grodvi(1) — Linux manual page
grodvi(1) General Commands Manual grodvi(1)
Name
grodvi - groff output driver for TeX DVI format
Synopsis
grodvi [-dl] [-F dir] [-p paper-format] [-w n] [file ...]
grodvi --help
grodvi -v
grodvi --version
Description
The GNU roff DVI output driver translates the output of troff(1)
into TeX DVI format. Normally, grodvi is invoked by groff(1)
when the latter is given the “-T dvi” option. (In this
installation, ps is the default output device.) Use groff's -P
option to pass any options shown above to grodvi. If no file
arguments are given, or if file is “-”, grodvi reads the standard
input stream. It writes to the standard output stream.
The DVI file generated by grodvi can be interpreted by any
correctly written DVI driver. troff drawing primitives are
implemented using tpic version 2 specials. If the driver does
not support these, \D escape sequences will not produce any
output.
Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) files can be easily included; use
the PSPIC macro. pspic.tmac is loaded automatically by dvi.tmac.
See groff_tmac(5).
The default color used by the \m and \M escape sequences is
black. Currently, the stroke color for \D drawing escape
sequences is black; fill color values are translated to gray.
In groff, as in AT&T troff, the \N escape sequence can be used to
access any glyph in the current font by its position in the
corresponding TFM file.
By design, the DVI format doesn't care about the physical
dimensions of the output medium. See subsection “Device control
commands” below.
Typefaces
grodvi supports the standard four styles: R (roman), I (italic),
B (bold), and BI (bold-italic). Fonts are grouped into families
T and H having members in each style. “CM” abbreviates “Computer
Modern”.
TR CM Roman (cmr10)
TI CM Text Italic (cmti10)
TB CM Bold Extended Roman (cmbx10)
TBI CM Bold Extended Text Italic (cmbxti10)
HR CM Sans Serif (cmss10)
HI CM Slanted Sans Serif (cmssi10)
HB CM Sans Serif Bold Extended (cmssbx10)
HBI CM Slanted Sans Serif Bold Extended (cmssbxo10)
The following fonts are not members of a family.
CW CM Typewriter Text (cmtt10)
CWI CM Italic Typewriter Text (cmitt10)
Special fonts include MI (cmmi10), S (cmsy10), EX (cmex10), SC
(cmtex10, only for CW), and, perhaps surprisingly, TR, TI, and
CW, because TeX places some glyphs in text fonts that troff
generally does not. For italic fonts, CWI is used instead of CW.
Finally, the symbol fonts of the American Mathematical Society
are available as special fonts SA (msam10) and SB (msbm10). They
are are not mounted by default.
You can load the ec.tmac macro file to employ the EC and TC fonts
instead of CM, which they resemble. They also provide Euro \[Eu]
and per mille \[%0] glyphs. Do so before loading localization
macro files, because ec.tmac does not set up automatic
hyphenation codes.
Device control commands
grodvi emits the equivalent to TeX's \special{
papersize=width,length} on the first page; dvips (or another DVI
driver) then sets the page size accordingly. If either the page
width or length is not positive, no papersize special is output.
grodvi supports one device control function, accessed with the
groff request device or roff \X escape sequence.
\X'papersize=width,length'
Set the page dimensions in centimeters to width by length.
If the -l option was specified, these dimensions are
swapped. Changes to the paper dimensions should occur
prior to the first page, or during page ejection before
starting a subsequent one.
Caution: the ordering of dimensions differs from that used
by papersize.tmac and troff(1)'s “-d paper” option.
The parameter(s) to device and \X are translated to the same DVI
file instructions as would be produced by \special{anything} in
TeX; anything cannot contain a newline.
Font description files
Use tfmtodit(1) to create groff font description files from TFM
(TeX font metrics) files. The font description file should
contain the following additional directives, which tfmtodit
generates automatically.
internalname name
The name of the TFM file (without the .tfm extension) is
name.
checksum n
The checksum in the TFM file is n.
designsize n
The design size in the TFM file is n.
Drawing commands
grodvi supports an additional drawing command.
\D'R dh dv'
Draw a rule (solid black rectangle) with one corner at the
drawing position, and the diagonally opposite corner at
the drawing position +(dh,dv), which becomes the new
drawing position afterward. This command produces a rule
in the DVI file and so can be printed even with a driver
that does not support tpic specials, unlike the other \D
commands.
Options
--help displays a usage message, while -v and --version show
version information; all exit afterward.
-d Do not use tpic specials to implement drawing commands.
Horizontal and vertical lines are implemented by rules.
Other drawing commands are ignored.
-F dir Prepend directory dir/devname to the search path for font
and device description files; name is the name of the
device, usually dvi.
-l Use landscape orientation rather than portrait.
-p paper-format
Set physical dimensions of output medium, overriding the
papersize, paperlength, and paperwidth directives in the
DESC file. paper-format can be any argument accepted by
the papersize directive; see groff_font(5).
-w n Draw rules (lines) with a thickness of n thousandths of
an em. The default thickness is 40 (0.04 em).
Environment
GROFF_FONT_PATH
lists directories in which to search for devdvi, grodvi's
directory of device and font description files. See
troff(1) and groff_font(5).
Files
/usr/local/share/groff/1.23.0/font/devdvi/DESC
describes the dvi output device.
/usr/local/share/groff/1.23.0/font/devdvi/F
describes the font known as F on device dvi.
/usr/local/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/dvi.tmac
defines font mappings, special characters, and colors for
use with the dvi output device. It is automatically
loaded by troffrc when the dvi output device is selected.
/usr/local/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/ec.tmac
configures the dvi output device to use the EC and TC font
families instead of CM (Computer Modern).
Bugs
DVI files produced by grodvi use a different resolution (57,816
units per inch) from those produced by TeX. Incorrectly written
drivers which assume the resolution used by TeX, rather than
using the resolution specified in the DVI file, will not work
with grodvi.
When using the -d option with boxed tables, vertical and
horizontal lines can sometimes protrude by one pixel. This is a
consequence of the way TeX requires that the heights and widths
of rules be rounded.
See also
“What are the EC fonts?” ⟨https://texfaq.org/FAQ-ECfonts⟩; TeX
FAQ: Frequently Asked Question List for TeX
tfmtodit(1), groff(1), troff(1), groff_out(5), groff_font(5),
groff_char(7), groff_tmac(5)
COLOPHON
This page is part of the groff (GNU troff) project. Information
about the project can be found at
⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/groff/⟩. If you have a bug report
for this manual page, see ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/groff/⟩.
This page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/groff.git⟩ on 2024-06-14. (At
that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
the repository was 2024-06-10.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there
is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
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