grolj4(1) — Linux manual page
grolj4(1) General Commands Manual grolj4(1)
Name
grolj4 - groff output driver for HP LaserJet 4 and compatible
printers
Synopsis
grolj4 [-l] [-c num-copies] [-d [n]] [-F font-directory]
[-p paper-format] [-w line-width] [file ...]
grolj4 --help
grolj4 -v
grolj4 --version
Description
This GNU roff output driver translates the output of troff(1)
into a PCL5 format suitable for a Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 4
printer. Normally, grolj4 is invoked by groff(1) when the latter
is given the “-T lj4” option. (In this installation, ps is the
default output device.) Use groff's -P option to pass any
options shown above to grolj4. If no file arguments are given,
or if file is “-”, grolj4 reads the standard input stream. It
writes to the standard output stream.
Typefaces
grolj4 supports the standard four styles: R (roman), I (italic),
B (bold), and BI (bold-italic). Fonts are grouped into families
A, C, G, O, T, TN, U, and UC having members in each style. For
the convenience of a consistent font repertoire in groff,
lj4.tmac (see section “Files” below) uses ftr requests to remap H
(“Helvetica”) font names to the U names shown below.
AB Arial Bold
ABI Arial Bold Italic
AI Arial Italic
AR Arial Roman
CB Courier Bold
CBI Courier Bold Italic
CI Courier Italic
CR Courier Roman
GB Garamond Halbfett
GBI Garamond Kursiv Halbfett
GI Garamond Kursiv
GR Garamond Antiqua
OB CG Omega Bold
OBI CG Omega Bold Italic
OI CG Omega Italic
OR CG Omega Roman
OB CG Omega Bold
OBI CG Omega Bold Italic
OI CG Omega Italic
OR CG Omega Roman
TB CG Times Bold
TBI CG Times Bold Italic
TI CG Times Italic
TR CG Times Roman
TNRB M Times Bold
TNRBI M Times Bold Italic
TNRI M Times Italic
TNRR M Times Roman
UB Univers Bold
UBI Univers Bold Italic
UI Univers Medium Italic
UR Univers Medium
UCB Univers Condensed Bold
UCBI Univers Condensed Bold Italic
UCI Univers Condensed Medium Italic
UCR Univers Condensed Medium
The following fonts are not members of a family.
ALBB Albertus Extra Bold
ALBR Albertus Medium
AOB Antique Olive Bold
AOI Antique Olive Italic
AOR Antique Olive Roman
CLARENDON
Clarendon
CORONET
Coronet
LGB Letter Gothic Bold
LGI Letter Gothic Italic
LGR Letter Gothic Roman
MARIGOLD
Marigold
The special font is S (PostScript Symbol); SYMBOL (M Symbol), and
WINGDINGS (Wingdings) are also available but not mounted by
default.
Paper format and device description file
grolj4 supports paper formats “A4”, “B5”, “C5”, “com10”, “DL”,
“executive”, “legal”, “letter”, and “monarch”. These are matched
case-insensitively. The -p option overrides any setting in the
device description file DESC. If neither specifies a paper
format, “letter” is assumed.
Font description files
grolj4 recognizes four font description file directives in
addition to those documented in groff_font(5).
pclweight n
Set the stroke weight to n, an integer in the range -7 to
+7; the default is 0.
pclstyle n
Set the style to n, an integer in the range 0 to 32767;
the default is 0.
pclproportional n
Set the proportional spacing Boolean flag to n, which can
be either 0 or 1; the default is 0.
pcltypeface n
Set the typeface family to n, an integer in the range 0 to
65535; the default is 0.
Drawing commands
An additional drawing command is recognized as an extension to
those documented in groff(7).
\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), at which the drawing
position will be afterward. This generates a PCL fill
rectangle command, and so will work on printers that do
not support HP-GL/2, unlike the other \D commands.
Fonts
Nominally, HP LaserJet 4-series and newer printers have the same
internal fonts. 45 fonts are scalable from 0.25 to 999.75 points
in 0.25-point increments. A Lineprinter font is available only
at 8.5 points.
The LaserJet font files included with groff assume that all
printers since the LaserJet 4 are identical. There are some
differences between fonts in the earlier and more recent
printers, however. The LaserJet 4 printer used Agfa Intellifont
technology for 35 of the internal scalable fonts; the remaining
10 scalable fonts were TrueType. Beginning with the
LaserJet 4000-series printers introduced in 1997, all scalable
internal fonts have been TrueType. The number of printable
glyphs differs slightly between Intellifont and TrueType fonts
(generally, the TrueType fonts include more glyphs), and there
are some minor differences in glyph metrics. Differences among
printer models are described in the PCL 5 Comparison Guide and
the PCL 5 Comparison Guide Addendum (for printers introduced
since approximately 2001).
LaserJet printers reference a glyph by a combination of a
256-glyph symbol set and an index within that symbol set. Many
glyphs appear in more than one symbol set; all combinations of
symbol set and index that reference the same glyph are
equivalent. For each glyph, hpftodit(1) searches a list of
symbol sets, and selects the first set that contains the glyph.
The printing code generated by hpftodit is an integer that
encodes a numerical value for the symbol set in the high byte(s),
and the index in the low byte. See groff_font(5) for a complete
description of the font file format; symbol sets are described in
greater detail in the PCL 5 Printer Language Technical Reference
Manual.
Two of the scalable fonts, Symbol and Wingdings, are bound to
256-glyph symbol sets; the remaining scalable fonts, as well as
the Lineprinter font, support numerous symbol sets, sufficient to
enable printing of more than 600 glyphs.
The metrics generated by hpftodit assume that the DESC file
contains values of 1200 for res and 6350 for unitwidth, or any
combination (e.g., 2400 and 3175) for which
res × unitwidth = 7620000. Although HP PCL 5 LaserJet printers
support an internal resolution of 7200 units per inch, they use a
16-bit signed integer for positioning; if devlj4 is to support
U.S. ledger paper (11 in × 17 in; in = inch), the maximum usable
resolution is 32767 ÷ 17, or 1927 units per inch, which rounds
down to 1200 units per inch. If the largest required paper
dimension is less (e.g., 8.5 in × 11 in, or A5), a greater res
(and lesser unitwidth) can be specified.
Font metrics for Intellifont fonts were provided by Tagged Font
Metric (TFM) files originally developed by Agfa/Compugraphic.
The TFM files provided for these fonts supported 600+ glyphs and
contained extensive lists of kerning pairs.
To accommodate developers who had become accustomed to TFM files,
HP also provided TFM files for the 10 TrueType fonts included in
the LaserJet 4. The TFM files for TrueType fonts generally
included less information than the Intellifont TFMs, supporting
fewer glyphs, and in most cases, providing no kerning
information. By the time the LaserJet 4000 printer was
introduced, most developers had migrated to other means of
obtaining font metrics, and support for new TFM files was very
limited. The TFM files provided for the TrueType fonts in the
LaserJet 4000 support only the Latin 2 (ISO 8859-2) symbol set,
and include no kerning information; consequently, they are of
little value for any but the most rudimentary documents.
Because the Intellifont TFM files contain considerably more
information, they generally are preferable to the TrueType TFM
files even for use with the TrueType fonts in the newer printers.
The metrics for the TrueType fonts are very close, though not
identical, to those for the earlier Intellifont fonts of the same
names. Although most output using the Intellifont metrics with
the newer printers is quite acceptable, a few glyphs may fail to
print as expected. The differences in glyph metrics may be
particularly noticeable with composite parentheses, brackets, and
braces used by eqn(1). A script, located in /usr/local/share/
groff/1.23.0/font/devlj4/generate, can be used to adjust the
metrics for these glyphs in the special font “S” for use with
printers that have all TrueType fonts.
At the time HP last supported TFM files, only version 1.0 of the
Unicode standard was available. Consequently, many glyphs
lacking assigned code points were assigned by HP to the Private
Use Area (PUA). Later versions of the Unicode standard included
code points outside the PUA for many of these glyphs. The HP-
supplied TrueType TFM files use the PUA assignments; TFM files
generated from more recent TrueType font files require the later
Unicode values to access the same glyphs. Consequently, two
different mapping files may be required: one for the HP-supplied
TFM files, and one for more recent TFM files.
Options
--help displays a usage message, while -v and --version show
version information; all exit afterward.
-c num-copies
Format num-copies copies of each page.
-d [n] Use duplex mode n: 1 is long-side binding (default), and
2 is short-side binding.
-F font-directory
Prepend directory font-directory/devname to the search
path for font and device description files; name is the
name of the device, usually lj4.
-l Format the document in landscape orientation.
-p paper-format
Set the paper format to paper-format, which must be a
valid paper format as described above.
-w line-width
Set the default line thickness to line-width thousandths
of an em; the default is 40 (0.04 em).
Environment
GROFF_FONT_PATH
lists directories in which to seek the selected output
device's directory of device and font description files.
See troff(1) and groff_font(5).
Files
/usr/local/share/groff/1.23.0/font/devlj4/DESC
describes the lj4 output device.
/usr/local/share/groff/1.23.0/font/devlj4/F
describes the font known as F on device lj4.
/usr/local/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/lj4.tmac
defines macros for use with the lj4 output device. It is
automatically loaded by troffrc when the lj4 output device
is selected.
Bugs
Small dots.
See also
HP PCL/PJL Reference: PCL 5 Printer Language Technical Reference
Manual, Part I ⟨http://www.hp.com/ctg/Manual/bpl13210.pdf⟩
hpftodit(1), groff(1), troff(1), groff_out(5), groff_font(5),
groff_char(7)
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
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