is, prepending the glyph with `\,' and appending `\/' to the
774 glyph) sets the glyph width to the real value given by the horizontal
775 bounding box values. Without those escapes, the advance width for the
776 particular glyph is used (which can differ considerably).
778 Most users will neither need this feature nor notice a difference in
779 existing documents (provided \, and \/ is used as advertised, namely for
780 italic fonts only); its main goal is to improve image generation with
783 This is an experimental change, and feedback is welcome.
788 o Added global option `nospaces' to ignore leading and trailing spaces in
794 o The option -w (--linewidth) has been added (similar to other device
795 drivers) to set the default line width.
800 o Support for b-spline and Bezier curves has been added.
805 o New option `--shell' to select the shell under which groffer shall run.
810 o The string `Am' (producing an ampersand) has been added to mdoc for
811 compatibility with NetBSD.
813 o `.IX' is now deprecated for mom; you should use `.IQ' (Indent Quit)
816 o In mom, new inlines `FWD', `BCK', `UP', and `DOWN' deal with horizontal
817 and vertical movements; please refer to contrib/mom/NEWS for more
820 o New macro ENDNOTES_HDRFTR_CENTER for mom to better control headers.
825 o The `papersize' keyword in the DESC file now accepts multiple arguments.
826 It is scanned from left to the right, and the first valid argument is
827 used. This makes it possible to provide a fallback paper size.
831 papersize /etc/papersize a4
833 o A local font directory has been prepended to the default font path; it
834 defaults to /usr/local/share/groff/site-font. Similar to the normal
835 font searching process, files must be placed into a devXXX subdirectory,
838 /usr/local/share/groff/site-font/devps/FOO
840 for a PostScript font definition file FOO.
846 ***************************************************************************
848 * PLEASE READ THE CHANGES BELOW REGARDING GROTTY, GROFF'S TTY FRONTEND. *
850 ***************************************************************************
855 o Color support has been added to troff and pic (and to the device drivers
856 grops, grodvi, grotty, and grohtml -- other preprocessors and drivers will
857 follow). A new function `defcolor' defines colors; the escape sequence
858 `\m' sets the drawing color, the escape sequence `\M' specifies the
859 background color for closed objects created with \D'...' commands.
860 `\m[]' and `\M[]' switch back to the previous color. `\m' and `\M'
861 correspond to the new troff output command sets starting with `m' and
862 `DF'. The device-specific default color is called `default' and can't be
865 Use the `color' request to toggle the usage of colors (default is on); the
866 read-only register `.color' is 0 if colors are not active, and non-zero
869 The old `Df' output command is mapped onto `DFg'; all color output
870 commands don't change the current font position (consequently, `Df'
873 Outputting color can be disabled in troff and groff with the option -c
874 (it is always disabled in compatibility mode). See the section on grotty
875 for the GROFF_NO_SGR environment variable also.
877 For defining color components as fractions between 0 and 1, a new scaling
878 indicator `f' has been introduced: 1f = 65536u. For testing whether a
879 color is defined (with .if and .ie), a new conditional operator `m' is
882 More details can be found in the groff_diff.7 manual page and in
885 o Similar to \m and \M, \f[] switches back to the previous font. \fP
886 (and \f[P]) is still valid for backwards compatibility.
888 o The new escape \F is the same as `.fam'; \F[] switches back to previous
889 family -- \F[P] selects family `P'.
891 o Two new glyph symbols are available: `eu' is the official Euro symbol;
892 `Eu' is a font-specific glyph variant.
894 o The new glyph symbols `t+-', `tdi', and `tmu' are textual variants of
895 `+-', `di', and `mu', respectively.
897 o Latin-1 character 181 (PS name `mu', Unicode name U+00B5 MICRO SIGN) has
898 got the troff glyph name `mc'.
900 o -Tutf8 is now available on EBCDIC hosts.
902 o Strings can take arguments, using this syntax: \*[foo arg1 arg2 ...].
905 .ds xxx This is a \\$1 test.
908 o It is now possible to have whitespace between the first and second dot (or
909 the name of the ending macro) to end a macro definition. Example:
915 . nop Hello, I'm `foo'.
916 . nop I will now define `bar'.
918 . nop Hello, I'm `bar'.
922 o `.fn' is a new string-valued register which returns the (internal) real
923 font name; styles and families are properly concatenated.
925 o Three new read/write registers `seconds', `minutes', and `hours' contain
926 the current time, set at start-up of troff. Use the `af' request to
927 control their output format.
929 o The new request `fchar' can be used to provide fallback characters. It
930 has the same syntax as the `char' request; the only difference is that a
931 character defined with `.char' hides the glyph with the same name in the
932 current font, whereas a character defined with `.fchar' is checked only if
933 the particular glyph isn't found in the current font. This test happens
934 before checking special fonts.
936 o In analogy to the `tmc' request, `.writec' is the same as `.write' but
937 doesn't emit a final newline.
939 o The new request `itc' is a variant of `.it' for which a line interrupted
940 with \c counts as one input line.
942 o Two new requests `ds1' and `as1' which are similar to `ds' and `as' but
943 with compatibility mode disabled during expansion of strings defined by
946 o The syntax of the `substring' request has been changed: The first
947 character in a string now has index 0, the last character has index -1.
948 Note that this is an incompatible change.
950 o To emit strings directly to the intermediate output, a new `output'
951 request has been added; it is similar to `\!' used at the top level.
953 o `.hpf' has been extended. It can now handle most TeX hyphenation
954 pattern files without modification. To do that, the commands \patterns,
955 \hyphenation, and \endinput are recognized. Please refer to groff_diff.7
956 for more information.
958 o `hpfcode' is a new request to provide an input encoding mapping for the
961 o The new request `hpfa' appends hyphenation patterns (`hpf' replaces
962 already existing patterns).
964 o A new request `ami' (append macro indirect) has been added. The first and
965 second parameter of `ami' are taken from string registers rather than
966 directly; this very special request is needed to make `trace.tmac'
967 independent from the escape character (which might even be disabled).
969 o The new request `sizes' is similar to the `sizes' command in DESC files.
970 It expects the same syntax; the data must be on a single line, and the
971 final `0' can be omitted.
973 o `trin' (translate input) is a new request which is similar to `tr' with
974 the exception that the `asciify' request uses the character code (if
975 any) before the character translation. Example:
987 The result is `x a'. Using `tr', the result would be `x x'.
989 o The request `pvs' isn't new, but hasn't been documented before. It
990 adds vertical space after a line has been output. This makes it an
991 alternative to the `ls' request to produce double-spaced documents.
992 The read-only register `.pvs' holds the current amount of the
993 post-vertical line space.
995 o For compatibility with plan 9's troff, multiple `pi' requests are
1001 is now equivalent to
1005 o A new escape sequence `\O' is available to disable and enable glyph
1006 output. Please see groff_diff.7 and groff.texinfo for more details.
1008 o The escapes `\%', `\&', `\)', and `\:' no longer cause an error in \X;
1009 they are ignored now. Additionally `\ ' and `\~' are converted to
1010 single space characters.
1012 o The default tab distance in nroff mode is now 0.8i to be compatible
1015 o Using the latin-1 input character 0xAD (soft hyphen) for the `shc'
1016 request was a bad idea. Instead, it is now translated to `\%', and
1017 the default hyphenation character is again \[hy]. Note that the glyph
1018 \[shc] is not useful for typographic purposes; it only exists to have
1019 glyph names for all latin-1 characters.
1024 o Peter Schaffter <df191@ncf.ca> has contributed a new major macro package
1025 called `mom', mainly for non-scientific writers, which takes care of
1026 many typographic issues. It comes with a complete reference (in HTML
1027 format) and some examples. `mom' has been designed to format documents
1028 for PostScript output only.
1030 o Two macros `AT' (AT&T) and `UC' (Univ. of California) have been added to
1031 the man macros for compatibility with older BSD releases.
1033 o Both the man and mdoc macro packages now use the LL and LT registers for
1034 setting the line and title length, respectively (similar to those
1035 registers in the ms macro package). If not set on the command line or
1036 in a macro file loaded before the macro package itself, they default to
1037 78n in nroff mode and 6.5i in troff mode.
1039 o The `-xwidth' specifier in the mdoc macro package has been removed. Its
1040 functionality is now integrated directly into `-width'. Similarly,
1041 `-column' has been extended to provide this functionality also.
1043 o A new macro `Ex' has been added to the mdoc macro package to document an
1046 o The PSPIC macro has been extended to work with DVI output (`pspic.tmac' is
1047 now automatically loaded for -Tdvi), using a dvips special to load the EPS
1050 o The trace.tmac package now traces calls to `am' also. Additionally, it
1051 works in compatibility mode.
1053 o `troff.1' has been split. Differences to UNIX troff are now documented
1054 in the new man page `groff_diff.7'.
1056 o `groff_mwww.7' has been renamed to `groff_www.7'. The file mwww.tmac
1059 o `groff_ms.7' has been completely rewritten. It now contains a complete
1060 reference to the ms macros.
1062 o `groff_trace.7' documents the trace macro package.
1064 o Changes in www.tmac:
1066 Note that HTML support is still in alpha change, so it is rather likely
1067 that both macro names and macro syntax will change. Some of the macros
1068 mentioned below aren't really new but haven't been documented properly
1071 The following macros have been renamed:
1077 For consistency, the macros `URL', `FTL', and `MTO' now all have the
1078 address as the first parameter followed by the description.
1080 By default, grohtml generates links to all section headings at the top
1081 of the document. Use the new `LK' macro to specify a different place.
1083 For specifying the background color and a background image, use the
1084 new macros `BCL' and `BGIMG', respectively.
1086 The macro `NHR' has been added; it suppresses the generation of top and
1087 bottom rules which grohtml emits by default.
1089 The new macro `HX' determines the cut-off point for automatic link
1090 generation to headings.
1092 The image position parameter names in `IMG' have been changed to `-L',
1095 New macro `PIMG' for inclusion of a PNG image (it automatically
1096 converts it into an EPS file if not -Thtml is used).
1098 New macro `MPIMG' for putting a PNG image into the left or right margin
1099 (it automatically converts it into an EPS file if not -Thtml is used).
1101 New macros `HnS', `HnE' to start and end a header line block.
1103 New macro `DC' to produce dropcap characters.
1105 New macro `HTL' to generate an HTML title line only but no H1 heading.
1107 New macros `ULS' and `ULE' to start and end an unordered list. The new
1108 macro `LI' inserts a list item.
1113 o The new command line option `-c' disables color output (which is always
1114 disabled in compatibility mode).
1119 o Two new command line options `-c' and `-C'; the former passes `-c' to
1120 grotty (switching to the old output scheme); the latter passes `-C' to
1121 groff (enabling compatibility mode).
1126 o New keywords `color' (or `colour', `colored', `coloured'), `outline' (or
1127 `outlined'), and `shaded' are available. `outline' sets the color of the
1128 outline, `shaded' the fill color, and `color' sets both. Example:
1130 circle shaded "green" outline "black" ;
1132 Filled arrows always use the outline color for filling.
1134 Color support for TeX output is not implemented yet.
1139 o A new script contributed by Eric S. Raymond <esr@thyrsus.com>. It
1140 converts a PIC diagram into a cropped image. Since it uses gs and the PNM
1141 library, virtually all graphics formats are available for output.
1146 o A new script contributed by Eric S. Raymond <esr@thyrsus.com>. It
1147 converts an EQN diagram into a cropped image. Since it uses gs and the PNM
1148 library, virtually all graphics formats are available for output.
1153 o A new script contributed by Bernd Warken <bwarken@mayn.de>. It displays
1154 groff files and man pages on X and tty, taking care of most parameters
1160 o Documents using the mom macro package are recognized.
1165 o Color support has been added.
1167 o A new option `-p' is available to select the output paper size. It has
1168 the same syntax as the new `papersize' keyword in the DESC file.
1173 o By default, font sizes are now available in the range 5-10000pt, similar
1174 to PS fonts. If you want the old behaviour (i.e., font sizes at discrete
1175 values only), insert the following at the start of your document:
1178 . sizes 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1095 1200 1400 1440 1600 \
1179 1728 1800 2000 2074 2200 2400 2488 2800 3600
1181 o A new font file HBI (using cmssbxo10; this is slanted sans serif bold
1182 extended) has been added.
1184 o Two font families are now available: `T' and `H'.
1186 o EC and TC fonts have been integrated. Use `-mec' (calling the file
1187 ec.tmac) to switch to them. Those fonts give a much better coverage of
1188 the symbols defined by groff than the CM fonts.
1190 Note that ec.tmac must be called before any language-specific files; it
1191 doesn't take care of hcode values.
1193 o Color support has been added. For drawing commands, colors are translated
1194 to gray values currently.
1199 o Color support has been added, using the SGR (ISO 6429, sometimes called
1200 ANSI color) escape sequences.
1202 o SGR escape sequences are now used by default for underlining and bold
1203 printing also, no longer using the backspace character trick. To revert
1204 to the old behaviour, use the `-c' switch.
1206 Note that you have to use the `-R' option of `less' to make SGR escapes
1207 display correctly. On the other hand, terminal programs and consoles like
1208 `xterm' which support SGR sequences natively can directly display the
1209 output of grotty. Consequently, the options `-b', `-B', `-u', and `-U'
1210 work only in combination with `-c' and are ignored silently otherwise.
1212 For the `man' program, it may be necessary to add the `-R' option of
1213 `less' to the $PAGER environment variable (or $MANPAGER, depending on the
1214 used `man' program); alternatively, you can use `man's `-P' option (or
1215 adapt its configuration file accordingly). See man(1) for more details.
1217 o If the environment variable GROFF_NO_SGR is set, SGR output is disabled,
1218 reverting to the old behaviour.
1220 o A new special \X'tty: sgr n' has been added; if n is non-zero or missing,
1221 enable SGR output (the default).
1223 o If the new option `-i' is used (only in SGR mode), grotty sends escape
1224 sequences to set the italic font attribute instead of the underline
1225 attribute for italic fonts. Note that many terminals don't have support
1226 for this (including xterm).
1231 o Color support for glyphs has been added.
1233 o New option `-h' to select the style of headings in HTML output.
1235 o New option `-b' to set the background colour to white.
1237 o New options `-a' and `-g' to control the number of bits for anti-aliasing
1238 used for text and graphics, respectively. Default value is 4; 0 means
1241 o groff character/glyph entities now map onto HTML 4 character entities.
1246 o Valid paper sizes are now specified as with the new `papersize' keyword
1247 in the DESC file. Specifically, the old custom paper type format
1248 `custAAAxBBB' is no longer supported.
1253 o A new manual page `ditroff.7' is available.
1255 o The groff texinfo manual is installed now, together with a bunch
1258 o A new keyword `papersize' has been added to the DESC file format. Its
1261 . a predefined paper format (e.g. `A4' or `letter')
1263 . a file name pointing to a file which must contain a paper size
1264 specification in its first line (e.g. `/etc/papersize')
1266 . a custom paper size definition like `35c,4i'
1268 See groff_font(5) for more details. This keyword only affects the
1269 physical dimensions of the output medium; grops, grolj4, and grolbp use it
1270 currently. troff completely ignores it.
1276 This is major bug-fixing release which should replace 1.17.1.
1281 o The `IMAGE' macro in www.tmac has changed: Now the optional 2nd parameter
1282 gives the horizontal image location (left, centered, or right), and the
1283 optional 3rd and 4th parameter the image dimensions.
1289 This is mainly a bug-fixing release.
1294 o Two new requests `de1' and `am1' which are similar to `de' and `am' but
1295 with compatibility mode disabled during expansion of macros defined by
1298 o Added request `brp'. This is the same as `\p'.
1300 o Similar to other versions of troff, the `ns' request now works in all
1301 diversions, not only in the top-level one.
1303 o New read-only number register `.ns'. Returns 1 if in no-space mode,
1309 o Options -p (pic) and -t (tbl) added.
1311 o The environment variable GROFF_BIN_PATH is now checked before PATH for
1317 o New option `-D dir' to specify a directory in which all images are placed.
1319 o New option `-I stem' to specify an image name stame. If not given,
1320 `grohtml-XXX' is used (`XXX' is the process ID).
1329 o `-mFOO' now searches first for `FOO.tmac' and then for `tmac.FOO'. The
1330 old behaviour has been changed to overcome problems with platforms which
1331 have an 8+3 file name limit, and platforms which have other versions of
1332 troff installed also. Additionally, all macro files have been renamed
1333 using the latter scheme to avoid 8+3 name clashes.
1335 o The new environment variable GROFF_BIN_PATH is checked for programs groff
1336 is calling (preprocessors, troff, and output devices) before PATH. If not
1337 set, it defaults to the directory where the groff binary is located.
1338 Previously, it was PATH only. The nroff script only uses GROFF_BIN_PATH
1339 to find the groff binary but passes both the GROFF_BIN_PATH and PATH
1340 environment variables to groff.
1345 o The mdoc package has been completely rewritten, using the full power of
1346 GNU troff to remove limitations of Unix troff (which is no longer
1347 supported). Most important changes are:
1350 . Almost all macros are parsed and callable (if it makes sense)
1351 . `.Lb': prints library names
1352 . `.Nm <punctuation>' now works as expected; `.Nm "" <punctuation>' has
1354 . Updated `.St' command
1355 . `.Fx': prints FreeBSD
1356 . `.Ox': prints OpenBSD
1357 . `.Bsx': prints BSD/OS
1358 . `.Brq', `.Bro', `.Brc': brace enclosure macros
1359 . `.Bd -centered': center lines
1360 . `.Bl -xwidth <string>': interpret <string> and use the resulting width
1361 . Support for double-sided printing (-rD1 command line switch)
1362 . Support for 11pt and 12pt document sizes (-rS11, -rS12 command line
1365 `groff_mdoc.7' replaces `groff_mdoc.samples.7'; it now completely
1366 documents the mdoc package.
1368 Great care has been taken to assure backwards compatibility. If you
1369 encounter any abnormal results, please report them to bug-groff@gnu.org.
1371 o A new command line option for the `man' macros (similar to the `mdoc'
1372 package) has been implemented: `-rcR=1' (now the default in nroff mode)
1373 produces one single, very long page instead of multiple pages. `-rcR=0'
1376 o The `return' request has been added to return immediately from a macro.
1378 o A new request `nop' (no operation) has been added which is similar to
1379 `if 1'. For example,
1385 can now be written as
1391 o `box' and `boxa' are two new requests which behave similarly to `di' and
1392 `da' but don't include a partially filled line (which is restored after
1393 ending the diversion).
1395 o The `asciify' request has been extended to `unformat' space characters
1396 and some other escape sequences also.
1398 `\ ' is no longer unformatted as a space but remains an unpaddable,
1399 unbreakable space character.
1401 o The new `unformat' request is similar to `asciify' but only handles space
1402 characters and tabs specially if the diversion is reread, retaining font
1403 information. This makes it possible to reformat diversions; for example
1408 a01 a02 a03 a04 a05 a06 a07 a08 a09 a10.
1413 \f[B]b01 b02 b03 b04 b05 b06 b07 b08 b09 b10.\f[P]
1418 c01 c02 c03 c04 c05 c06 c07 c08 c09 c10.
1425 a01 a02 a03 a04 a05 a06 a07
1426 a08 a09 a10. c01 c02 c03 c04
1427 c05 c06 c07 c08 c09 c10. b01
1428 b02 b03 b04 b05 b06 b07 b08
1431 Without the `unformat' request, space characters are converted to word
1432 space nodes which are no longer stretchable, and the result would be
1434 a01 a02 a03 a04 a05 a06 a07
1435 a08 a09 a10. c01 c02 c03 c04
1436 c05 c06 c07 c08 c09 c10. b01
1437 b02 b03 b04 b05 b06 b07 b08
1440 o The new request `linetabs' controls the `line-tabs' mode. In line-tabs
1441 mode, tab distances are computed relative to the (current) output line.
1442 Otherwise they are taken relative to the input line. For example, the
1457 In line-tabs mode, the same code gives
1461 The new read-only number register `.linetabs' returns 1 if in line-tabs
1462 mode, and 0 otherwise.
1464 o Two new requests `tm1' and `tmc' have been added to improve writing
1465 messages to the terminal. `tm1' is similar to `tm' but allows leading
1466 whitespace. `tmc' is similar to `tm1' but doesn't emit a final newline.
1468 o For compatibility with sqtroff, the request `output' has been added.
1469 The behaviour is similar to `\!' at the top-level, that is, it directly
1470 inserts its argument into the intermediate output format. The syntax
1471 is similar to .tm1, allowing leading whitespace.
1473 o The new `spreadwarn' request makes troff warn if spaces in an output
1474 line are widened by a given limit or more.
1476 o Use `warnscale' to change the scaling indicator troff uses for
1479 o A new request `dei' (define indirect) has been added. The first and
1480 second parameter of `dei' are taken from string registers rather than
1481 directly; this very special request is needed to make `trace.tmac'
1482 independent from the escape character (which might even be disabled).
1484 o It is now possible to save and restore the escape character with two new
1485 requests `ecs' and `ecr'.
1487 o The new escape sequence \B'...' is an analogon to `\A': If the string
1488 within the delimiters is a valid numeric expression, return character `1',
1491 o The new escape sequence `\:' inserts a zero-width break point. This is
1492 similar to `\%' but without a soft hyphen character.
1494 o The `tr' request can now map characters onto `\~'.
1496 o Calling the `fam' request without an argument switches back to the
1497 previous font family.
1499 o The new read-only register `.int' is set to a positive value if the last
1500 output line is interrupted (i.e., if the input line contains `\c').
1502 o The `writem' request is not new, but hasn't been documented before. This
1503 is similar to `write' but instead of a string the contents of a given
1504 macro or string is written to a stream.
1506 o The read/write number register `hp' to get/set the current horizontal
1507 position relative to the input line isn't new but hasn't been documented
1510 o `\X' and `\Y' are now transparent for end-of-sentence recognition.
1512 o The `cu' request in nroff mode now works as documented (i.e., it
1513 underlines spaces also).
1518 o The grog script now works in non-compatibility mode also (which is the
1519 default). As usual, use the `-C' option to activate compatibility mode.
1524 o A new option `-P' resp. a new environment variable `GROPS_PROLOGUE' has
1525 been added to select a different prologue file.
1527 o The effect of the former `-mpsnew' option to access more Type 1 characters
1528 is now the default and no longer available. To get the old behaviour
1529 (i.e., emulation of some glyphs by composition) use `-mpsold'.
1534 o For security reasons the following changes have been done:
1536 . The tmac.safer file has been replaced with a built-in solution; .open,
1537 .opena, .pso, .sy, and .pi are completely disabled in safer mode (which
1538 is the default); to enable these requests the `-U' command line flag
1541 . Files specified with the .mso request or given with the `-m' command
1542 line option, and hyphenation patterns loaded with `.hpf' are no longer
1543 searched in the current directory by default (besides the usual tmac
1544 path). Instead, the home directory is used. To add the current
1545 directory, either use the `-U' or `-M' command line option or set the
1546 GROFF_TMAC_PATH environment variable to an appropriate value.
1548 . troffrc, troffrc-end, and eqnrc are neither searched in the current nor
1549 in the home directory (even if -U is given). Use -M or GROFF_TMAC_PATH
1552 . Similarly, the current directory is no longer part of the font path.
1553 Use the `-F' command line option or the GROFF_FONT_PATH environment
1554 variable if you really need the current directory.
1556 o groff now installs its data files into /usr/local/share/groff/<version> by
1557 default, following the GNU standard. Additionally, a local tmac directory
1558 (by default /usr/local/share/groff/site-tmac) is scanned before the
1559 standard tmac directory. Wrapper files for system-specific macro packages
1560 (if necessary) are put into /usr/local/lib/groff/site-tmac; this directory
1561 is searched before the local tmac directory.
1563 o All programs now have option `-v' to show the version number; they exit
1564 immediately afterwards, following the GNU standards. Additionally,
1565 `--version' and `--help' have been added, doing the obvious actions.
1571 Bug fixes only; no user-visible changes.
1580 The anachronism of calling the man macro package with `-man' has been fixed;
1581 now you can say `-m man' also. The same is true for `ms', `me', `markup',
1582 `mandoc', and `mdoc'.
1584 A new switch `-g' for calling `grn' is available.
1586 A new switch `-G' for calling `grap' is available.
1588 EBCDIC support for tty devices has been added. On such hosts, IBM code page
1589 1047 is available with -Tcp1047 instead of -Tascii and -Tlatin1 (and, for
1590 the moment, -Tutf8). Note that non-tty devices are not yet supported (but
1596 A new command line option to the `man' macros is available: `-rSxx' (with
1597 `xx' either 10, 11, or 12) to set the base document font size to `xx'
1598 points. Additionally, `.SH' now produces larger headings than `.SS'.
1600 To solve a problem with the .PSPIC macro which needs the `-U' switch of
1601 troff to access an external program (psbb), a new request .psbb is now
1602 available to get the bounding box of a PostScript image file. The values
1603 (in PostScript units) are returned in the new read-only number registers
1604 `llx', `lly', `urx', and `ury'. Consequently, .PSPIC has been adapted to
1605 use the new request, and the psbb program has been removed.
1607 A new predefined writable number register, `year', has been added. It
1608 contains the current year.
1610 A new read-only register, `.Y', has been added. It contains the revision
1611 number of the groff package.
1613 `\fP' now behaves as expected in situations like the following where the
1614 font `foo' is undefined:
1617 normal text \f[foo]bar\fP normal text
1619 Previously, the text after \fP appeared as bold.
1621 The `substring' request is not new, but hasn't been documented before.
1623 The predefined `.T' string register (which holds the current output device)
1624 is not new, but hasn't been documented before.
1626 A new request `length' computes the length of a string and returns it in
1629 The macro files `tmac.a4' (for specifying A4 paper format) and `tmac.trace'
1630 (a debugging aid) are now installed also.
1632 A new resource file, `troffrc-end', is now available. It is invoked after
1633 all user-specified macros. Currently used by the html device to include
1634 tmac.html; thus no need for users to specify -mhtml anymore.
1636 The soft hyphen character now has a glyph name: `shc'.
1638 The latin-1 character 173 (PS name `periodcentered') has got the troff glyph
1639 name `pc' and is no longer intermixed with the symbol character `md' (PS
1642 ASCII character 34 (PS name `quotedbl') has got the troff glyph name `dq'
1643 (which is an alias to character `"').
1645 ASCII character 39 (PS name `quoteright') has got the troff glyph name `cq'
1646 (which is an alias to character "'").
1648 Some additions to the font description files have been implemented for
1649 better support of HTML output:
1651 The new format of lines in the `charset' subsection of font description
1654 name metrics type code [entity_name] [-- comment]
1656 Currently, only the font description files in devhtml use the optional
1657 entity_name string to define glyph entities in HTML. Everything after the
1658 entity_name field is ignored; in case this field isn't used, two hyphen
1659 characters are now necessary to start a comment.
1661 Two new requests are available in DESC files (currently used only with
1664 use_charnames_in_special
1665 This command indicates that troff should encode named characters
1666 inside special commands.
1669 requests that troff tells the driver the source file name being
1670 processed. This is achieved by another tcommand: `F filename'.
1675 Bruno Haible <haible@clisp.cons.org> contributed support for UTF8 output.
1680 Added .LINE macro to tmac.arkup.
1682 The obsolete `.LINK' macro has been removed.
1684 .URL, .FTP, and .MAILTO macros now accept an optional third argument which
1685 is immediately appended to the second argument (to be used with
1686 punctuation, for example).
1691 The font size 11pt has been changed to 10.95pt (as used in LaTeX 2e).
1693 A new font file CWI (using cmitt10; this is typewriter italic) has been
1699 A new driver for Canon CAPSL printers (LBP-4 and LBP-8 series laser
1700 printers). This code has been contributed by Francisco Andres Verdu
1701 <pandres@dragonet.es>.
1706 A new preprocessor to process gremlin pictures. It is based on the
1707 original Berkeley implementation of grn, written by David Slattengren
1708 and Barry Roitblat, and has been adapted to groff by Daniel Senderowicz
1709 <daniel@synchrods.com> and Werner Lemberg <wl@gnu.org>.
1714 Added the `srand' command to set the seed for a new sequence of
1715 pseudo-random numbers to be returned by `rand'.
1720 Simplified installation: The Imakefile is now configured (by groff's
1726 Three new man pages are available: groff_tmac.5 (documenting how troff macros
1727 are accessed and where they are found), groff.7 (a short reference of the GNU
1728 roff language), and roff.7 (a general survey on GNU troff).
1733 A partial port to win32 (for use with Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0) is now part
1734 of the distribution. It has been contributed by Blake McBride
1735 <blake@florida-software.com>.
1737 More information about programs, macros, documentation, etc., which is
1738 related to groff has been collected in the file `MORE.STUFF'.
1741 VERSION 1.13, 1.14, 1.15
1742 ========================
1744 Bug fixes only; no user-visible changes.
1750 Finally, there are new maintainers for groff. Mailing lists and a CVS
1751 repository are available also. See the file README for details. Not all
1752 reported bugs could be fixed, so please send mails again if something is
1755 Most of the installation problems should have vanished now (most
1756 notably the $(tmac_wrap) bug).
1758 There is now a man page called groff_man.7 which documents the basics of the
1759 -man macros. It has been originally written by Susan G. Kleinmann
1762 A (still incomplete) groff reference manual in texinfo format originally
1763 contributed by Trent A. Fisher <trent@gnurd.portland.or.us>.
1765 me.man and msafer.man have been renamed to groff_me.man
1766 resp. groff_msafer.man for consistency.
1768 Default strings for macros in doc-common resp. tmac.an no longer contain the
1771 groff should now be Y2k safe (fixes contributed by Paul Eggert
1772 <eggert@twinsun.com>).
1774 Following the GNU standards, groff now uses the prefix `/usr/local/' as
1775 the default instead of replacing an existent groff binary.
1777 groff, troff, nroff, and pic now support the -U flag to activate unsafe
1778 behaviour (without -msafer); the -S flag for using the -msafer macros is now
1784 This is a new output device for producing HTML output contributed by Gaius
1785 Mulley <gaius@glam.ac.uk>. It is still very alpha but has been included
1786 into the distribution so that a lot of people have a chance to test it. Bug
1787 reports are highly welcome.
1792 Duplex printing support has been contributed by Jeffrey Copeland
1798 Added -I option for defining include paths (patch contributed by Peter
1799 Miller <peterm@jna.com.au>).
1804 Fallback resources added (patch contributed by Larry Jones
1805 <larry.jones@sdrc.com>).
1807 Will now support 8 gray levels.
1812 New version 1.32 (contributed by Joergen Haegg <jh@axis.com>).
1818 Complete documentation for pic is now in the file doc/pic.ms. It was
1819 contributed by Eric S. Raymond, <esr@thyrsus.com>, who is emphatically
1820 *not* volunteering to take over groff as he is way overworked with
1821 half a dozen other projects.
1827 The directory where data files are installed has been changed from
1828 /usr/local/lib/groff to /usr/local/share/groff to comply with the
1829 latest GNU coding standards.
1831 By default groff programs with Unix equivalents are installed with a
1832 "g" prefix unless there is an existing (non-groff) troff installation.
1834 A new approach is used to make system macro packages available to
1835 groff. Instead of simply including /usr/lib/tmac in the list of
1836 directories searched by groff, the installation process creates for
1837 each system macro package a wrapper macro package in the groff macro
1838 directory that references the system macro package. The groff macro
1839 packages are now installed with a leading "g" prefix if there is a
1840 system version of the same macro package, and otherwise without the
1841 "g" prefix, with the exception that the groff version of -me which is
1842 always installed as -me.
1844 There is a new device, lj4, for the HP LaserJet 4 (and PCL5
1850 groff has a -S option that prevents the use of unsafe features in pic
1851 and troff. This uses a new -S option of pic and the -msafer macros
1857 The `blm' request specifies a macro to be invoked when a blank line is
1863 A -S (safer) option disables the sh command.
1868 The -m option enables manual feed.
1874 \(rn now produces a character that has the traditional metrics,
1875 and form corners with \(ul and \(br. This means that it does not
1876 align properly with \(sr. Instead there's a new character
1877 \[radicalex] which aligns with \(sr; this is used by eqn for doing
1883 The `pso' request allows you to read from the standard output of a
1889 The PSPIC macro has options to allow the horizontal alignment of the
1890 graphic to be specified.
1899 The escape sequence \V[xxx] interpolates the value of the
1900 environment variable xxx.
1905 The decimalpoint option can be used to specify the character to be
1906 recognized as the decimal point character in place of the default
1916 The environment variable GROFF_COMMAND_PREFIX can be used to control
1917 whether groff looks for `gtroff' or `troff' (similarily for the
1923 Multilingual hyphenation is supported by new `hpf' and `hla' requests,
1924 and by a `\n[.hla]' number register. The -H option has been removed.
1925 Files of hyphenation patterns can have comments.
1927 When a font cannot be found, troff gives a warning (of type `font',
1928 enabled by default) instead of an error.
1930 There's a new request `trnt' that's like `tr' except that it doesn't
1931 apply to text transparently throughput into a diversion with \!.
1936 There is a `nokeep' option which tells tbl not to use diversions to
1937 try to keep the table on one page.
1942 Setting the parameter `nroff' to a non-zero value causes `ndefine' to
1943 behave like `define' and `tdefine' to be ignored. This is done by
1944 eqnrc when the current device is ascii or latin1. There's a `neqn'
1945 script that just does `eqn -Tascii'.
1950 grotty uses whatever page length was specified using the `pl' request
1951 rather than using the paperlength command in the DESC file. The
1952 paperwidth command in the DESC file is also ignored.
1958 The programs in groff that have Unix counterparts can now be installed
1959 without a leading `g' prefix. See the `g' variable in the Makefile.
1961 The g?nroff script simulates the nroff command using groff.
1963 New special characters \(+h, \(+f, \(+p, \(Fn, \(Bq, \(bq, \(aq, \(lz,
1964 \(an. See groff_char(7).
1966 ^L is now a valid input character.
1971 The Xps pseudo-device has disappeared. Instead there is a new -X
1972 option that tells groff to use gxditview instead of the usual
1973 postprocessor. (So instead of -TXps, use -XTps or just -X if your
1974 default device is ps.)
1976 The postprocessor to be used for a particular device is now specified
1977 by a `postpro' command in the DESC file rather than being compiled
1978 into groff. Similarly the command to be used for printing (with the
1979 -l option) is now specified by a `print' command in the DESC file.
1981 The groff command no longer specifies eqnchar as an input file for
1982 eqn. Instead eqn automatically loads a file `eqnrc'. The groff
1983 command no longer passes the -D option to eqn. Instead eqnrc sets the
1984 draw_lines parameter.
1986 The groff command no longer tells troff to load a device-specific
1987 macro file. This is handled instead by the `troffrc' file, which is
1988 always loaded by troff.
1990 The shell script version of groff has been removed.
1995 The `rchar' request removes a character definition established with `char'.
1997 Compatibility mode is disabled and the escape character is set to `\'
1998 while a character definition is being processed.
2000 The `\#' escape sequence is like `\"' except that the terminating
2003 The `shc' request tells troff which character to insert (instead of
2004 the default \(hy) when a word is hyphenated at a line break.
2006 A font name of 0 (zero) in the DESC file causes no font to be
2007 mounted on the corresponding font position. This is useful for
2008 arranging that special fonts are mounted on positions on which users
2009 are not likely explicitly to mount fonts. All groff devices now avoid
2010 initially mounting fonts on positions 5-9.
2012 The `do' request allows a single request or macro to be interpreted
2013 with compatibility mode disabled.
2015 troff automatically loads a file `troffrc' before any other input file.
2016 This can be prevented with the -R option. This file is responsible
2017 for loading the device-specific macros.
2022 The -x option has been removed and a -n option has been added. By
2023 default, pic now assumes that the postprocessor supports groff
2024 extensions. The -n option tells pic to generate output that works
2025 with ditroff drivers. The -z option now applies only to TeX mode.
2027 The -p option has been removed. Instead if the -n option is not
2028 specified, pic generates output that uses \X'ps: ...' if the \n(0p
2029 register is non-zero and tmac.ps sets this register to 1.
2031 In places where you could 1st or 5th you can now say `i'th or `i+1'th
2032 (the quotes are required).
2037 Eqn now automatically reads a file `eqnrc' from the macro directory.
2038 This performs the same role that the eqnchar files used to. This can
2039 be prevented by the -R option.
2041 Setting the draw_lines parameter to a non-zero value causes lines to
2042 be drawn using \D rather than \l. The -D option is now obsolete.
2044 `uparrow', `downarrow' and `updownarrow' can be used with `left' and
2047 The amount of extra space added before and after lines containing
2048 equations can be controlled using the `body_height' and `body_depth'
2054 Font description files have been regenerated from newer AFM files.
2055 You can get access to the additional characters present in the text
2056 fonts in newer PostScript printers by using -mpsnew.
2058 The default value of the -b option is specified by a `broken' command
2061 With the -g option, grops generates PostScript code that guesses
2062 the page height. This allows documents to be printed on both letter
2063 (8.5x11) and A4 paper without change.
2068 ISO Latin-1 characters are available with -Tdvi. Format groff_char(7)
2069 with groff -Tdvi for more information.
2074 The -mtty-char macros contain additional character definitions for
2080 In previous releases the groff -me macros treated the $r and $R number
2081 registers in a way that was incompatible with the BSD -me macros. The
2082 reason for this was that the approach used by the BSD -me macros does
2083 not work with low resolution devices such as -TX75 and -TX100.
2084 However, this caused problems with existing -me documents. In this
2085 release, the vertical spacing is controlled by the $v and $V registers
2086 which have the same meaning as $r and $R in earlier groff releases.
2087 In addition, if the $r or $R register is set to a value that would be
2088 correct for for the BSD -me macros and a low resolution device is not
2089 being used, then an appropriate value for the $v or $V register
2090 is derived from the $r or $R register.
2092 The groff -me macros work with -C and (I think) with Unix troff.
2094 For backward compatibility with BSD -me, the \*{ and \*} strings are
2095 also available as \*[ and \*]. Of course, \*[ is only usable
2098 The \*T string has been deleted. Use \*(Tm instead.
2103 The `n', Space and Return keys are bound to the Next Page action. The
2104 `p', BackSpace and Delete keys are bound to the Previous Page action.
2105 The `q' key is bound to the Quit action.
2107 The `r' key is bound to a rerasterize action that reruns groff, and
2108 redisplays the current page.
2117 There is a alternative assignment operator `:=' which interacts
2118 differently with blocks.
2120 There is a new command `command', which allows the values of variables
2121 to be passed through to troff or TeX.
2123 The `print' command now accepts multiple arguments.
2125 String comparison expressions (using `==' or `!=') are allowed in more
2131 Horizontal and vertical lines drawn with \D'l ...' are rendered
2132 using -, | and + characters. This is intended to give reasonable
2133 results with boxed tables. It won't work well with pic.
2138 The -mdoc macros have been upgraded to the version in the second
2139 Berkeley networking release. This version is not completely
2140 compatible with earlier versions; the old version is still available
2141 as -mdoc.old. The grog script has been enhanced so that it can
2142 usually determine whether a document requires the old or new versions.
2144 With -TX75, -TX100 and -TXps, the PSPIC macro produces a box
2145 around where the picture would appear with -Tps.
2151 An implementation of the -mm macros is included.
2153 The directory in which temporary files are created can be controlled
2154 by setting the GROFF_TMPDIR or TMPDIR environment variables.
2159 Some MS-DOS support (see pic/make-dos-dist).
2164 There are two new \X commands (\X'ps: invis' and \X'ps: endinvis')
2165 which make it possible to have substitute characters that are
2166 displayed when previewing with -TXps but ignored when printing with
2172 Support for scalable fonts.
2178 No changes other than bug fixes.
2184 There is an implementation of refer and associated programs. groff -R
2185 preprocesses with grefer; no mechanism is provided for passing
2186 arguments to grefer because most grefer options have equivalent
2187 commands which can be included in the file. grog also supports refer.
2189 There is an alternative perl implementation of the grog script.
2191 The code field in lines in the charset section of font description
2192 files is now allowed to contain an arbitrary integer (previously it
2193 was required to lie between 0 and 255). Currently grops and grodvi
2194 use only the low order 8 bits of the value. Grodvi uses the
2195 complete value; however, this is unlikely to be useful with
2196 traditional TeX tools (.tfm files only allow 8 bit character codes.)
2198 Left and right double quotes can be obtained with \(lq and \(rq
2201 There is a new program called pfbtops which translates PostScript
2202 fonts in pfb format to ASCII.
2204 A slightly modified version of the Berkeley tmac.doc is included.
2209 In long escape names the closing ] is now required to be at the same
2210 input level as the opening [.
2212 The \A'S' escape sequence returns 1 or 0 according as S is or is not
2213 suitable for use as a name.
2215 \~ produces an unbreakable space that can be stretched when the line
2218 The `mso' request is like the `so' request except that it searches for
2219 the file in the same directories in which tmac.X is searched for when
2220 the -mX option is given.
2222 The escape sequence `\R' is similar to the `nr' request.
2227 A new `special' primitive allows you to add new types of unary
2228 constructs by writing a troff macro.
2233 The implementation no longer uses gperf.
2238 The compile-time -DBROKEN_SPOOLER option has been replaced by a
2239 BROKEN_SPOOLER_FLAGS option. This allows more precise control over
2240 how grops should workaround broken spoolers and previewers. There is
2241 a new -b option that can change this at run-time.
2243 Grops now generates PostScript that complies with version 3.0 of the
2244 Document Structuring Convention.
2246 The resource management component of grops (the part that deals with
2247 imported documents and downloadable fonts) has been rewritten and now
2248 supports version 3.0 of the Document Structuring Conventions. The
2249 %%DocumentFonts comment is no longer supported; you must use the
2250 %%Document{Needed,Supplied}{Fonts,Resources} comments instead
2253 tmac.psatk contains some macros that support the mechanism used by the
2254 Andrew Toolkit for including PostScript graphics in troff documents.
2259 Parts of xditview have been rewritten so that it can be used with the
2260 output of gtroff -Tps. groff -TXps runs gtroff -Tps with
2263 There is a new menu entry `Print' which brings up a dialog box for
2264 specifying a command with which the file being previewed should be
2267 Xditview now uses imake.
2273 The groff command now understands the gtroff `-a' and `-i' options.
2275 With the `m' and `n' scale indicators, the scale factor is rounded
2276 horizontally before being applied. This makes (almost) no difference
2277 for devices with `hor' equal to 1, but it makes groff with -Tascii or
2278 -Tlatin1 behave more like nroff in its treatment of these scale
2279 indicators. Accordingly tmac.tty now calls the `nroff' request so
2280 that the `n' condition is true.
2282 The device-specific macros (tmac.ps, tmac.dvi, tmac.tty and tmac.X)
2283 have been made to work at least somewhat with -C. In particular the
2284 special characters defined by these macros now work with -C.
2286 groff -Tdvi -p now passes pic the -x flag; this enables filling
2287 of arrowheads and boxes, provided that your dvi driver supports the
2288 latest version of the tpic specials.
2293 There is a new `-N' option that tells eqn not to allow newlines in
2294 delimiters. This allows eqn to recover better from missing closing
2295 delimiters. The groff command passes on a `-N' option to eqn.
2300 You can now use psfig with grops. See the file ps/psfig.diff. I do
2301 not recommend using psfig for new documents.
2303 The command \X'ps: file F' is similar to \X'ps: exec ...' except that
2304 the PostScript code is read from the file F instead of being contained
2305 within the \X command. This was added to support psfig.
2310 There are font files HB and HI corresponding to cmsssbx10 and cmssi10.
2315 The groff -me macros now work with the -C option. As a result, they
2316 may also work with Unix nroff/troff.
2318 In -me, the $r and $R number registers now contain the line spacing as
2319 a percentage of the pointsize expressed in units (normally about 120).
2320 The previous definition was useless with low resolution devices such
2327 A -ms-like macro-package is now included.
2329 The name for the Icelandic lowercase eth character has been changed
2335 There is a new request `nroff', which makes the `n' built-in condition
2336 true and the `t' built-in condition false; also a new request `troff'
2337 which undoes the effect of the `nroff' request. This is intended only
2338 for backward compatibility: it is usually better to test \n(.H or
2339 \n(.V or to use the `c' built-in condition.
2341 The \R escape sequence has been deleted. Use \E instead.
2343 There are `break' and `continue' requests for use with the `while'
2346 There is a request `hym' that can ensure that when the current
2347 adjustment mode is not `b' a line is not hyphenated if it is no
2348 more than a given amount short, and a request `hys' that can ensure
2349 that when the current adjustment mode is `b' a line is not
2350 hyphenated if it can be justified by adding no more than a given
2351 amount of extra space to each word space.
2353 There is a request `rj' similar to `ce' that right justifies lines.
2355 A warning of type `space' is given when a call is made to an
2356 undefined request or macro with a name longer than two characters, and
2357 the first two characters of the name make a name that is defined.
2358 This is intended to find places where a space has been omitted been a
2359 request or macro and its argument. This type of warning is enabled by
2365 A comma is permitted between the arguments to the `reset' command.
2367 For use with TeX, there is a new `-c' option that makes gpic treat
2368 lines beginning with `.' in a way that is more compatible with tpic
2374 It is no longer necessary to add `space 0' at the beginning of
2375 complicated equations inside pictures.
2377 `prime' is now treated as an ordinary character, as in Unix eqn. The
2378 previous behaviour of `prime' as an operator can now be obtained using
2384 There are two new devices X75-12 and X100-12 which are the same as X75
2385 and X100 except that they are optimized for documents that use mostly
2392 The installation process has been refined to make it easy for you to
2393 share groff with someone who has the same type of machine as you but
2394 does not have a C++ compiler. See the end of the INSTALL file for
2397 There is a man page for the tfmtodit program which explains how to use
2398 your own fonts with groff -Tdvi.
2400 There is a man page for afmtodit which explains how to use your own
2401 PostScript fonts with groff -Tps.
2403 The \N escape sequence is now fully supported. It can now be used to
2404 access any character in a font by its output code, even if it doesn't
2405 have a groff name. This is made possible by a convention in the font
2406 files that a character name of `---' refers to an unnamed character.
2407 The drivers now all support the `N' command required for this. The font
2408 description files have been updated to include unnamed characters.
2410 The `x' command in font description files has been removed: instead
2411 any unknown commands are automatically made available to the drivers.
2412 If you constructed your own font files with an earlier version of
2413 tfmtodit or afmtodit, you must construct them again using the current
2416 Characters between 0200 and 0237 octal are no longer valid input
2417 characters. Note that these are not used in ISO 8859.
2419 A command called `grog' has been added, similar to the `doctype'
2420 command described in Kernighan and Pike.
2425 The groff command has some new options: -V prints the pipeline
2426 instead of executing it; -P passes an argument to the postprocessor,
2427 -L passes an argument to the spooler.
2429 There is a C++ implementation of the groff command. This handles some
2430 things slightly better than the shell script. In particular, it can
2431 correctly handle arguments containing characters that have a special
2432 meaning to the shell; it can give an error message when child
2433 processes other than the last in the pipeline terminate abnormally;
2434 its exit status can take account of the exit statuses of all its child
2435 processes; it is a little more efficient; when geqn is used, it
2436 searches for the eqnchar file in the same way that font metric files
2437 are searched for, rather than expecting to find it in one particular
2443 There is font translation feature: For example, you can tell gtroff to
2444 use font `HR' whenever font `H' is requested with the line
2446 This would be useful for a document that uses `H' to refer to
2449 There are some new number registers: `.kern' contains the current kern
2450 mode, `.lg' the current ligature mode, `.x' the major version number,
2451 `.y' the minor version number, `.ce' the number of lines to be
2452 centered in the current environment, `.trunc' the amount of vertical
2453 space truncated by the most recently sprung vertical position trap,
2454 `.ne' the amount of vertical space needed in the last `ne' request
2455 that caused a vertical position trap to be sprung.
2457 The `cf' request now behaves sensibly in a diversion. If used in a
2458 diversion, it now arranges for the file to be copied to the output
2459 when the diversion is reread.
2461 There is a new request `trf' (transparent file) similar to `cf', but
2464 There is a new escape sequence `\Y[xxx]', roughly equivalent to
2465 `\X'\*[xxx]'', except that the contents of string or macro xxx are not
2466 interpreted, and xxx may contain newlines. This requires an output
2467 format extension; the drivers have been modified to understand this.
2468 Grops has also been modified to cope with newlines in the arguments to
2469 \X commands; grops has a new \X command mdef, which is like def except
2470 that it has a first argument giving the number of definitions.
2472 There is a new warning category `escape' which warns about unknown
2475 The `fp' request now takes an optional third argument giving the external
2478 The `\_' character is now automatically translated to `\(ul' as in troff.
2480 The environment variable `GROFF_HYPHEN' gives the name of the file
2481 containing the hyphenation patterns.
2483 There is a `\C'xxx'' escape sequence equivalent to `\[xxx]'.
2485 Characters ", ', ), ], *, \(dg are now initially transparent for the purposes
2486 of end of sentence recognition.
2488 There is an anti-recursion feature in the `char' request, so you can
2489 say `.char \(bu \s+2\(bu\s-2'.
2491 The limit on the number of font positions has been removed.
2492 Accordingly `\n[.fp]' never returns 0.
2494 The restriction on the number of numbered environments has been removed.
2496 There is a new escape sequence `\E' that makes it possible to
2497 guarantee that an escape sequence won't get interpreted in copy-mode.
2498 The `\R' escape sequence is accordingly now deprecated.
2503 Arguments of the form `X anything X' (in the `copy thru', `sh', `for',
2504 `if' and `define' constructs) can now be of the form `{ anything }'.
2506 If the `linethick' variable is negative (as it now is initially),
2507 lines are drawn with a thickness proportional to the current point
2510 The `rand' function now takes no arguments and returns a number between
2511 0 and 1. The old syntax is still supported.
2513 `^' can be used in expressions to indicate exponentiation.
2515 In the `for' construct the argument to the by clause can be prefixed
2516 by `*' to indicate that the increment is multiplicative.
2518 A bare expression may be used as an attribute. If the current
2519 direction is `dir', then an attribute `expr' is equivalent to
2522 There is a `sprintf' construct that allows numbers to be formatted and used
2523 wherever a quoted string can be used.
2525 The height of a text object without an explicit height attribute is
2526 the number of text strings associated with the object times the value
2527 of the `textht' variable.
2529 The maximum height and width of a picture is controlled by the
2530 `maxpswid' and `maxpsht' variables.
2535 Gtbl can now handle gracefully the situation where the `ce' request
2536 has been applied to a table.
2541 The `ifdef' primitive has been generalized.
2543 A tilde accent can be put underneath a box using `utilde'. This
2544 defined using a general `uaccent' primitive.
2549 There is a new PostScript font downloading scheme which handles font
2550 downloading for imported illustrations. Previously, the name of the
2551 file containing the font was given in the `x download' line in the
2552 groff font metric file. Now, there is a `download' file which says
2553 for each PostScript font name which file contains that font. Grops
2554 can also now handle inter-font dependencies, where one downloadable
2555 font depends on some other (possibly downloadable) font.
2557 The `T' font has been removed. The characters it used to provide are
2558 now provided by `char' definitions in tmac.ps. TSymbol.ps has also
2559 been removed, and the tweaks it provided are now provided by `char'
2563 version-control: never