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 Input encoding files for latin-9 (a.k.a. latin-0 and ISO 8859-15) and
11 latin-2 (ISO 8859-2) have been added. Example use:
13 groff -Tdvi -mlatin9 my_file > my_file.dvi
15 You still need proper fonts with the necessary glyphs. Out of the box,
16 the groff package supports latin-9 only for -Tps, -Tdvi, and -Tutf8,
17 and latin-2 only for -Tdvi and -Tutf8.
19 o Non-slanted PostScript metrics have been changed again; they no longer
20 contain negative left italic correction values. This assures correct
23 o Composite glyphs are now supported. To do this, a subset of the Adobe
24 Glyph List (AGL) Algorithm as described in
26 http://partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/typeforum/unicodegn.html
28 is used to construct glyph names based on Unicode character codes. The
29 existing groff glyph names are frozen; no glyph names which can't be
30 constructed algorithmically will be added in the future.
32 The \[...] escape sequence has been extended to specify multiple glyph
37 this accesses a glyph with the name `u0041_0328'.
39 Some groff glyphs which are useful as composites map to `wrong' Unicode
40 code points. For example, `ho' maps to U+02DB which is a spacing
41 ogonek, whereas a non-spacing ogonek U+0328 is needed for composite
42 glyphs. The new request
46 will change the mapping while a composite glyph name is constructed.
47 To make \[A ho] yield the expected result,
53 Please refer to the info pages of groff and to the groff_char man page
56 o A new request `fschar' has been added to define font-specific fallback
57 characters. They are searched after the list of fonts declared with the
58 `fspecial' request but before the list of fonts declared with `special'.
60 o Fallback characters defined with `fschar' can be removed with the
61 new `rfschar' request.
63 o A new request `schar' has been added to define global fallback
64 characters. They are searched after the list of fonts declared with the
65 `special' request but before the already mounted special fonts.
67 o In groff versions 1.18 and 1.18.1, \D'f ...' didn't move the current
68 point horizontally. Despite of being silly, this change has been
69 reverted for backwards compatibility. Consequently, the intermediate
70 output command `Df' also moves the position horizontally again.
72 \D'f ...' is deprecated since it depends on the horizontal resolution of
73 the output device (given with the `hor' parameter in the DESC file).
74 Use the new \D'Fg ...' instead.
76 o For orthogonality, new \D subcommands to change the fill color are
83 \D'Fd' (default color)
85 The arguments are the same as with the `defcolor' request. The current
86 position is *not* changed.
88 o The `.pe' number register isn't new but hasn't been documented before.
89 It is set to 1 during a page ejection caused by the `bp' request.
91 o The new glyph symbol `tno' is a textual variant of `no'.
93 o The new glyph symbol `+e' represents U+03F5, GREEK LUNATE EPSILON SYMBOL.
94 (Well, it is not really new since it has been previously supported by
95 grolj4.) The mapping for the dvi symbol font has been changed accordingly
96 so that Greek small letter epsilon, `*e', has the same glyph shape as with
102 o The font `freeeuro.pfa' has been added to provide various default glyph
103 shapes for `eu' and `Eu'.
105 o Now emits paper size via %%DocumentMedia and PageSize mechanisms, so
106 that it is no longer required to tell `gv' or `ps2pdf' about the paper
107 size. The `broken' flag 16 omits this feature. Patch by Egil
108 Kvaleberg <egil@kvaleberg.no>.
113 o The font cmtex10 has been added as the special font `SC' to the DVI fonts.
114 It is used as a font-specific special font for CW and CWI.
119 o New option `-r'. It is similar to the -i option except it tells grotty to
120 use the `reverse video' attribute to render italic fonts.
125 o The environment variable `REFER' to override the name of the default
126 database isn't new but hasn't been documented before.
131 o New option `-m' to prevent negative left italic correction values.
133 o The mapping and encoding file together with file `DESC' are now searched
134 in the default font directory also. Please refer to the man page of
135 afmtodit for more details.
140 o Larry Kollar <kollar@alltel.net> made the man macros more customizable.
142 . New command line options -rFT, -rIN, and -rSN to set the vertical
143 location of the footer line, the body text indentation, and the
144 sub-subheading indentation.
146 . New macros `.PT' and `.BT' to print the header and footer strings.
147 They can be replaced with a customized version in `man.local'.
149 . The string `HF' now holds the typeface to print headings and
159 o The non-slanted PostScript font definition files have been regenerated to
160 include left and right italic correction values. Applying those to a
161 glyph (this is, prepending the glyph with `\,' and appending `\/' to the
162 glyph) sets the glyph width to the real value given by the horizontal
163 bounding box values. Without those escapes, the advance width for the
164 particular glyph is used (which can differ considerably).
166 Most users will neither need this feature nor notice a difference in
167 existing documents (provided \, and \/ is used as advertised, namely for
168 italic fonts only); its main goal is to improve image generation with
171 This is an experimental change, and feedback is welcome.
176 o Added global option `nospaces' to ignore leading and trailing spaces in
182 o The option -w (--linewidth) has been added (similar to other device
183 drivers) to set the default line width.
188 o Support for b-spline and Bezier curves has been added.
193 o New option `--shell' to select the shell under which groffer shall run.
198 o The string `Am' (producing an ampersand) has been added to mdoc for
199 compatibility with NetBSD.
201 o `.IX' is now deprecated for mom; you should use `.IQ' (Indent Quit)
204 o In mom, new inlines `FWD', `BCK', `UP', and `DOWN' deal with horizontal
205 and vertical movements; please refer to contrib/mom/NEWS for more
208 o New macro ENDNOTES_HDRFTR_CENTER for mom to better control headers.
213 o The `papersize' keyword in the DESC file now accepts multiple arguments.
214 It is scanned from left to the right, and the first valid argument is
215 used. This makes it possible to provide a fallback paper size.
219 papersize /etc/papersize a4
221 o A local font directory has been prepended to the default font path; it
222 defaults to /usr/local/share/groff/site-font. Similar to the normal
223 font searching process, files must be placed into a devXXX subdirectory,
226 /usr/local/share/groff/site-font/devps/FOO
228 for a PostScript font definition file FOO.
234 ***************************************************************************
236 * PLEASE READ THE CHANGES BELOW REGARDING GROTTY, GROFF'S TTY FRONTEND. *
238 ***************************************************************************
243 o Color support has been added to troff and pic (and to the device drivers
244 grops, grodvi, grotty, and grohtml -- other preprocessors and drivers will
245 follow). A new function `defcolor' defines colors; the escape sequence
246 `\m' sets the drawing color, the escape sequence `\M' specifies the
247 background color for closed objects created with \D'...' commands.
248 `\m[]' and `\M[]' switch back to the previous color. `\m' and `\M'
249 correspond to the new troff output command sets starting with `m' and
250 `DF'. The device-specific default color is called `default' and can't be
253 Use the `color' request to toggle the usage of colors (default is on); the
254 read-only register `.color' is 0 if colors are not active, and non-zero
257 The old `Df' output command is mapped onto `DFg'; all color output
258 commands don't change the current font position (consequently, `Df'
261 Outputting color can be disabled in troff and groff with the option -c
262 (it is always disabled in compatibility mode). See the section on grotty
263 for the GROFF_NO_SGR environment variable also.
265 For defining color components as fractions between 0 and 1, a new scaling
266 indicator `f' has been introduced: 1f = 65536u. For testing whether a
267 color is defined (with .if and .ie), a new conditional operator `m' is
270 More details can be found in the groff_diff.7 manual page and in
273 o Similar to \m and \M, \f[] switches back to the previous font. \fP
274 (and \f[P]) is still valid for backwards compatibility.
276 o The new escape \F is the same as `.fam'; \F[] switches back to previous
277 family -- \F[P] selects family `P'.
279 o Two new glyph symbols are available: `eu' is the official Euro symbol;
280 `Eu' is a font-specific glyph variant.
282 o The new glyph symbols `t+-', `tdi', and `tmu' are textual variants of
283 `+-', `di', and `mu', respectively.
285 o Latin-1 character 181 (PS name `mu', Unicode name U+00B5 MICRO SIGN) has
286 got the troff glyph name `mc'.
288 o -Tutf8 is now available on EBCDIC hosts.
290 o Strings can take arguments, using this syntax: \*[foo arg1 arg2 ...].
293 .ds xxx This is a \\$1 test.
296 o It is now possible to have whitespace between the first and second dot (or
297 the name of the ending macro) to end a macro definition. Example:
303 . nop Hello, I'm `foo'.
304 . nop I will now define `bar'.
306 . nop Hello, I'm `bar'.
310 o `.fn' is a new string-valued register which returns the (internal) real
311 font name; styles and families are properly concatenated.
313 o Three new read/write registers `seconds', `minutes', and `hours' contain
314 the current time, set at start-up of troff. Use the `af' request to
315 control their output format.
317 o The new request `fchar' can be used to provide fallback characters. It
318 has the same syntax as the `char' request; the only difference is that a
319 character defined with `.char' hides the glyph with the same name in the
320 current font, whereas a character defined with `.fchar' is checked only if
321 the particular glyph isn't found in the current font. This test happens
322 before checking special fonts.
324 o In analogy to the `tmc' request, `.writec' is the same as `.write' but
325 doesn't emit a final newline.
327 o The new request `itc' is a variant of `.it' for which a line interrupted
328 with \c counts as one input line.
330 o Two new requests `ds1' and `as1' which are similar to `ds' and `as' but
331 with compatibility mode disabled during expansion of strings defined by
334 o The syntax of the `substring' request has been changed: The first
335 character in a string now has index 0, the last character has index -1.
336 Note that this is an incompatible change.
338 o To emit strings directly to the intermediate output, a new `output'
339 request has been added; it is similar to `\!' used at the top level.
341 o `.hpf' has been extended. It can now handle most TeX hyphenation
342 pattern files without modification. To do that, the commands \patterns,
343 \hyphenation, and \endinput are recognized. Please refer to groff_diff.7
344 for more information.
346 o `hpfcode' is a new request to provide an input encoding mapping for the
349 o The new request `hpfa' appends hyphenation patterns (`hpf' replaces
350 already existing patterns).
352 o A new request `ami' (append macro indirect) has been added. The first and
353 second parameter of `ami' are taken from string registers rather than
354 directly; this very special request is needed to make `trace.tmac'
355 independent from the escape character (which might even be disabled).
357 o The new request `sizes' is similar to the `sizes' command in DESC files.
358 It expects the same syntax; the data must be on a single line, and the
359 final `0' can be omitted.
361 o `trin' (translate input) is a new request which is similar to `tr' with
362 the exception that the `asciify' request will use the character code (if
363 any) before the character translation. Example:
375 The result is `x a'. Using `tr', the result would be `x x'.
377 o The request `pvs' isn't new, but hasn't been documented before. It
378 adds vertical space after a line has been output. This makes it an
379 alternative to the `ls' request to produce double-spaced documents.
380 The read-only register `.pvs' holds the current amount of the
381 post-vertical line space.
383 o For compatibility with plan 9's troff, multiple `pi' requests are
393 o A new escape sequence `\O' is available to disable and enable glyph
394 output. Please see groff_diff.7 and groff.texinfo for more details.
396 o The escapes `\%', `\&', `\)', and `\:' no longer cause an error in \X;
397 they are ignored now. Additionally `\ ' and `\~' are converted to
398 single space characters.
400 o The default tab distance in nroff mode is now 0.8i to be compatible
403 o Using the latin-1 input character 0xAD (soft hyphen) for the `shc'
404 request was a bad idea. Instead, it is now translated to `\%', and
405 the default hyphenation character is again \[hy]. Note that the glyph
406 \[shc] is not useful for typographic purposes; it only exists to have
407 glyph names for all latin-1 characters.
412 o Peter Schaffter <df191@ncf.ca> has contributed a new major macro package
413 called `mom', mainly for non-scientific writers, which takes care of
414 many typographic issues. It comes with a complete reference (in HTML
415 format) and some examples. `mom' has been designed to format documents
416 for PostScript output only.
418 o Two macros `AT' (AT&T) and `UC' (Univ. of California) have been added to
419 the man macros for compatibility with older BSD releases.
421 o Both the man and mdoc macro packages now use the LL and LT registers for
422 setting the line and title length, respectively (similar to those
423 registers in the ms macro package). If not set on the command line or
424 in a macro file loaded before the macro package itself, they default to
425 78n in nroff mode and 6.5i in troff mode.
427 o The `-xwidth' specifier in the mdoc macro package has been removed. Its
428 functionality is now integrated directly into `-width'. Similarly,
429 `-column' has been extended to provide this functionality also.
431 o A new macro `Ex' has been added to the mdoc macro package to document an
434 o The PSPIC macro has been extended to work with DVI output (`pspic.tmac' is
435 now automatically loaded for -Tdvi), using a dvips special to load the EPS
438 o The trace.tmac package now traces calls to `am' also. Additionally, it
439 works in compatibility mode.
441 o `troff.1' has been split. Differences to UNIX troff are now documented
442 in the new man page `groff_diff.7'.
444 o `groff_mwww.7' has been renamed to `groff_www.7'. The file mwww.tmac
447 o `groff_ms.7' has been completely rewritten. It now contains a complete
448 reference to the ms macros.
450 o `groff_trace.7' documents the trace macro package.
452 o Changes in www.tmac:
454 Note that HTML support is still in alpha change, so it is rather likely
455 that both macro names and macro syntax will change. Some of the macros
456 mentioned below aren't really new but haven't been documented properly
459 The following macros have been renamed:
465 For consistency, the macros `URL', `FTL', and `MTO' now all have the
466 address as the first parameter followed by the description.
468 By default, grohtml generates links to all section headings at the top
469 of the document. Use the new `LK' macro to specify a different place.
471 For specifying the background color and a background image, use the
472 new macros `BCL' and `BGIMG', respectively.
474 The macro `NHR' has been added; it suppresses the generation of top and
475 bottom rules which grohtml emits by default.
477 The new macro `HX' determines the cut-off point for automatic link
478 generation to headings.
480 The image position parameter names in `IMG' have been changed to `-L',
483 New macro `PIMG' for inclusion of a PNG image (it will automatically
484 convert it into an EPS file if not -Thtml is used).
486 New macro `MPIMG' for putting a PNG image into the left or right margin
487 (it will automatically convert it into an EPS file if not
490 New macros `HnS', `HnE' to start and end a header line block.
492 New macro `DC' to produce dropcap characters.
494 New macro `HTL' to generate an HTML title line only but no H1 heading.
496 New macros `ULS' and `ULE' to start and end an unordered list. The new
497 macro `LI' inserts a list item.
502 o The new command line option `-c' disables color output (which is always
503 disabled in compatibility mode).
508 o Two new command line options `-c' and `-C'; the former passes `-c' to
509 grotty (switching to the old output scheme); the latter passes `-C' to
510 groff (enabling compatibility mode).
515 o New keywords `color' (or `colour', `colored', `coloured'), `outline' (or
516 `outlined'), and `shaded' are available. `outline' sets the color of the
517 outline, `shaded' the fill color, and `color' sets both. Example:
519 circle shaded "green" outline "black" ;
521 Filled arrows always use the outline color for filling.
523 Color support for TeX output is not implemented yet.
528 o A new script contributed by Eric S. Raymond <esr@thyrsus.com>. It
529 converts a PIC diagram into a cropped image. Since it uses gs and the PNM
530 library, virtually all graphics formats are available for output.
535 o A new script contributed by Eric S. Raymond <esr@thyrsus.com>. It
536 converts an EQN diagram into a cropped image. Since it uses gs and the PNM
537 library, virtually all graphics formats are available for output.
542 o A new script contributed by Bernd Warken <bwarken@mayn.de>. It displays
543 groff files and man pages on X and tty, taking care of most parameters
549 o Documents using the mom macro package are recognized.
554 o Color support has been added.
556 o A new option `-p' is available to select the output paper size. It has
557 the same syntax as the new `papersize' keyword in the DESC file.
562 o By default, font sizes are now available in the range 5-10000pt, similar
563 to PS fonts. If you want the old behaviour (i.e., font sizes at discrete
564 values only), insert the following at the start of your document:
567 . sizes 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1095 1200 1400 1440 1600 \
568 1728 1800 2000 2074 2200 2400 2488 2800 3600
570 o A new font file HBI (using cmssbxo10; this is slanted sans serif bold
571 extended) has been added.
573 o Two font families are now available: `T' and `H'.
575 o EC and TC fonts have been integrated. Use `-mec' (calling the file
576 ec.tmac) to switch to them. Those fonts give a much better coverage of
577 the symbols defined by groff than the CM fonts.
579 Note that ec.tmac must be called before any language-specific files; it
580 doesn't take care of hcode values.
582 o Color support has been added. For drawing commands, colors are translated
583 to gray values currently.
588 o Color support has been added, using the SGR (ISO 6429, sometimes called
589 ANSI color) escape sequences.
591 o SGR escape sequences are now used by default for underlining and bold
592 printing also, no longer using the backspace character trick. To revert
593 to the old behaviour, use the `-c' switch.
595 Note that you have to use the `-R' option of `less' to make SGR escapes
596 display correctly. On the other hand, terminal programs and consoles like
597 `xterm' which support SGR sequences natively can directly display the
598 output of grotty. Consequently, the options `-b', `-B', `-u', and `-U'
599 work only in combination with `-c' and are ignored silently otherwise.
601 For the `man' program, it may be necessary to add the `-R' option of
602 `less' to the $PAGER environment variable; alternatively, you can use
603 `man's `-P' option (or adapt its configuration file accordingly). See
604 man(1) for more details.
606 o If the environment variable GROFF_NO_SGR is set, SGR output is disabled,
607 reverting to the old behaviour.
609 o A new special \X'tty: sgr n' has been added; if n is non-zero or missing,
610 enable SGR output (the default).
612 o If the new option `-i' is used (only in SGR mode), grotty sends escape
613 sequences to set the italic font attribute instead of the underline
614 attribute for italic fonts. Note that many terminals don't have support
615 for this (including xterm).
620 o Color support for glyphs has been added.
622 o New option `-h' to select the style of headings in HTML output.
624 o New option `-b' to set the background colour to white.
626 o New options `-a' and `-g' to control the number of bits for anti-aliasing
627 used for text and graphics, respectively. Default value is 4; 0 means
630 o groff character/glyph entities now map onto HTML 4 character entities.
635 o Valid paper sizes are now specified as with the new `papersize' keyword
636 in the DESC file. Specifically, the old custom paper type format
637 `custAAAxBBB' is no longer supported.
642 o A new manual page `ditroff.7' is available.
644 o The groff texinfo manual will now be installed, together with a bunch
647 o A new keyword `papersize' has been added to the DESC file format. Its
650 . a predefined paper format (e.g. `A4' or `letter')
652 . a file name pointing to a file which must contain a paper size
653 specification in its first line (e.g. `/etc/papersize')
655 . a custom paper size definition like `35c,4i'
657 See groff_font(5) for more details. This keyword only affects the
658 physical dimensions of the output medium; grops, grolj4, and grolbp use it
659 currently. troff completely ignores it.
664 This is major bug-fixing release which should replace 1.17.1.
669 o The `IMAGE' macro in www.tmac has changed: Now the optional 2nd parameter
670 gives the horizontal image location (left, centered, or right), and the
671 optional 3rd and 4th parameter the image dimensions.
676 This is mainly a bug-fixing release.
681 o Two new requests `de1' and `am1' which are similar to `de' and `am' but
682 with compatibility mode disabled during expansion of macros defined by
685 o Added request `brp'. This is the same as `\p'.
687 o Similar to other versions of troff, the `ns' request now works in all
688 diversions, not only in the top-level one.
690 o New read-only number register `.ns'. Returns 1 if in no-space mode,
696 o Options -p (pic) and -t (tbl) added.
698 o The environment variable GROFF_BIN_PATH is now checked before PATH for
704 o New option `-D dir' to specify a directory in which all images are placed.
706 o New option `-I stem' to specify an image name stame. If not given,
707 `grohtml-XXX' is used (`XXX' is the process ID).
715 o `-mFOO' now searches first for `FOO.tmac' and then for `tmac.FOO'. The
716 old behaviour has been changed to overcome problems with platforms which
717 have an 8+3 file name limit, and platforms which have other versions of
718 troff installed also. Additionally, all macro files have been renamed
719 using the latter scheme to avoid 8+3 name clashes.
721 o The new environment variable GROFF_BIN_PATH is checked for programs groff
722 is calling (preprocessors, troff, and output devices) before PATH. If not
723 set, it defaults to the directory where the groff binary is located.
724 Previously, it was PATH only. The nroff script only uses GROFF_BIN_PATH
725 to find the groff binary but passes both the GROFF_BIN_PATH and PATH
726 environment variables to groff.
731 o The mdoc package has been completely rewritten, using the full power of
732 GNU troff to remove limitations of Unix troff (which is no longer
733 supported). Most important changes are:
736 . Almost all macros are parsed and callable (if it makes sense)
737 . `.Lb': prints library names
738 . `.Nm <punctuation>' now works as expected; `.Nm "" <punctuation>' has
740 . Updated `.St' command
741 . `.Fx': prints FreeBSD
742 . `.Ox': prints OpenBSD
743 . `.Bsx': prints BSD/OS
744 . `.Brq', `.Bro', `.Brc': brace enclosure macros
745 . `.Bd -centered': center lines
746 . `.Bl -xwidth <string>': interpret <string> and use the resulting width
747 . Support for double-sided printing (-rD1 command line switch)
748 . Support for 11pt and 12pt document sizes (-rS11, -rS12 command line
751 `groff_mdoc.7' replaces `groff_mdoc.samples.7'; it now completely
752 documents the mdoc package.
754 Great care has been taken to assure backwards compatibility. If you
755 encounter any abnormal results, please report them to bug-groff@gnu.org.
757 o A new command line option for the `man' macros (similar to the `mdoc'
758 package) has been implemented: `-rcR=1' (now the default in nroff mode)
759 produces one single, very long page instead of multiple pages. `-rcR=0'
762 o The `return' request has been added to return immediately from a macro.
764 o A new request `nop' (no operation) has been added which is similar to
771 can now be written as
777 o `box' and `boxa' are two new requests which behave similarly to `di' and
778 `da' but don't include a partially filled line (which is restored after
779 ending the diversion).
781 o The `asciify' request has been extended to `unformat' space characters
782 and some other escape sequences also.
784 `\ ' is no longer unformatted as a space but remains an unpaddable,
785 unbreakable space character.
787 o The new `unformat' request is similar to `asciify' but only handles space
788 characters and tabs specially if the diversion is reread, retaining font
789 information. This makes it possible to reformat diversions; for example
794 a01 a02 a03 a04 a05 a06 a07 a08 a09 a10.
799 \f[B]b01 b02 b03 b04 b05 b06 b07 b08 b09 b10.\f[P]
804 c01 c02 c03 c04 c05 c06 c07 c08 c09 c10.
811 a01 a02 a03 a04 a05 a06 a07
812 a08 a09 a10. c01 c02 c03 c04
813 c05 c06 c07 c08 c09 c10. b01
814 b02 b03 b04 b05 b06 b07 b08
817 Without the `unformat' request, space characters are converted to word
818 space nodes which are no longer stretchable, and the result would be
820 a01 a02 a03 a04 a05 a06 a07
821 a08 a09 a10. c01 c02 c03 c04
822 c05 c06 c07 c08 c09 c10. b01
823 b02 b03 b04 b05 b06 b07 b08
826 o The new request `linetabs' controls the `line-tabs' mode. In line-tabs
827 mode, tab distances are computed relative to the (current) output line.
828 Otherwise they are taken relative to the input line. For example, the
843 In line-tabs mode, the same code gives
847 The new read-only number register `.linetabs' returns 1 if in line-tabs
848 mode, and 0 otherwise.
850 o Two new requests `tm1' and `tmc' have been added to improve writing
851 messages to the terminal. `tm1' is similar to `tm' but allows leading
852 whitespace. `tmc' is similar to `tm1' but doesn't emit a final newline.
854 o For compatibility with sqtroff, the request `output' has been added.
855 The behaviour is similar to `\!' at the top-level, that is, it directly
856 inserts its argument into the intermediate output format. The syntax
857 is similar to .tm1, allowing leading whitespace.
859 o The new `spreadwarn' request will make troff warn if spaces in an output
860 line are widened by a given limit or more.
862 o Use `warnscale' to change the scaling indicator troff will use for
865 o A new request `dei' (define indirect) has been added. The first and
866 second parameter of `dei' are taken from string registers rather than
867 directly; this very special request is needed to make `trace.tmac'
868 independent from the escape character (which might even be disabled).
870 o It is now possible to save and restore the escape character with two new
871 requests `ecs' and `ecr'.
873 o The new escape sequence \B'...' is an analogon to `\A': If the string
874 within the delimiters is a valid numeric expression, return character `1',
877 o The new escape sequence `\:' inserts a zero-width break point. This is
878 similar to `\%' but without a soft hyphen character.
880 o The `tr' request can now map characters onto `\~'.
882 o Calling the `fam' request without an argument switches back to the
883 previous font family.
885 o The new read-only register `.int' is set to a positive value if the last
886 output line is interrupted (i.e., if the input line contains `\c').
888 o The `writem' request is not new, but hasn't been documented before. This
889 is similar to `write' but instead of a string the contents of a given
890 macro or string is written to a stream.
892 o The read/write number register `hp' to get/set the current horizontal
893 position relative to the input line isn't new but hasn't been documented
896 o `\X' and `\Y' are now transparent for end-of-sentence recognition.
898 o The `cu' request in nroff mode now works as documented (i.e., it
899 underlines spaces also).
904 o The grog script now works in non-compatibility mode also (which is the
905 default). As usual, use the `-C' option to activate compatibility mode.
910 o A new option `-P' resp. a new environment variable `GROPS_PROLOGUE' has
911 been added to select a different prologue file.
913 o The effect of the former `-mpsnew' option to access more Type 1 characters
914 is now the default and no longer available. To get the old behaviour
915 (i.e., emulation of some glyphs by composition) use `-mpsold'.
920 o For security reasons the following changes have been done:
922 . The tmac.safer file has been replaced with a built-in solution; .open,
923 .opena, .pso, .sy, and .pi are completely disabled in safer mode (which
924 is the default); to enable these requests the `-U' command line flag
927 . Files specified with the .mso request or given with the `-m' command
928 line option, and hyphenation patterns loaded with `.hpf' are no longer
929 searched in the current directory by default (besides the usual tmac
930 path). Instead, the home directory is used. To add the current
931 directory, either use the `-U' or `-M' command line option or set the
932 GROFF_TMAC_PATH environment variable to an appropriate value.
934 . troffrc, troffrc-end, and eqnrc are neither searched in the current nor
935 in the home directory (even if -U is given). Use -M or GROFF_TMAC_PATH
938 . Similarly, the current directory is no longer part of the font path.
939 Use the `-F' command line option or the GROFF_FONT_PATH environment
940 variable if you really need the current directory.
942 o groff now installs its data files into /usr/local/share/groff/<version> by
943 default, following the GNU standard. Additionally, a local tmac directory
944 (by default /usr/local/share/groff/site-tmac) is scanned before the
945 standard tmac directory. Wrapper files for system-specific macro packages
946 (if necessary) are put into /usr/local/lib/groff/site-tmac; this directory
947 is searched before the local tmac directory.
949 o All programs now have option `-v' to show the version number; they exit
950 immediately afterwards, following the GNU standards. Additionally,
951 `--version' and `--help' have been added, doing the obvious actions.
956 Bug fixes only; no user-visible changes.
964 The anachronism of calling the man macro package with `-man' has been fixed;
965 now you can say `-m man' also. The same is true for `ms', `me', `markup',
966 `mandoc', and `mdoc'.
968 A new switch `-g' for calling `grn' is available.
970 A new switch `-G' for calling `grap' is available.
972 EBCDIC support for tty devices has been added. On such hosts, IBM code page
973 1047 is available with -Tcp1047 instead of -Tascii and -Tlatin1 (and, for
974 the moment, -Tutf8). Note that non-tty devices are not yet supported (but
980 A new command line option to the `man' macros is available: `-rSxx' (with
981 `xx' either 10, 11, or 12) to set the base document font size to `xx'
982 points. Additionally, `.SH' now produces larger headings than `.SS'.
984 To solve a problem with the .PSPIC macro which needs the `-U' switch of
985 troff to access an external program (psbb), a new request .psbb is now
986 available to get the bounding box of a PostScript image file. The values
987 (in PostScript units) are returned in the new read-only number registers
988 `llx', `lly', `urx', and `ury'. Consequently, .PSPIC has been adapted to
989 use the new request, and the psbb program has been removed.
991 A new predefined writable number register, `year', has been added. It
992 contains the current year.
994 A new read-only register, `.Y', has been added. It contains the revision
995 number of the groff package.
997 `\fP' now behaves as expected in situations like the following where the
998 font `foo' is undefined:
1001 normal text \f[foo]bar\fP normal text
1003 Previously, the text after \fP appeared as bold.
1005 The `substring' request is not new, but hasn't been documented before.
1007 The predefined `.T' string register (which holds the current output device)
1008 is not new, but hasn't been documented before.
1010 A new request `length' computes the length of a string and returns it in
1013 The macro files `tmac.a4' (for specifying A4 paper format) and `tmac.trace'
1014 (a debugging aid) are now installed also.
1016 A new resource file, `troffrc-end', is now available. It is invoked after
1017 all user-specified macros. Currently used by the html device to include
1018 tmac.html; thus no need for users to specify -mhtml anymore.
1020 The soft hyphen character now has a glyph name: `shc'.
1022 The latin-1 character 173 (PS name `periodcentered') has got the troff glyph
1023 name `pc' and is no longer intermixed with the symbol character `md' (PS
1026 ASCII character 34 (PS name `quotedbl') has got the troff glyph name `dq'
1027 (which is an alias to character `"').
1029 ASCII character 39 (PS name `quoteright') has got the troff glyph name `cq'
1030 (which is an alias to character "'").
1032 Some additions to the font description files have been implemented for
1033 better support of HTML output:
1035 The new format of lines in the `charset' subsection of font description
1038 name metrics type code [entity_name] [-- comment]
1040 Currently, only the font description files in devhtml use the optional
1041 entity_name string to define glyph entities in HTML. Everything after the
1042 entity_name field is ignored; in case this field isn't used, two hyphen
1043 characters are now necessary to start a comment.
1045 Two new requests are available in DESC files (currently used only with
1048 use_charnames_in_special
1049 This command indicates that troff should encode named characters
1050 inside special commands.
1053 requests that troff tells the driver the source file name being
1054 processed. This is achieved by another tcommand: `F filename'.
1059 Bruno Haible <haible@clisp.cons.org> contributed support for UTF8 output.
1064 Added .LINE macro to tmac.arkup.
1066 The obsolete `.LINK' macro has been removed.
1068 .URL, .FTP, and .MAILTO macros now accept an optional third argument which
1069 will be immediately appended to the second argument (to be used with
1070 punctuation, for example).
1075 The font size 11pt has been changed to 10.95pt (as used in LaTeX 2e).
1077 A new font file CWI (using cmitt10; this is typewriter italic) has been
1083 A new driver for Canon CAPSL printers (LBP-4 and LBP-8 series laser
1084 printers). This code has been contributed by Francisco Andres Verdu
1085 <pandres@dragonet.es>.
1090 A new preprocessor to process gremlin pictures. It is based on the
1091 original Berkeley implementation of grn, written by David Slattengren
1092 and Barry Roitblat, and has been adapted to groff by Daniel Senderowicz
1093 <daniel@synchrods.com> and Werner Lemberg <wl@gnu.org>.
1098 Added the `srand' command to set the seed for a new sequence of
1099 pseudo-random numbers to be returned by `rand'.
1104 Simplified installation: The Imakefile will now be configured (by groff's
1110 Three new man pages are available: groff_tmac.5 (documenting how troff macros
1111 are accessed and where they are found), groff.7 (a short reference of the GNU
1112 roff language), and roff.7 (a general survey on GNU troff).
1117 A partial port to win32 (for use with Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0) is now part
1118 of the distribution. It has been contributed by Blake McBride
1119 <blake@florida-software.com>.
1121 More information about programs, macros, documentation, etc., which is
1122 related to groff has been collected in the file `MORE.STUFF'.
1124 VERSION 1.13, 1.14, 1.15
1125 ========================
1127 Bug fixes only; no user-visible changes.
1132 Finally, there are new maintainers for groff. Mailing lists and a CVS
1133 repository are available also. See the file README for details. Not all
1134 reported bugs could be fixed, so please send mails again if something is
1137 Most of the installation problems should have vanished now (most
1138 notably the $(tmac_wrap) bug).
1140 There is now a man page called groff_man.7 which documents the basics of the
1141 -man macros. It has been originally written by Susan G. Kleinmann
1144 A (still incomplete) groff reference manual in texinfo format originally
1145 contributed by Trent A. Fisher <trent@gnurd.portland.or.us>.
1147 me.man and msafer.man have been renamed to groff_me.man
1148 resp. groff_msafer.man for consistency.
1150 Default strings for macros in doc-common resp. tmac.an no longer contain the
1153 groff should now be Y2k safe (fixes contributed by Paul Eggert
1154 <eggert@twinsun.com>).
1156 Following the GNU standards, groff will now use the prefix `/usr/local/' as
1157 the default instead of replacing an existent groff binary.
1159 groff, troff, nroff, and pic now support the -U flag to activate unsafe
1160 behaviour (without -msafer); the -S flag for using the -msafer macros is now
1166 This is a new output device for producing HTML output contributed by Gaius
1167 Mulley <gaius@glam.ac.uk>. It is still very alpha but has been included
1168 into the distribution so that a lot of people have a chance to test it. Bug
1169 reports are highly welcome.
1174 Duplex printing support has been contributed by Jeffrey Copeland
1180 Added -I option for defining include paths (patch contributed by Peter
1181 Miller <peterm@jna.com.au>).
1186 Fallback resources added (patch contributed by Larry Jones
1187 <larry.jones@sdrc.com>).
1189 Will now support 8 gray levels.
1194 New version 1.32 (contributed by Joergen Haegg <jh@axis.com>).
1199 Complete documentation for pic is now in the file doc/pic.ms. It was
1200 contributed by Eric S. Raymond, <esr@thyrsus.com>, who is emphatically
1201 *not* volunteering to take over groff as he is way overworked with
1202 half a dozen other projects.
1207 The directory where data files are installed has been changed from
1208 /usr/local/lib/groff to /usr/local/share/groff to comply with the
1209 latest GNU coding standards.
1211 By default groff programs with Unix equivalents are installed with a
1212 "g" prefix unless there is an existing (non-groff) troff installation.
1214 A new approach is used to make system macro packages available to
1215 groff. Instead of simply including /usr/lib/tmac in the list of
1216 directories searched by groff, the installation process creates for
1217 each system macro package a wrapper macro package in the groff macro
1218 directory that references the system macro package. The groff macro
1219 packages are now installed with a leading "g" prefix if there is a
1220 system version of the same macro package, and otherwise without the
1221 "g" prefix, with the exception that the groff version of -me which is
1222 always installed as -me.
1224 There is a new device, lj4, for the HP LaserJet 4 (and PCL5
1230 groff has a -S option that prevents the use of unsafe features in pic
1231 and troff. This uses a new -S option of pic and the -msafer macros
1237 The `blm' request specifies a macro to be invoked when a blank line is
1243 A -S (safer) option disables the sh command.
1248 The -m option enables manual feed.
1253 \(rn will now produce a character that has the traditional metrics,
1254 and will form corners with \(ul and \(br. This means that it will not
1255 align properly with \(sr. Instead there's a new character
1256 \[radicalex] which aligns with \(sr; this is used by eqn for doing
1262 The `pso' request allows you to read from the standard output of a
1268 The PSPIC macro has options to allow the horizontal alignment of the
1269 graphic to be specified.
1277 The escape sequence \V[xxx] will interpolate the value of the
1278 environment variable xxx.
1283 The decimalpoint option can be used to specify the character to be
1284 recognized as the decimal point character in place of the default
1293 The environment variable GROFF_COMMAND_PREFIX can be used to control
1294 whether groff looks for `gtroff' or `troff' (similarily for the
1300 Multilingual hyphenation is supported by new `hpf' and `hla' requests,
1301 and by a `\n[.hla]' number register. The -H option has been removed.
1302 Files of hyphenation patterns can have comments.
1304 When a font cannot be found, troff gives a warning (of type `font',
1305 enabled by default) instead of an error.
1307 There's a new request `trnt' that's like `tr' except that it doesn't
1308 apply to text transparently throughput into a diversion with \!.
1313 There is a `nokeep' option which tells tbl not to use diversions to
1314 try to keep the table on one page.
1319 Setting the parameter `nroff' to a non-zero value causes `ndefine' to
1320 behave like `define' and `tdefine' to be ignored. This is done by
1321 eqnrc when the current device is ascii or latin1. There's a `neqn'
1322 script that just does `eqn -Tascii'.
1327 grotty uses whatever page length was specified using the `pl' request
1328 rather than using the paperlength command in the DESC file. The
1329 paperwidth command in the DESC file is also ignored.
1334 The programs in groff that have Unix counterparts can now be installed
1335 without a leading `g' prefix. See the `g' variable in the Makefile.
1337 The g?nroff script simulates the nroff command using groff.
1339 New special characters \(+h, \(+f, \(+p, \(Fn, \(Bq, \(bq, \(aq, \(lz,
1340 \(an. See groff_char(7).
1342 ^L is now a legal input character.
1347 The Xps pseudo-device has disappeared. Instead there is a new -X
1348 option that tells groff to use gxditview instead of the usual
1349 postprocessor. (So instead of -TXps, use -XTps or just -X if your
1350 default device is ps.)
1352 The postprocessor to be used for a particular device is now specified
1353 by a `postpro' command in the DESC file rather than being compiled
1354 into groff. Similarly the command to be used for printing (with the
1355 -l option) is now specified by a `print' command in the DESC file.
1357 The groff command no longer specifies eqnchar as an input file for
1358 eqn. Instead eqn automatically loads a file `eqnrc'. The groff
1359 command no longer passes the -D option to eqn. Instead eqnrc sets the
1360 draw_lines parameter.
1362 The groff command no longer tells troff to load a device-specific
1363 macro file. This is handled instead by the `troffrc' file, which is
1364 always loaded by troff.
1366 The shell script version of groff has been removed.
1371 The `rchar' request removes a character definition established with `char'.
1373 Compatibility mode is disabled and the escape character is set to `\'
1374 while a character definition is being processed.
1376 The `\#' escape sequence is like `\"' except that the terminating
1379 The `shc' request tells troff which character to insert (instead of
1380 the default \(hy) when a word is hyphenated at a line break.
1382 A font name of 0 (zero) in the DESC file will cause no font to be
1383 mounted on the corresponding font position. This is useful for
1384 arranging that special fonts are mounted on positions on which users
1385 are not likely explicitly to mount fonts. All groff devices now avoid
1386 initially mounting fonts on positions 5-9.
1388 The `do' request allows a single request or macro to be interpreted
1389 with compatibility mode disabled.
1391 troff automatically loads a file `troffrc' before any other input file.
1392 This can be prevented with the -R option. This file is responsible
1393 for loading the device-specific macros.
1398 The -x option has been removed and a -n option has been added. By
1399 default, pic now assumes that the postprocessor supports groff
1400 extensions. The -n option tells pic to generate output that works
1401 with ditroff drivers. The -z option now applies only to TeX mode.
1403 The -p option has been removed. Instead if the -n option is not
1404 specified, pic generates output that uses \X'ps: ...' if the \n(0p
1405 register is non-zero and tmac.ps sets this register to 1.
1407 In places where you could 1st or 5th you can now say `i'th or `i+1'th
1408 (the quotes are required).
1413 Eqn now automatically reads a file `eqnrc' from the macro directory.
1414 This performs the same role that the eqnchar files used to. This can
1415 be prevented by the -R option.
1417 Setting the draw_lines parameter to a non-zero value causes lines to
1418 be drawn using \D rather than \l. The -D option is now obsolete.
1420 `uparrow', `downarrow' and `updownarrow' can be used with `left' and
1423 The amount of extra space added before and after lines containing
1424 equations can be controlled using the `body_height' and `body_depth'
1430 Font description files have been regenerated from newer AFM files.
1431 You can get access to the additional characters present in the text
1432 fonts in newer PostScript printers by using -mpsnew.
1434 The default value of the -b option is specified by a `broken' command
1437 With the -g option, grops will generate PostScript code that guesses
1438 the page height. This allows documents to be printed on both letter
1439 (8.5x11) and A4 paper without change.
1444 ISO Latin-1 characters are available with -Tdvi. Format groff_char(7)
1445 with groff -Tdvi for more information.
1450 The -mtty-char macros contain additional character definitions for
1456 In previous releases the groff -me macros treated the $r and $R number
1457 registers in a way that was incompatible with the BSD -me macros. The
1458 reason for this was that the approach used by the BSD -me macros does
1459 not work with low resolution devices such as -TX75 and -TX100.
1460 However, this caused problems with existing -me documents. In this
1461 release, the vertical spacing is controlled by the $v and $V registers
1462 which have the same meaning as $r and $R in earlier groff releases.
1463 In addition, if the $r or $R register is set to a value that would be
1464 correct for for the BSD -me macros and a low resolution device is not
1465 being used, then an appropriate value for the $v or $V register will
1466 be derived from the $r or $R register.
1468 The groff -me macros work with -C and (I think) with Unix troff.
1470 For backward compatibility with BSD -me, the \*{ and \*} strings are
1471 also available as \*[ and \*]. Of course, \*[ will only be usable
1474 The \*T string has been deleted. Use \*(Tm instead.
1479 The `n', Space and Return keys are bound to the Next Page action. The
1480 `p', BackSpace and Delete keys are bound to the Previous Page action.
1481 The `q' key is bound to the Quit action.
1483 The `r' key is bound to a rerasterize action that reruns groff, and
1484 redisplays the current page.
1492 There is a alternative assignment operator `:=' which interacts
1493 differently with blocks.
1495 There is a new command `command', which allows the values of variables
1496 to be passed through to troff or TeX.
1498 The `print' command now accepts multiple arguments.
1500 String comparison expressions (using `==' or `!=') are allowed in more
1506 Horizontal and vertical lines drawn with \D'l ...' will be rendered
1507 using -, | and + characters. This is intended to give reasonable
1508 results with boxed tables. It won't work well with pic.
1513 The -mdoc macros have been upgraded to the version in the second
1514 Berkeley networking release. This version is not completely
1515 compatible with earlier versions; the old version is still available
1516 as -mdoc.old. The grog script has been enhanced so that it can
1517 usually determine whether a document requires the old or new versions.
1519 With -TX75, -TX100 and -TXps, the PSPIC macro will produce a box
1520 around where the picture would appear with -Tps.
1525 An implementation of the -mm macros is included.
1527 The directory in which temporary files are created can be controlled
1528 by setting the GROFF_TMPDIR or TMPDIR environment variables.
1533 Some MS-DOS support (see pic/make-dos-dist).
1538 There are two new \X commands (\X'ps: invis' and \X'ps: endinvis')
1539 which make it possible to have substitute characters that are
1540 displayed when previewing with -TXps but ignored when printing with
1546 Support for scalable fonts.
1551 No changes other than bug fixes.
1556 There is an implementation of refer and associated programs. groff -R
1557 preprocesses with grefer; no mechanism is provided for passing
1558 arguments to grefer because most grefer options have equivalent
1559 commands which can be included in the file. grog also supports refer.
1561 There is an alternative perl implementation of the grog script.
1563 The code field in lines in the charset section of font description
1564 files is now allowed to contain an arbitrary integer (previously it
1565 was required to lie between 0 and 255). Currently grops and grodvi
1566 use only the low order 8 bits of the value. Grodvi will use the
1567 complete value; however, this is unlikely to be useful with
1568 traditional TeX tools (.tfm files only allow 8 bit character codes.)
1570 Left and right double quotes can be obtained with \(lq and \(rq
1573 There is a new program called pfbtops which translates PostScript
1574 fonts in pfb format to ASCII.
1576 A slightly modified version of the Berkeley tmac.doc is included.
1581 In long escape names the closing ] is now required to be at the same
1582 input level as the opening [.
1584 The \A'S' escape sequence returns 1 or 0 according as S is or is not
1585 suitable for use as a name.
1587 \~ produces an unbreakable space that can be stretched when the line
1590 The `mso' request is like the `so' request except that it searches for
1591 the file in the same directories in which tmac.X is searched for when
1592 the -mX option is given.
1594 The escape sequence `\R' is similar to the `nr' request.
1599 A new `special' primitive allows you to add new types of unary
1600 constructs by writing a troff macro.
1605 The implementation no longer uses gperf.
1610 The compile-time -DBROKEN_SPOOLER option has been replaced by a
1611 BROKEN_SPOOLER_FLAGS option. This allows more precise control over
1612 how grops should workaround broken spoolers and previewers. There is
1613 a new -b option that can change this at run-time.
1615 Grops now generates PostScript that complies with version 3.0 of the
1616 Document Structuring Convention.
1618 The resource management component of grops (the part that deals with
1619 imported documents and downloadable fonts) has been rewritten and now
1620 supports version 3.0 of the Document Structuring Conventions. The
1621 %%DocumentFonts comment is no longer supported; you must use the
1622 %%Document{Needed,Supplied}{Fonts,Resources} comments instead
1625 tmac.psatk contains some macros that support the mechanism used by the
1626 Andrew Toolkit for including PostScript graphics in troff documents.
1631 Parts of xditview have been rewritten so that it can be used with the
1632 output of gtroff -Tps. groff -TXps will run gtroff -Tps with
1635 There is a new menu entry `Print' which brings up a dialog box for
1636 specifying a command with which the file being previewed should be
1639 Xditview now uses imake.
1644 The groff command now understands the gtroff `-a' and `-i' options.
1646 With the `m' and `n' scale indicators, the scale factor is rounded
1647 horizontally before being applied. This makes (almost) no difference
1648 for devices with `hor' equal to 1, but it makes groff with -Tascii or
1649 -Tlatin1 behave more like nroff in its treatment of these scale
1650 indicators. Accordingly tmac.tty now calls the `nroff' request so
1651 that the `n' condition will be true.
1653 The device-specific macros (tmac.ps, tmac.dvi, tmac.tty and tmac.X)
1654 have been made to work at least somewhat with -C. In particular the
1655 special characters defined by these macros now work with -C.
1657 groff -Tdvi -p will now pass pic the -x flag; this will enable filling
1658 of arrowheads and boxes, provided that your dvi driver supports the
1659 latest version of the tpic specials.
1664 There is a new `-N' option that tells eqn not to allow newlines in
1665 delimiters. This allows eqn to recover better from missing closing
1666 delimiters. The groff command will pass on a `-N' option to eqn.
1671 You can now use psfig with grops. See the file ps/psfig.diff. I do
1672 not recommend using psfig for new documents.
1674 The command \X'ps: file F' is similar to \X'ps: exec ...' except that
1675 the PostScript code is read from the file F instead of being contained
1676 within the \X command. This was added to support psfig.
1681 There are font files HB and HI corresponding to cmsssbx10 and cmssi10.
1686 The groff -me macros now work with the -C option. As a result, they
1687 may also work with Unix nroff/troff.
1689 In -me, the $r and $R number registers now contain the line spacing as
1690 a percentage of the pointsize expressed in units (normally about 120).
1691 The previous definition was useless with low resolution devices such
1697 A -ms-like macro-package is now included.
1699 The name for the Icelandic lowercase eth character has been changed
1705 There is a new request `nroff', which makes the `n' built-in condition
1706 true and the `t' built-in condition false; also a new request `troff'
1707 which undoes the effect of the `nroff' request. This is intended only
1708 for backward compatibility: it is usually better to test \n(.H or
1709 \n(.V or to use the `c' built-in condition.
1711 The \R escape sequence has been deleted. Use \E instead.
1713 There are `break' and `continue' requests for use with the `while'
1716 There is a request `hym' that can ensure that when the current
1717 adjustment mode is not `b' a line will not be hyphenated if it is no
1718 more than a given amount short, and a request `hys' that can ensure
1719 that when the current adjustment mode is `b' a line will not be
1720 hyphenated if it can be justified by adding no more than a given
1721 amount of extra space to each word space.
1723 There is a request `rj' similar to `ce' that right justifies lines.
1725 A warning of type `space' will be given when a call is made to an
1726 undefined request or macro with a name longer than two characters, and
1727 the first two characters of the name make a name that is defined.
1728 This is intended to find places where a space has been omitted been a
1729 request or macro and its argument. This type of warning is enabled by
1735 A comma is permitted between the arguments to the `reset' command.
1737 For use with TeX, there is a new `-c' option that makes gpic treat
1738 lines beginning with `.' in a way that is more compatible with tpic
1744 It is no longer necessary to add `space 0' at the beginning of
1745 complicated equations inside pictures.
1747 `prime' is now treated as an ordinary character, as in Unix eqn. The
1748 previous behaviour of `prime' as an operator can now be obtained using
1754 There are two new devices X75-12 and X100-12 which are the same as X75
1755 and X100 except that they are optimized for documents that use mostly
1761 The installation process has been refined to make it easy for you to
1762 share groff with someone who has the same type of machine as you but
1763 does not have a C++ compiler. See the end of the INSTALL file for
1766 There is a man page for the tfmtodit program which explains how to use
1767 your own fonts with groff -Tdvi.
1769 There is a man page for afmtodit which explains how to use your own
1770 PostScript fonts with groff -Tps.
1772 The \N escape sequence is now fully supported. It can now be used to
1773 access any character in a font by its output code, even if it doesn't
1774 have a groff name. This is made possible by a convention in the font
1775 files that a character name of `---' refers to an unnamed character.
1776 The drivers now all support the `N' command required for this. The font
1777 description files have been updated to include unnamed characters.
1779 The `x' command in font description files has been removed: instead
1780 any unknown commands are automatically made available to the drivers.
1781 If you constructed your own font files with an earlier version of
1782 tfmtodit or afmtodit, you must construct them again using the current
1785 Characters between 0200 and 0237 octal are no longer legal input
1786 characters. Note that these are not used in ISO 8859.
1788 A command called `grog' has been added, similar to the `doctype'
1789 command described in Kernighan and Pike.
1794 The groff command has some new options: -V prints the pipeline
1795 instead of executing it; -P passes an argument to the postprocessor,
1796 -L passes an argument to the spooler.
1798 There is a C++ implementation of the groff command. This handles some
1799 things slightly better than the shell script. In particular, it can
1800 correctly handle arguments containing characters that have a special
1801 meaning to the shell; it can give an error message when child
1802 processes other than the last in the pipeline terminate abnormally;
1803 its exit status can take account of the exit statuses of all its child
1804 processes; it is a little more efficient; when geqn is used, it
1805 searches for the eqnchar file in the same way that font metric files
1806 are searched for, rather than expecting to find it in one particular
1812 There is font translation feature: For example, you can tell gtroff to
1813 use font `HR' whenever font `H' is requested with the line
1815 This would be useful for a document that uses `H' to refer to
1818 There are some new number registers: `.kern' contains the current kern
1819 mode, `.lg' the current ligature mode, `.x' the major version number,
1820 `.y' the minor version number, `.ce' the number of lines to be
1821 centered in the current environment, `.trunc' the amount of vertical
1822 space truncated by the most recently sprung vertical position trap,
1823 `.ne' the amount of vertical space needed in the last `ne' request
1824 that caused a vertical position trap to be sprung.
1826 The `cf' request now behaves sensibly in a diversion. If used in a
1827 diversion, it will now arrange for the file to be copied to the output
1828 when the diversion is reread.
1830 There is a new request `trf' (transparent file) similar to `cf', but
1833 There is a new escape sequence `\Y[xxx]', roughly equivalent to
1834 `\X'\*[xxx]'', except that the contents of string or macro xxx are not
1835 interpreted, and xxx may contain newlines. This requires an output
1836 format extension; the drivers have been modified to understand this.
1837 Grops has also been modified to cope with newlines in the arguments to
1838 \X commands; grops has a new \X command mdef, which is like def except
1839 that it has a first argument giving the number of definitions.
1841 There is a new warning category `escape' which warns about unknown
1844 The `fp' request now takes an optional third argument giving the external
1847 The `\_' character is now automatically translated to `\(ul' as in troff.
1849 The environment variable `GROFF_HYPHEN' gives the name of the file
1850 containing the hyphenation patterns.
1852 There is a `\C'xxx'' escape sequence equivalent to `\[xxx]'.
1854 Characters ", ', ), ], *, \(dg are now initially transparent for the purposes
1855 of end of sentence recognition.
1857 There is an anti-recursion feature in the `char' request, so you can
1858 say `.char \(bu \s+2\(bu\s-2'.
1860 The limit on the number of font positions has been removed.
1861 Accordingly `\n[.fp]' never returns 0.
1863 The restriction on the number of numbered environments has been removed.
1865 There is a new escape sequence `\E' that makes it possible to
1866 guarantee that an escape sequence won't get interpreted in copy-mode.
1867 The `\R' escape sequence is accordingly now deprecated.
1872 Arguments of the form `X anything X' (in the `copy thru', `sh', `for',
1873 `if' and `define' constructs) can now be of the form `{ anything }'.
1875 If the `linethick' variable is negative (as it now is initially),
1876 lines will be drawn with a thickness proportional to the current point
1879 The `rand' function now takes no arguments and returns a number between
1880 0 and 1. The old syntax is still supported.
1882 `^' can be used in expressions to indicate exponentiation.
1884 In the `for' construct the argument to the by clause can be prefixed
1885 by `*' to indicate that the increment is multiplicative.
1887 A bare expression may be used as an attribute. If the current
1888 direction is `dir', then an attribute `expr' is equivalent to
1891 There is a `sprintf' construct that allows numbers to be formatted and used
1892 wherever a quoted string can be used.
1894 The height of a text object without an explicit height attribute is
1895 the number of text strings associated with the object times the value
1896 of the `textht' variable.
1898 The maximum height and width of a picture is controlled by the
1899 `maxpswid' and `maxpsht' variables.
1904 Gtbl can now handle gracefully the situation where the `ce' request
1905 has been applied to a table.
1910 The `ifdef' primitive has been generalized.
1912 A tilde accent can be put underneath a box using `utilde'. This
1913 defined using a general `uaccent' primitive.
1918 There is a new PostScript font downloading scheme which handles font
1919 downloading for imported illustrations. Previously, the name of the
1920 file containing the font was given in the `x download' line in the
1921 groff font metric file. Now, there is a `download' file which says
1922 for each PostScript font name which file contains that font. Grops
1923 can also now handle inter-font dependencies, where one downloadable
1924 font depends on some other (possibly downloadable) font.
1926 The `T' font has been removed. The characters it used to provide are
1927 now provided by `char' definitions in tmac.ps. TSymbol.ps has also
1928 been removed, and the tweaks it provided are now provided by `char'