1 This file describes recent user-visible changes in groff. Bug fixes
2 are not described. There are more details in the man pages.
7 o `-mFOO' will now search first for `FOO.tmac' and then for `tmac.FOO'. The
8 old behaviour has been changed to overcome problems with platforms which
9 have an 8+3 file name limit, and platforms which have other versions of
10 troff installed also. Additionally, all macro files have been renamed
11 using the latter scheme to avoid 8+3 name clashes.
13 o The new environment variable GROFF_BIN_PATH will be checked for programs
14 groff is calling (preprocessors, troff, and output devices) before PATH.
15 If not set, it defaults to the directory where the groff binary is
16 located. Previously, it was PATH only. The nroff script will only use
17 GROFF_BIN_PATH to find the groff binary but passes both the GROFF_BIN_PATH
18 and PATH environment variable to groff.
23 o A new command line option for the `man' macros (similar to the `mdoc'
24 package has been implemented: `-rcR=1' (now the default in nroff mode) will
25 produce one single, very long page instead of multiple pages. `-rcR=0'
28 o A new request `nop' (no operation) has been added which is similar to
41 o `box' and `boxa' are two new requests which behave similarly to `di' and
42 `da' but don't include a partially filled line (which is restored after
43 ending the diversion).
45 o The `asciify' request has been extended to `unformat' space characters
46 also. This makes it possible to reformat diversions; for example the
51 a01 a02 a03 a04 a05 a06 a07 a08 a09 a10.
56 b01 b02 b03 b04 b05 b06 b07 b08 b09 b10.
61 c01 c02 c03 c04 c05 c06 c07 c08 c09 c10.
68 a01 a02 a03 a04 a05 a06 a07
69 a08 a09 a10. c01 c02 c03 c04
70 c05 c06 c07 c08 c09 c10. b01
71 b02 b03 b04 b05 b06 b07 b08
74 Without the `asciify' request, space characters are converted to word
75 space nodes which are no longer stretchable, and the result would be
77 a01 a02 a03 a04 a05 a06 a07
78 a08 a09 a10. c01 c02 c03 c04
79 c05 c06 c07 c08 c09 c10. b01
80 b02 b03 b04 b05 b06 b07 b08
83 Note that `\ ' will no longer be unformatted as a space but remains an
84 unpaddable, unbreakable space character.
86 o Two new requests `tm1' and `tmc' have been added to improve writing
87 messages to the terminal. `tm1' is similar to `tm' but allows leading
88 whitespace. `tmc' is similar to `tm1' but doesn't emit a final newline.
90 o A new request `dei' (define indirect) has been added. The first and
91 second parameter of `dei' are taken from string registers rather than
92 directly; this very special request is needed to make `trace.tmac'
93 independent from the escape character (which might even be disabled).
95 o It is now possible to save and restore the escape character with two new
96 requests `ecs' and `ecr'.
98 o The new escape sequence \B'...' is an analogon to `\A': If the string
99 within the delimiters is a valid numeric expression, return character `1',
102 o The `tr' request can now map characters onto `\~'.
104 o The `writem' request is not new, but hasn't been documented before. This
105 is similar to `write' but instead of a string the contents of a given
106 macro or string is written to a stream.
111 Option -v shows the version number.
116 o The grog script will now work in non-compatibility mode also (which is the
117 default). As usual, use the `-C' option to activate compatibility mode.
119 o Option -v shows the version number.
124 A new option `-P' resp. a new environment variable `GROPS_PROLOGUE' has been
125 added to select a different prologue file.
130 o For security reasons the following changes have been done:
132 . The tmac.safer file has been replaced with a built-in solution; .open,
133 .opena, .pso, .sy, and .pi are completely disabled in safer mode (which
134 is the default); to enable these requests the `-U' command line flag
137 . Files specified with the .mso request or given with the `-m' command
138 line option, and hyphenation patterns loaded with `.hpf' are no longer
139 searched in the current directory by default (besides the usual tmac
140 path). Instead, the home directory is used. To add the current
141 directory, either use the `-U' or `-M' command line option or set the
142 GROFF_TMAC_PATH environment variable to an appropriate value.
144 . troffrc, troffrc-end, and eqnrc are neither searched in the current nor
145 in the home directory (even if -U is given). Use -M or GROFF_TMAC_PATH
148 . Similarly, the current directory is no longer part of the font path.
149 Use the `-F' command line option or the GROFF_FONT_PATH environment
150 variable if you really need the current directory.
152 o groff will now install its data files into
153 /usr/local/share/groff/<version> by default, following the GNU standard.
154 Additionally, a local tmac directory (by default
155 /usr/local/share/groff/site-tmac) will be scanned before the standard tmac
156 directory. Wrapper files for system-specific macro packages (if
157 necessary) are put into /usr/local/lib/groff/site-tmac; this directory
158 will be searched before the local tmac directory.
160 o All programs now have option `-v' to show the version number; they will
161 exit immediately afterwards, following the GNU standards.
166 Bug fixes only; no user-visible changes.
174 The anachronism of calling the man macro package with `-man' has been fixed;
175 now you can say `-m man' also. The same is true for `ms', `me', `markup',
176 `mandoc', and `mdoc'.
178 A new switch `-g' for calling `grn' is available.
180 A new switch `-G' for calling `grap' is available.
182 EBCDIC support for tty devices has been added. On such hosts, IBM code page
183 1047 is available with -Tcp1047 instead of -Tascii and -Tlatin1 (and, for
184 the moment, -Tutf8). Note that non-tty devices are not yet supported (but
190 A new command line option to the `man' macros is available: `-rSxx' (with
191 `xx' either 10, 11, or 12) to set the base document font size to `xx'
192 points. Additionally, `.SH' now produces larger headings than `.SS'.
194 To solve a problem with the .PSPIC macro which needs the `-U' switch of
195 troff to access an external program (psbb), a new request .psbb is now
196 available to get the bounding box of a PostScript image file. The values
197 (in PostScript units) are returned in the new read-only number registers
198 `llx', `lly', `urx', and `ury'. Consequently, .PSPIC has been adapted to
199 use the new request, and the psbb program has been removed.
201 A new predefined writable number register, `year', has been added. It
202 contains the current year.
204 A new read-only register, `.Y', has been added. It contains the revision
205 number of the groff package.
207 `\fP' now behaves as expected in situations like the following where the
208 font `foo' is undefined:
211 normal text \f[foo]bar\fP normal text
213 Previously, the text after \fP appeared as bold.
215 The `substring' request is not new, but hasn't been documented before.
217 The predefined `.T' string register (which holds the current output device)
218 is not new, but hasn't been documented before.
220 A new request `length' computes the length of a string and returns it in
223 The macro files `tmac.a4' (for specifying A4 paper format) and `tmac.trace'
224 (a debugging aid) are now installed also.
226 A new resource file, `troffrc-end', is now available. It is invoked after
227 all user-specified macros. Currently used by the html device to include
228 tmac.html; thus no need for users to specify -mhtml anymore.
230 The soft hyphen character now has a glyph name: `shc'.
232 The latin-1 character 173 (PS name `periodcentered') has got the troff glyph
233 name `pc' and is no longer intermixed with the symbol character `md' (PS
236 ASCII character 34 (PS name `quotedbl') has got the troff glyph name `dq'
237 (which is an alias to character `"').
239 ASCII character 39 (PS name `quoteright') has got the troff glyph name `cq'
240 (which is an alias to character "'").
242 Some additions to the font description files have been implemented for
243 better support of HTML output:
245 The new format of lines in the `charset' subsection of font description
248 name metrics type code [entity_name] [-- comment]
250 Currently, only the font description files in devhtml use the optional
251 entity_name string to define glyph entities in HTML. Everything after the
252 entity_name field is ignored; in case this field isn't used, two hyphen
253 characters are now necessary to start a comment.
255 Two new requests are available in DESC files (currently used only with
258 use_charnames_in_special
259 This command indicates that troff should encode named characters
260 inside special commands.
263 requests that troff tells the driver the source file name being
264 processed. This is achieved by another tcommand: `F filename'.
269 Bruno Haible <haible@clisp.cons.org> contributed support for UTF8 output.
274 Added .LINE macro to tmac.arkup.
276 The obsolete `.LINK' macro has been removed.
278 .URL, .FTP, and .MAILTO macros now accept an optional third argument which
279 will be immediately appended to the second argument (to be used with
280 punctuation, for example).
285 The font size 11pt has been changed to 10.95pt (as used in LaTeX 2e).
287 A new font file CWI (using cmitt10; this is typewriter italic) has been
293 A new driver for Canon CAPSL printers (LBP-4 and LBP-8 series laser
294 printers). This code has been contributed by Francisco Andres Verdu
295 <pandres@dragonet.es>.
300 A new preprocessor to process gremlin pictures. It is based on the
301 original Berkeley implementation of grn, written by David Slattengren
302 and Barry Roitblat, and has been adapted to groff by Daniel Senderowicz
303 <daniel@synchrods.com> and Werner Lemberg <wl@gnu.org>.
308 Added the `srand' command to set the seed for a new sequence of
309 pseudo-random numbers to be returned by `rand'.
314 Simplified installation: The Imakefile will now be configured (by groff's
320 Three new man pages are available: groff_tmac.5 (documenting how troff macros
321 are accessed and where they are found), groff.7 (a short reference of the GNU
322 roff language), and roff.7 (a general survey on GNU troff).
327 A port to win32 (for use with Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0) is now part of the
328 distribution. It has been contributed by Blake McBride
329 <blake@florida-software.com>.
331 More information about programs, macros, documentation, etc., which is
332 related to groff has been collected in the file `MORE.STUFF'.
334 VERSION 1.13, 1.14, 1.15
335 ========================
337 Bug fixes only; no user-visible changes.
342 Finally, there are new maintainers for groff. Mailing lists and a CVS
343 repository are available also. See the file README for details. Not
344 all reported bug could be fixed, so please send mails again if
345 something is still not working.
347 Most of the installation problems should have vanished now (most
348 notably the $(tmac_wrap) bug).
350 There is now a man page called groff_man.man which documents the
351 basics of the -man macros. It has been originally written by Susan
352 G. Kleinmann <sgk@debian.org>.
354 A (still incomplete) groff reference manual in texinfo format
355 originally contributed by Trent A. Fisher <trent@gnurd.portland.or.us>.
357 me.man and msafer.man have been renamed to groff_me.man
358 resp. groff_msafer.man for consistency.
360 Default strings for macros in doc-common resp. tmac.an no longer
361 contain the word `UNIX'.
363 groff should now be Y2k safe (fixes contributed by Paul Eggert
364 <eggert@twinsun.com>).
366 Following the GNU standards, groff will now use the prefix
367 `/usr/local/' as the default instead of replacing an existent groff
370 groff, troff, nroff, and pic now support the -U flag to activate unsafe
371 behaviour (without -msafer); the -S flag for using the -msafer macros
377 This is a new output device for producing HTML output contributed by
378 Gaius Mulley <gaius@glam.ac.uk>. It is still very alpha but has been
379 included into the distribution so that a lot of people have a chance
380 to test it. Bug reports are highly welcome.
385 Duplex printing support has been contributed by Jeffrey Copeland
391 Added -I option for defining include paths (patch contributed by Peter
392 Miller <peterm@jna.com.au>).
397 Fallback resources added (patch contributed by Larry Jones
398 <larry.jones@sdrc.com>).
400 Will now support 8 gray levels.
405 New version 1.32 (contributed by Joergen Haegg <jh@axis.com>).
410 Complete documentation for pic is now in the file doc/pic.ms. It was
411 contributed by Eric S. Raymond, <esr@thyrsus.com>, who is emphatically
412 *not* volunteering to take over groff as he is way overworked with
413 half a dozen other projects.
418 The directory where data files are installed has been changed from
419 /usr/local/lib/groff to /usr/local/share/groff to comply with the
420 latest GNU coding standards.
422 By default groff programs with Unix equivalents are installed with a
423 "g" prefix unless there is an existing (non-groff) troff installation.
425 A new approach is used to make system macro packages available to
426 groff. Instead of simply including /usr/lib/tmac in the list of
427 directories searched by groff, the installation process creates for
428 each system macro package a wrapper macro package in the groff macro
429 directory that references the system macro package. The groff macro
430 packages are now installed with a leading "g" prefix if there is a
431 system version of the same macro package, and otherwise without the
432 "g" prefix, with the exception that the groff version of -me which is
433 always installed as -me.
435 There is a new device, lj4, for the HP LaserJet 4 (and PCL5
441 groff has a -S option that prevents the use of unsafe features in pic
442 and troff. This uses a new -S option of pic and the -msafer macros
448 The `blm' request specifies a macro to be invoked when a blank line is
454 A -S (safer) option disables the sh command.
459 The -m option enables manual feed.
464 \(rn will now produce a character that has the traditional metrics,
465 and will form corners with \(ul and \(br. This means that it will not
466 align properly with \(sr. Instead there's a new character
467 \[radicalex] which aligns with \(sr; this is used by eqn for doing
473 The `pso' request allows you to read from the standard output of a
479 The PSPIC macro has options to allow the horizontal alignment of the
480 graphic to be specified.
488 The escape sequence \V[xxx] will interpolate the value of the
489 environment variable xxx.
494 The decimalpoint option can be used to specify the character to be
495 recognized as the decimal point character in place of the default
504 The environment variable GROFF_COMMAND_PREFIX can be used to control
505 whether groff looks for `gtroff' or `troff' (similarily for the
511 Multilingual hyphenation is supported by new `hpf' and `hla' requests,
512 and by a `\n[.hla]' number register. The -H option has been removed.
513 Files of hyphenation patterns can have comments.
515 When a font cannot be found, troff gives a warning (of type `font',
516 enabled by default) instead of an error.
518 There's a new request `trnt' that's like `tr' except that it doesn't
519 apply to text transparently throughput into a diversion with \!.
524 There is a `nokeep' option which tells tbl not to use diversions to
525 try to keep the table on one page.
530 Setting the parameter `nroff' to a non-zero value causes `ndefine' to
531 behave like `define' and `tdefine' to be ignored. This is done by
532 eqnrc when the current device is ascii or latin1. There's a `neqn'
533 script that just does `eqn -Tascii'.
538 grotty uses whatever page length was specified using the `pl' request
539 rather than using the paperlength command in the DESC file. The
540 paperwidth command in the DESC file is also ignored.
545 The programs in groff that have Unix counterparts can now be installed
546 without a leading `g' prefix. See the `g' variable in the Makefile.
548 The g?nroff script simulates the nroff command using groff.
550 New special characters \(+h, \(+f, \(+p, \(Fn, \(Bq, \(bq, \(aq, \(lz,
551 \(an. See groff_char(7).
553 ^L is now a legal input character.
558 The Xps pseudo-device has disappeared. Instead there is a new -X
559 option that tells groff to use gxditview instead of the usual
560 postprocessor. (So instead of -TXps, use -XTps or just -X if your
561 default device is ps.)
563 The postprocessor to be used for a particular device is now specified
564 by a `postpro' command in the DESC file rather than being compiled
565 into groff. Similarly the command to be used for printing (with the
566 -l option) is now specified by a `print' command in the DESC file.
568 The groff command no longer specifies eqnchar as an input file for
569 eqn. Instead eqn automatically loads a file `eqnrc'. The groff
570 command no longer passes the -D option to eqn. Instead eqnrc sets the
571 draw_lines parameter.
573 The groff command no longer tells troff to load a device-specific
574 macro file. This is handled instead by the `troffrc' file, which is
575 always loaded by troff.
577 The shell script version of groff has been removed.
582 The `rchar' request removes a character definition established with `char'.
584 Compatibility mode is disabled and the escape character is set to `\'
585 while a character definition is being processed.
587 The `\#' escape sequence is like `\"' except that the terminating
590 The `shc' request tells troff which character to insert (instead of
591 the default \(hy) when a word is hyphenated at a line break.
593 A font name of 0 (zero) in the DESC file will cause no font to be
594 mounted on the corresponding font position. This is useful for
595 arranging that special fonts are mounted on positions on which users
596 are not likely explicitly to mount fonts. All groff devices now avoid
597 initially mounting fonts on positions 5-9.
599 The `do' request allows a single request or macro to be interpreted
600 with compatibility mode disabled.
602 troff automatically loads a file `troffrc' before any other input file.
603 This can be prevented with the -R option. This file is responsible
604 for loading the device-specific macros.
609 The -x option has been removed and a -n option has been added. By
610 default, pic now assumes that the postprocessor supports groff
611 extensions. The -n option tells pic to generate output that works
612 with ditroff drivers. The -z option now applies only to TeX mode.
614 The -p option has been removed. Instead if the -n option is not
615 specified, pic generates output that uses \X'ps: ...' if the \n(0p
616 register is non-zero and tmac.ps sets this register to 1.
618 In places where you could 1st or 5th you can now say `i'th or `i+1'th
619 (the quotes are required).
624 Eqn now automatically reads a file `eqnrc' from the macro directory.
625 This performs the same role that the eqnchar files used to. This can
626 be prevented by the -R option.
628 Setting the draw_lines parameter to a non-zero value causes lines to
629 be drawn using \D rather than \l. The -D option is now obsolete.
631 `uparrow', `downarrow' and `updownarrow' can be used with `left' and
634 The amount of extra space added before and after lines containing
635 equations can be controlled using the `body_height' and `body_depth'
641 Font description files have been regenerated from newer AFM files.
642 You can get access to the additional characters present in the text
643 fonts in newer PostScript printers by using -mpsnew.
645 The default value of the -b option is specified by a `broken' command
648 With the -g option, grops will generate PostScript code that guesses
649 the page height. This allows documents to be printed on both letter
650 (8.5x11) and A4 paper without change.
655 ISO Latin-1 characters are available with -Tdvi. Format groff_char(7)
656 with groff -Tdvi for more information.
661 The -mtty-char macros contain additional character definitions for
667 In previous releases the groff -me macros treated the $r and $R number
668 registers in a way that was incompatible with the BSD -me macros. The
669 reason for this was that the approach used by the BSD -me macros does
670 not work with low resolution devices such as -TX75 and -TX100.
671 However, this caused problems with existing -me documents. In this
672 release, the vertical spacing is controlled by the $v and $V registers
673 which have the same meaning as $r and $R in earlier groff releases.
674 In addition, if the $r or $R register is set to a value that would be
675 correct for for the BSD -me macros and a low resolution device is not
676 being used, then an appropriate value for the $v or $V register will
677 be derived from the $r or $R register.
679 The groff -me macros work with -C and (I think) with Unix troff.
681 For backward compatibility with BSD -me, the \*{ and \*} strings are
682 also available as \*[ and \*]. Of course, \*[ will only be usable
685 The \*T string has been deleted. Use \*(Tm instead.
690 The `n', Space and Return keys are bound to the Next Page action. The
691 `p', BackSpace and Delete keys are bound to the Previous Page action.
692 The `q' key is bound to the Quit action.
694 The `r' key is bound to a rerasterize action that reruns groff, and
695 redisplays the current page.
703 There is a alternative assignment operator `:=' which interacts
704 differently with blocks.
706 There is a new command `command', which allows the values of variables
707 to be passed through to troff or TeX.
709 The `print' command now accepts multiple arguments.
711 String comparison expressions (using `==' or `!=') are allowed in more
717 Horizontal and vertical lines drawn with \D'l ...' will be rendered
718 using -, | and + characters. This is intended to give reasonable
719 results with boxed tables. It won't work well with pic.
724 The -mdoc macros have been upgraded to the version in the second
725 Berkeley networking release. This version is not completely
726 compatible with earlier versions; the old version is still available
727 as -mdoc.old. The grog script has been enhanced so that it can
728 usually determine whether a document requires the old or new versions.
730 With -TX75, -TX100 and -TXps, the PSPIC macro will produce a box
731 around where the picture would appear with -Tps.
736 An implementation of the -mm macros is included.
738 The directory in which temporary files are created can be controlled
739 by setting the GROFF_TMPDIR or TMPDIR environment variables.
744 Some MS-DOS support (see pic/make-dos-dist).
749 There are two new \X commands (\X'ps: invis' and \X'ps: endinvis')
750 which make it possible to have substitute characters that are
751 displayed when previewing with -TXps but ignored when printing with
757 Support for scalable fonts.
762 No changes other than bug fixes.
767 There is an implementation of refer and associated programs. groff -R
768 preprocesses with grefer; no mechanism is provided for passing
769 arguments to grefer because most grefer options have equivalent
770 commands which can be included in the file. grog also supports refer.
772 There is an alternative perl implementation of the grog script.
774 The code field in lines in the charset section of font description
775 files is now allowed to contain an arbitrary integer (previously it
776 was required to lie between 0 and 255). Currently grops and grodvi
777 use only the low order 8 bits of the value. Grodvi will use the
778 complete value; however, this is unlikely to be useful with
779 traditional TeX tools (.tfm files only allow 8 bit character codes.)
781 Left and right double quotes can be obtained with \(lq and \(rq
784 There is a new program called pfbtops which translates PostScript
785 fonts in pfb format to ASCII.
787 A slightly modified version of the Berkeley tmac.doc is included.
792 In long escape names the closing ] is now required to be at the same
793 input level as the opening [.
795 The \A'S' escape sequence returns 1 or 0 according as S is or is not
796 suitable for use as a name.
798 \~ produces an unbreakable space that can be stretched when the line
801 The `mso' request is like the `so' request except that it searches for
802 the file in the same directories in which tmac.X is searched for when
803 the -mX option is given.
805 The escape sequence `\R' is similar to the `nr' request.
810 A new `special' primitive allows you to add new types of unary
811 constructs by writing a troff macro.
816 The implementation no longer uses gperf.
821 The compile-time -DBROKEN_SPOOLER option has been replaced by a
822 BROKEN_SPOOLER_FLAGS option. This allows more precise control over
823 how grops should workaround broken spoolers and previewers. There is
824 a new -b option that can change this at run-time.
826 Grops now generates PostScript that complies with version 3.0 of the
827 Document Structuring Convention.
829 The resource management component of grops (the part that deals with
830 imported documents and downloadable fonts) has been rewritten and now
831 supports version 3.0 of the Document Structuring Conventions. The
832 %%DocumentFonts comment is no longer supported; you must use the
833 %%Document{Needed,Supplied}{Fonts,Resources} comments instead
836 tmac.psatk contains some macros that support the mechanism used by the
837 Andrew Toolkit for including PostScript graphics in troff documents.
842 Parts of xditview have been rewritten so that it can be used with the
843 output of gtroff -Tps. groff -TXps will run gtroff -Tps with
846 There is a new menu entry `Print' which brings up a dialog box for
847 specifying a command with which the file being previewed should be
850 Xditview now uses imake.
855 The groff command now understands the gtroff `-a' and `-i' options.
857 With the `m' and `n' scale indicators, the scale factor is rounded
858 horizontally before being applied. This makes (almost) no difference
859 for devices with `hor' equal to 1, but it makes groff with -Tascii or
860 -Tlatin1 behave more like nroff in its treatment of these scale
861 indicators. Accordingly tmac.tty now calls the `nroff' request so
862 that the `n' condition will be true.
864 The device-specific macros (tmac.ps, tmac.dvi, tmac.tty and tmac.X)
865 have been made to work at least somewhat with -C. In particular the
866 special characters defined by these macros now work with -C.
868 groff -Tdvi -p will now pass pic the -x flag; this will enable filling
869 of arrowheads and boxes, provided that your dvi driver supports the
870 latest version of the tpic specials.
875 There is a new `-N' option that tells eqn not to allow newlines in
876 delimiters. This allows eqn to recover better from missing closing
877 delimiters. The groff command will pass on a `-N' option to eqn.
882 You can now use psfig with grops. See the file ps/psfig.diff. I do
883 not recommend using psfig for new documents.
885 The command \X'ps: file F' is similar to \X'ps: exec ...' except that
886 the PostScript code is read from the file F instead of being contained
887 within the \X command. This was added to support psfig.
892 There are font files HB and HI corresponding to cmsssbx10 and cmssi10.
897 The groff -me macros now work with the -C option. As a result, they
898 may also work with Unix nroff/troff.
900 In -me, the $r and $R number registers now contain the line spacing as
901 a percentage of the pointsize expressed in units (normally about 120).
902 The previous definition was useless with low resolution devices such
908 A -ms-like macro-package is now included.
910 The name for the Icelandic lowercase eth character has been changed
916 There is a new request `nroff', which makes the `n' built-in condition
917 true and the `t' built-in condition false; also a new request `troff'
918 which undoes the effect of the `nroff' request. This is intended only
919 for backward compatibility: it is usually better to test \n(.H or
920 \n(.V or to use the `c' built-in condition.
922 The \R escape sequence has been deleted. Use \E instead.
924 There are `break' and `continue' requests for use with the `while'
927 There is a request `hym' that can ensure that when the current
928 adjustment mode is not `b' a line will not be hyphenated if it is no
929 more than a given amount short, and a request `hys' that can ensure
930 that when the current adjustment mode is `b' a line will not be
931 hyphenated if it can be justified by adding no more than a given
932 amount of extra space to each word space.
934 There is a request `rj' similar to `ce' that right justifies lines.
936 A warning of type `space' will be given when a call is made to an
937 undefined request or macro with a name longer than two characters, and
938 the first two characters of the name make a name that is defined.
939 This is intended to find places where a space has been omitted been a
940 request or macro and its argument. This type of warning is enabled by
946 A comma is permitted between the arguments to the `reset' command.
948 For use with TeX, there is a new `-c' option that makes gpic treat
949 lines beginning with `.' in a way that is more compatible with tpic
955 It is no longer necessary to add `space 0' at the beginning of
956 complicated equations inside pictures.
958 `prime' is now treated as an ordinary character, as in Unix eqn. The
959 previous behaviour of `prime' as an operator can now be obtained using
965 There are two new devices X75-12 and X100-12 which are the same as X75
966 and X100 except that they are optimized for documents that use mostly
972 The installation process has been refined to make it easy for you to
973 share groff with someone who has the same type of machine as you but
974 does not have a C++ compiler. See the end of the INSTALL file for
977 There is a man page for the tfmtodit program which explains how to use
978 your own fonts with groff -Tdvi.
980 There is a man page for afmtodit which explains how to use your own
981 PostScript fonts with groff -Tps.
983 The \N escape sequence is now fully supported. It can now be used to
984 access any character in a font by its output code, even if it doesn't
985 have a groff name. This is made possible by a convention in the font
986 files that a character name of `---' refers to an unnamed character.
987 The drivers now all support the `N' command required for this. The font
988 description files have been updated to include unnamed characters.
990 The `x' command in font description files has been removed: instead
991 any unknown commands are automatically made available to the drivers.
992 If you constructed your own font files with an earlier version of
993 tfmtodit or afmtodit, you must construct them again using the current
996 Characters between 0200 and 0237 octal are no longer legal input
997 characters. Note that these are not used in ISO 8859.
999 A command called `grog' has been added, similar to the `doctype'
1000 command described in Kernighan and Pike.
1005 The groff command has some new options: -V prints the pipeline
1006 instead of executing it; -P passes an argument to the postprocessor,
1007 -L passes an argument to the spooler.
1009 There is a C++ implementation of the groff command. This handles some
1010 things slightly better than the shell script. In particular, it can
1011 correctly handle arguments containing characters that have a special
1012 meaning to the shell; it can give an error message when child
1013 processes other than the last in the pipeline terminate abnormally;
1014 its exit status can take account of the exit statuses of all its child
1015 processes; it is a little more efficient; when geqn is used, it
1016 searches for the eqnchar file in the same way that font metric files
1017 are searched for, rather than expecting to find it in one particular
1023 There is font translation feature: For example, you can tell gtroff to
1024 use font `HR' whenever font `H' is requested with the line
1026 This would be useful for a document that uses `H' to refer to
1029 There are some new number registers: `.kern' contains the current kern
1030 mode, `.lg' the current ligature mode, `.x' the major version number,
1031 `.y' the minor version number, `.ce' the number of lines to be
1032 centered in the current environment, `.trunc' the amount of vertical
1033 space truncated by the most recently sprung vertical position trap,
1034 `.ne' the amount of vertical space needed in the last `ne' request
1035 that caused a vertical position trap to be sprung.
1037 The `cf' request now behaves sensibly in a diversion. If used in a
1038 diversion, it will now arrange for the file to be copied to the output
1039 when the diversion is reread.
1041 There is a new request `trf' (transparent file) similar to `cf', but
1044 There is a new escape sequence `\Y[xxx]', roughly equivalent to
1045 `\X'\*[xxx]'', except that the contents of string or macro xxx are not
1046 interpreted, and xxx may contain newlines. This requires an output
1047 format extension; the drivers have been modified to understand this.
1048 Grops has also been modified to cope with newlines in the arguments to
1049 \X commands; grops has a new \X command mdef, which is like def except
1050 that it has a first argument giving the number of definitions.
1052 There is a new warning category `escape' which warns about unknown
1055 The `fp' request now takes an optional third argument giving the external
1058 The `\_' character is now automatically translated to `\(ul' as in troff.
1060 The environment variable `GROFF_HYPHEN' gives the name of the file
1061 containing the hyphenation patterns.
1063 There is a `\C'xxx'' escape sequence equivalent to `\[xxx]'.
1065 Characters ", ', ), ], *, \(dg are now initially transparent for the purposes
1066 of end of sentence recognition.
1068 There is an anti-recursion feature in the `char' request, so you can
1069 say `.char \(bu \s+2\(bu\s-2'.
1071 The limit on the number of font positions has been removed.
1072 Accordingly `\n[.fp]' never returns 0.
1074 The restriction on the number of numbered environments has been removed.
1076 There is a new escape sequence `\E' that makes it possible to
1077 guarantee that an escape sequence won't get interpreted in copy-mode.
1078 The `\R' escape sequence is accordingly now deprecated.
1083 Arguments of the form `X anything X' (in the `copy thru', `sh', `for',
1084 `if' and `define' constructs) can now be of the form `{ anything }'.
1086 If the `linethick' variable is negative (as it now is initially),
1087 lines will be drawn with a thickness proportional to the current point
1090 The `rand' function now takes no arguments and returns a number between
1091 0 and 1. The old syntax is still supported.
1093 `^' can be used in expressions to indicate exponentiation.
1095 In the `for' construct the argument to the by clause can be prefixed
1096 by `*' to indicate that the increment is multiplicative.
1098 A bare expression may be used as an attribute. If the current
1099 direction is `dir', then an attribute `expr' is equivalent to
1102 There is a `sprintf' construct that allows numbers to be formatted and used
1103 wherever a quoted string can be used.
1105 The height of a text object without an explicit height attribute is
1106 the number of text strings associated with the object times the value
1107 of the `textht' variable.
1109 The maximum height and width of a picture is controlled by the
1110 `maxpswid' and `maxpsht' variables.
1115 Gtbl can now handle gracefully the situation where the `ce' request
1116 has been applied to a table.
1121 The `ifdef' primitive has been generalized.
1123 A tilde accent can be put underneath a box using `utilde'. This
1124 defined using a general `uaccent' primitive.
1129 There is a new PostScript font downloading scheme which handles font
1130 downloading for imported illustrations. Previously, the name of the
1131 file containing the font was given in the `x download' line in the
1132 groff font metric file. Now, there is a `download' file which says
1133 for each PostScript font name which file contains that font. Grops
1134 can also now handle inter-font dependencies, where one downloadable
1135 font depends on some other (possibly downloadable) font.
1137 The `T' font has been removed. The characters it used to provide are
1138 now provided by `char' definitions in tmac.ps. TSymbol.ps has also
1139 been removed, and the tweaks it provided are now provided by `char'