1 Copyright (C) 1992-2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
4 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
5 notice and this notice are preserved.
7 This file describes recent user-visible changes in groff. Bug fixes are not
8 described. There are more details in the man and info pages.
16 o X11 resources for `gxditview', which were previously installed in
17 /usr/X11/lib/X11/app-defaults no matter which `prefix' was set, are
18 now installed in appresdir=$prefix/lib/X11/app-defaults. If
19 `appresdir' is not a standard X11 resource directory, the environment
20 variable XFILESEARCHPATH should be set to this path. The standard
21 default directories depends on the system `libXt'. Common directories
24 /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults
25 /usr/share/X11/app-defaults
28 Note that if the option `--with-appresdir' is passed to `configure',
29 the `prefix' will not be added to `appresdir'.
35 o This new preprocessor (contributed by Bernd Warken) allows embedding of
36 code for GNU LilyPond (http://www.lilypond.org), a music typesetter. The
37 data gets automatically processed and embedded as EPS images.
43 o Bernd Warken contributed a new preprocessor to handle Perl code that can
44 be evaluated and then processed by groff.
50 o Another preprocessor from Bernd Warken to pretty-print Pinyin syllables
51 like `guo2wang2' as `guówáng'.
57 o The pdfroff utility script now activates its `--no-toc-relocation' option
58 by default, unless a request similar to:
60 .if !\n[PHASE] .tm pdfroff-option:set toc_relocation=enabled
62 is invoked during input file processing; (`.if !\n[PHASE] ...' ensures
63 that the effect of the `.tm' request is restricted to the document setup
64 phase of processing, as pdfroff sets it to 1 or 2 in the output phase,
65 but leaves it unset in the setup phase).
67 The bundled `spdf.tmac' macro package, which implicitly activates
68 `-mpdfmark' for `ms' macro users, ensures that TOC relocation is
69 appropriately enabled, when the `.TC' macro is invoked.
75 o The -mom macro package now has full support for eqn, pic, and tbl, as well
76 as captioning and labelling of pdf images and preprocessor output. Lists
77 of Figures, Equations, and Tables can now be autogenerated. PDF_IMAGE has
80 o A French introduction to the -me macro package has been added (file
83 o In -mdoc, command %C is now available, providing a city or place
93 o The character `#' can now be used as an eqn delimiter within tables.
103 has been added to reactivate delimiters which have been disabled with
110 (There was no release 1.22.)
115 o A new option `-j' has been added to call the `chem' preprocessor.
120 o Improved line numbering support.
125 o Support for the `refer' preprocessor has been added to the -mm macro
128 o In -me, the `TH' macro was changed for compatibility with line number
131 `bl' now works inside of blocks.
133 The behaviour of centered blocks has been improved.
135 Line numbering support has been improved.
137 o The -mom macro package has reached version 2.0, focusing on PDF output
138 with gropdf (using the new `pdfmom' wrapper script). See the file
139 `version-2.html' of the -mom documentation for a list of the many changes.
141 o Some generic Unicode fallback characters (mainly Roman numerals) have been
147 o A new driver for generating PDF output directly, contributed by Deri James
148 <deri@chuzzlewit.myzen.co.uk>. Note that this driver is written in Perl,
149 thus you need a working Perl installation to run this output device.
154 o A new wrapper around groff that facilitates the production of PDF
155 documents from files formatted with the -mom macros.
164 o The new `lsm' request specifies a macro to be invoked when leading spaces
165 in an input line are encountered (which are removed then). Number
166 registers `lsn' and `lss' hold the number of removed leading spaces and
167 the corresponding horizontal space, respectively.
169 o There is a new warning category `file', enabled by default. The `mso'
170 request emits warnings in this category when the requested macro file does
173 o The new `class' request assigns a short name to a set of characters
174 which can be referred to in the `cflags' request. This is especially
175 useful to control line-breaking and hyphenation rules in CJK languages.
177 o Three new values for the `cflags' request have been added, which are
178 needed for proper CJK support.
180 128 prohibit before but allow break after character
181 256 prohibit after but allow break before character
182 512 allow break before and after character
187 o A new global option `nowarn' suppresses warnings if tables are longer than
188 the current line width.
193 o New option `-o' to specify the name of the output file.
198 o A new macro `%U' has been added to the mdoc package to indicate a URL
199 reference within an .Rs/.Re environment.
201 o Rudimentary support for the Japanese script has been added, most suitable
202 for man page handling as output by grotty. The file `ja.tmac' contains
203 the necessary setup to allow line breaks before and after CJK characters
204 (with proper exceptions). Note, however, that no inter-character spacing
205 is implemented yet -- this usually causes many warnings about bad line
212 A packaging error made it necessary to publish this release. No
213 user-visible changes.
222 o XHTML support has been added to grohtml and can be specified by
223 -Txhtml. This option also utilizes the MathML capability of
224 eqn and combines the outputs of both in the final XHTML file.
225 Users can also specify the `-P-V' option together with `-Txhtml'
226 in groff. This has the effect of creating an XHTML validator
227 button at the bottom of each page.
229 o Some options have been added to control a new preprocessor,
230 `preconv' (see below): `-k' activates it, `-K' sets the input
231 encoding, and `-D' sets the default encoding.
233 o A new environment variable `GROFF_ENCODING' sets the encoding
234 of input files; it implies command option `-k'.
239 o Two new requests `device' and `devicem' have been added which are
240 equivalents to the \X and \Y escapes, respectively.
242 o A new read-only number register `.br' is available which is set to 1
243 if a macro is called as .foo and to 0 if called as 'foo. This allows to
244 reliably modify requests.
249 . ie \\n[.br] .bp@orig
254 o A new request `fzoom' has been added to adjust the optical size of a
255 font in relation to the others. The zoom factor is given in integer
256 multiples of 1/1000th. In the following example, the CR font is
257 magnified by 10% (the zoom factor is 1.1).
262 Palatino and \f[CR]Courier\f[]
264 The new number register `.zoom' holds the zoom value of the current font,
265 in multiples of 1/1000th.
267 o The `cflags' request has been extended with a new flag value 64, to be
268 used in combination with values 2 (break before character) and 4 (break
269 after character). If set, the hyphenation codes of the surrounding
270 characters are ignored.
272 o A new debugging request, `pev', has been added to print all of the current
273 known environments to stderr. It first prints the state of the current
274 environment, then iterates through all of the known environments, printing
275 each except the one that is current.
277 o A new escape `\$^' has been added. It represents the parameters of a
278 macro as if they were an argument to the `ds' request. This is used by
281 o A new read-only number register `.O' is available which returns the
282 current suppression level as set by the `\O' escape.
284 o The space width emitted by the `\|' and `\^' escape sequences can be
285 controlled on a per-font basis. If there is a glyph named `\|' or `\^',
286 respectively (note the leading backslash), defined in the current font
287 file, use this glyph's width instead of the default value.
289 This behaviour is not new, but hasn't been documented before.
294 o Two new command line options `-w' and `-W' are accepted and passed to
295 groff to enable and disable warning messages, respectively.
300 o This is a new preprocessor to convert various input encodings to something
301 groff understands (this is, ASCII and \[uXXXX] entities, with `XXXX' a
302 hexadecimal number with 4 to 6 digits, representing a Unicode input code).
303 Normally, preconv should be invoked with options `-k' and `-K' of groff.
304 See the preconv man page for details.
309 o int(x) now really behaves as documented: It truncates the non-integer part
310 of x, this is, it rounds towards zero and not towards the next integer
311 less than or equal to x.
313 o Pic now supports up to 32 macro arguments (and up to 16 on EBCDIC
316 o Heinz-Jürgen Örtel contributed code for two new keywords, `xslanted' and
317 `yslanted', which can change the shape of boxes into arbitrary
323 o Latest versions of DWB tbl introduced an `x' column specifier for a single
324 column expanded to the line width. GNU tbl has now been extended to
325 support even multiple `x' specifiers within a table.
327 o To avoid collision with the new `x' specifier, a block formatting macro
328 must now be selected with specifier letter `m'.
333 o Eric S. Raymond has added a new device type to eqn, MathML. When
334 -TMathML is enabled, eqn now emits MathML formula markup rather than
335 groff commands. The new groff -Txhtml device uses this.
340 o The preprocessor `chem' was added. `chem' is a roff language to generate
341 chemical structure diagrams. It generates `pic' output.
346 o The PS font definition files have been regenerated with newer AFM versions
347 from Adobe's 35 core fonts as present in most Level 2 PS printers. The
348 changes are minor (most notably, the addition of the `Euro' glyph and an
349 extended set of kerning values).
351 For backwards compatibility, the old set of font definition files is still
352 available; for details please read the man page of grops.
357 o \D'p...' is now supported if the polygon consists entirely of horizontal
363 o XHTML support has been added.
365 o New command line option `-V' (to be used in XHTML mode) to produce an
366 XHTML validator button.
368 o New command line option `-y' to produce a right-justified groff signature
369 at the end of the document (in combination with option `-V').
374 o Support for keyboard navigation has been improved.
376 o Similar to other X11 applications, there are now two resource files,
377 `GXditview' and `GXditview-color'.
382 o `groffer' version 1.* exists now in a shell and a Perl version.
387 o New option `-c' to output more font information as comments.
389 o New option `-k' to suppress output of kerning data.
391 o New option `-f NAME' to set the internal name of the groff font.
396 o Joachim Walsdorff contributed the `hdtbl' package for the generation of
397 tables, using a syntax very similar to the HTML table model. For
398 example, a table with two cells and two rows looks like this:
405 Here the same table using a more expanded syntax:
416 Tables can be nested; `hdtbl' works without a preprocessor so that the
417 full capability of groff's macro engine is available.
419 This package currently works with `-Tps' only.
421 o -mandoc now supports multiple man pages (in either man or mdoc format).
423 o Fabrice Ménard contributed locales support. In particular, it is now
424 possible to get French localization of the main macro packages (-ms, -mm,
425 -me, and -mom, but not -man and -mdoc which are localized differently) by
426 appending `-mfr' to the list of macro packages. Example:
428 groff -ms -mfr foo > foo.ps
430 Note that latin-9 input encoding is used for French (to support the `oe'
433 o Swedish macro localization (with `-msv') has been added.
435 o German macro localization (with `-mde' and `-mden' for traditional and
436 new orthography, respectively) has been added.
438 o Czech macro localization (with `-mcs') has been added.
440 Note that latin-2 input encoding is used for Czech.
442 o A new macro `Dx' has been added to the mdoc package which identifies the
445 o If mdoc is used to print multiple man pages (together with the -rcR=0
446 command line option), each man page now starts a new page.
448 o -mtrace has been considerably improved, now showing number and string
449 register assignments, among other things. See the groff_trace man page
452 o The PSPIC macro now works with all devices (producing a hollow
453 rectangle on devices which don't support inclusion of PS images) and
454 is loaded in troffrc at start-up.
456 o A new auxiliary macro package `62bit' has been added which provides some
457 macros for adding, multiplying, and dividing signed 62bit integers (mainly
458 to handle normal groff number operations without risking overflow errors).
460 o For -ms, Eric S. Raymond contributed support for ancient Bell Labs
461 localisms `.SC', `.UC', `.P1', and `.P2'. The latter three are enabled
462 only after .SC is called.
464 o A new string, `SN-STYLE', has been added to the ms macros, controlling
465 the formatting of section numbers in headings defined by `.NH'.
467 o The new macro package `ptx' provides a template definition for the `.xx'
468 macro as needed by GNU ptx (for creating permuted indices).
477 o Analogously to the .ft and \f pair, two new requests `gcolor' and
478 `fcolor' (which pair with \m and \M, respectively) have been added to
479 set the glyph and background colours.
481 o A new read-only, string-valued register `.sty' returns the name of the
484 o Two new conditional operators `F <name>' and `S <name>' have been added.
485 `F' is true if a font <name> exists. `S' is true if a style <name> has
488 o Cyrillic characters have been added to the `utf8' and `html' output
494 o The `by' argument in a `for' loop can now be negative if it is additive.
495 For the multiplicative case, it must be greater than zero.
500 o The following keywords aren't new but haven't been documented previously:
502 undef NAME (to undefine a macro)
503 copy "FILE" (a synonym for `include')
504 space n (to modify the vertical spacing before and after
507 o The following macros aren't new but haven't been documented previously:
509 Alpha, ..., Omega (the same as `ALPHA', ..., `OMEGA')
510 ldots (three dots on the base line)
511 dollar (a dollar glyph)
513 o The following keywords have been extended. Again, this isn't new but
514 hasn't been documented previously:
523 cpile n { ... } (set vertical spacing between rows to N)
528 o This device driver has been raised to beta stage; its set of tags should
531 o New command line option `-s' to set the base point size.
533 o New command line option `-S' to set the split level while generating
539 o Experimental support for zero-width and double-width characters.
544 o On platforms which have the X Window System this program is now built and
545 installed automatically.
550 o This program to create font definition files for xditview isn't new but
551 hasn't been installed previously.
556 o A security problem (reported as CAN-2004-0969) has been fixed.
561 o A new script contributed by Mike Bianchi. It compares two groff, nroff,
562 or troff documents and creates an output with added margin characters
563 (using `.mc') to indicate the differences.
568 o A new wrapper script contributed by Keith Marshall to easily create PDF
569 documents with groff.
576 . Support for fractional point sizes: A value for the `PS', `VS', `FPS',
577 and `VPS' register larger than or equal to 1000 is always divided by
578 1000. For example, `.nr PS 10250' sets the document's font size to
581 . The `Ds' and `De' macros provided in ms since groff version 1.19 have
582 been removed; the equivalent `DS' and `DE' macros should be used
583 instead. X11 documents which actually use `Ds' and `De' always load a
584 specific macro file from the X11 distribution (`macros.t') which
585 provides proper definitions for the two macros.
587 . The following registers have been added for improving layout control:
590 Defines number of lines following `LP', `PP', `QP', `IP' or `XP' which
591 must be kept together, before any automatic page break.
594 Sets number of lines of following paragraph which must be kept with a
595 heading, defined by `NH' or `SH', before any automatic page break.
598 Sets the first level of heading (set with `NH') which keeps the
599 same point size as body text.
602 Sets the point size increment for each level of heading (set with
603 `NH'), below the threshold level set by `GROWPS'; e.g., if
604 \n[PS] = 10, \n[GROWPS] = 3 and \n[PSINCR] = 2.0p, then `.NH 1'
605 produces 14pt headings, `.NH 2' produces 12pt, and all other
606 levels remain at 10pt (because \n[PS] = 10).
608 . The `SH' macro now accepts a numeric argument, to make heading size
609 match that of `NH' with same argument value when the `GROWPS'/`PSINCR'
612 Please refer to the documentation of the ms package for other, minor
617 The section type set with the `++' request is available in the `_M'
618 register. This isn't new but hasn't been documented before.
622 The `HR' macro no longer causes an empty line for non-HTML devices.
624 A new macro `HEAD' has been added to directly add data to the
625 <head>...</head> block.
627 New macros `OLS' and `OLE' to start and end an ordered list.
629 New macros `DLS' and `DLE' to start and end a definition list.
634 o A new macro package contributed by Keith Marshall which implements PDF
635 marks. This is in alpha stage currently.
640 o Two new keywords to the DESC file have been added which are needed for
641 grohtml: `image_generator' and `unscaled_charwidths'. The former gives
642 the name of the program which creates PNG images, and the latter makes
643 troff always use unscaled character widths.
652 o The argument of the command line option `-I' is now also passed to troff
653 and grops, specifying a directory to search for files on the command line,
654 files named in `so' and `psbb' requests, and files named in \X'ps: file'
655 and \X'ps: import' escapes.
657 o If option `-V' is used more than once, the commands are both printed
658 on standard error and run.
663 o Two new read-only, string-valued registers `.m' and `.M' return the
664 name of the current drawing and background color, respectively.
666 o New read-only register `.U' which is set to 1 if in safer mode and set
667 to 0 if in unsafe mode.
669 o An input encoding file for latin-5 (a.k.a. ISO 8859-9) has been added.
672 groff -Tdvi -mlatin5 my_file > my_file.dvi
674 Note that some output devices don't support all glyphs of this encoding.
676 o If the `return' request is called with an argument, it exits twice,
677 namely the current macro and the macro one level higher. This is
678 used to define a wrapper macro for `return' in trace.tmac.
680 o For completeness, two new requests have been added: `dei1' and `ami1'.
681 They are equivalent to `dei' and `ami', respectively, but the macros
682 are executed with compatibility mode off (similar to `de1' and `am1').
684 o New command line option `-I' to specify a directory for files (both
685 those on the command line and those named in `psbb' requests). This is
686 also handled by the groff wrapper program.
688 o Since version 1.19 you can say `.vs 0'. Older versions emit a warning
689 and convert this to `.vs \n[.V]'.
691 This hasn't been documented properly. Note that `.vs 0' isn't saved in a
692 diversion since it doesn't result in vertical motion.
697 o Dashed and dotted ellipses have been implemented.
702 o New specifier `x' to make tbl call a user-defined macro on a table
703 cell. Patch by Heinz-Jürgen Oertel <hj.oertel@surfeu.de>.
708 o A new script contributed by Eric S. Raymond <esr@thyrsus.com>. It
709 converts a grap diagram into a cropped image. Since it uses gs and the
710 PNM library, virtually all graphics formats are available for output.
711 [Note that the grap program itself isn't part of the groff package;
712 see the file MORE.STUFF how to obtain grap.]
717 o New option `-j' to emit output split into multiple files.
722 o New command line option `-I' to specify a directory to search for files
723 on the command line and files named in \X'ps: import' and \X'ps: file'
724 escapes. This is also handled by the groff wrapper program.
726 o The default value for the `broken' keyword in the DESC file is now 0.
731 o A new man page `lj4_font(5)' documents how fonts are accessed with
734 o The built-in fonts for LJ4 and newer PCL 5 devices have been completely
735 revised, mainly to access as much glyphs as possible. The provided
736 metric files should be compatible with recent PCL 5 printers also.
737 Additionally, font description files have been added for the Arial and
738 Times New Roman family, the MS symbol, and Wingdings fonts.
743 o New option `-x' to prevent use of built-in Adobe Glyph List.
748 o Completely revised to handle HP TrueType metric files also. See the
749 hpftodit manual page for more details.
754 o This version is a rewrite of groffer in many parts, but it is kept in
755 the old single script style.
757 New options: --text, --mode text, --tty-viewer, --X, --mode X,
758 --X-viewer, --html, --mode html, --html-view, --apropos-data,
759 --apropos-devel, --apropos-progs.
761 New documentation file: README_SH.
763 Enhancement of the configuration files and the `apropos' handling.
768 o www.tmac: New macro `JOBNAME' to split output into multiple files.
770 o In mdoc, multiple calls to `.Lb' are now supported in the LIBRARY
780 o Input encoding files for latin-9 (a.k.a. latin-0 and ISO 8859-15) and
781 latin-2 (ISO 8859-2) have been added. Example use:
783 groff -Tdvi -mlatin9 my_file > my_file.dvi
785 You still need proper fonts with the necessary glyphs. Out of the box,
786 the groff package supports latin-9 only for -Tps, -Tdvi, and -Tutf8,
787 and latin-2 only for -Tdvi and -Tutf8.
789 o Composite glyphs are now supported. To do this, a subset of the Adobe
790 Glyph List (AGL) Algorithm as described in
792 http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/opentype/index_glyph.html
794 is used to construct glyph names based on Unicode character codes. The
795 existing groff glyph names are frozen; no glyph names which can't be
796 constructed algorithmically will be added in the future.
798 The \[...] escape sequence has been extended to specify multiple glyph
803 this accesses a glyph with the name `u0041_0328'.
805 Some groff glyphs which are useful as composites map to `wrong' Unicode
806 code points. For example, `ho' maps to U+02DB which is a spacing
807 ogonek, whereas a non-spacing ogonek U+0328 is needed for composite
808 glyphs. The new request
812 changes the mapping while a composite glyph name is constructed.
813 To make \[A ho] yield the expected result,
817 is needed. [The new file `composite.tmac' loaded at start-up already
818 contains proper calls to `.composite'.]
820 Please refer to the info pages of groff and to the groff_char man page
823 o A new request `fschar' has been added to define font-specific fallback
824 characters. They are searched after the list of fonts declared with the
825 `fspecial' request but before the list of fonts declared with `special'.
827 o Fallback characters defined with `fschar' can be removed with the
828 new `rfschar' request.
830 o A new request `schar' has been added to define global fallback
831 characters. They are searched after the list of fonts declared with the
832 `special' request but before the already mounted special fonts.
834 o In groff versions 1.18 and 1.18.1, \D'f ...' didn't move the current
835 point horizontally. Despite of being silly, this change has been
836 reverted for backwards compatibility. Consequently, the intermediate
837 output command `Df' also moves the position horizontally again.
839 \D'f ...' is deprecated since it depends on the horizontal resolution of
840 the output device (given with the `hor' parameter in the DESC file).
841 Use the new \D'Fg ...' escape instead.
843 o For orthogonality, new \D subcommands to change the fill color are
850 \D'Fd' (default color)
852 The arguments are the same as with the `defcolor' request. The current
853 position is *not* changed.
855 o The values set with \H and \S are now available in number registers
856 \n[.height] and \n[.slant], respectively.
858 o The `.pe' number register isn't new but hasn't been documented before.
859 It is set to 1 during a page ejection caused by the `bp' request.
861 o The new glyph symbol `tno' is a textual variant of `no'.
863 o The new glyph symbol `+e' represents U+03F5, GREEK LUNATE EPSILON SYMBOL.
864 (Well, it is not really new since it has been previously supported by
865 grolj4.) The mapping for both the dvi and lj4 symbol font has been
866 changed accordingly so that Greek small letter epsilon, `*e', has the
867 same glyph shape as with other devices.
872 o The font `freeeuro.pfa' has been added to provide various default glyph
873 shapes for `eu' and `Eu'.
875 o It is now possible to access all glyphs in a Type 1 font, not only 256
876 (provided the font file created by afmtodit has proper entries). grops
877 constructs additional encoding vectors on the fly if necessary.
879 o The paper size is now emitted via the %%DocumentMedia and PageSize
880 mechanisms so that it is no longer required to tell `gv' or `ps2pdf'
881 about the paper size. The `broken' flag value 16 omits this feature
882 (the used PostScript command `setpagedevice' is a LanguageLevel 2
883 extension) -- if you intend to further process grops output to get an
884 encapsulated PS (EPS) file you must also use this option.
886 Patch by Egil Kvaleberg <egil@kvaleberg.no>.
888 o Non-slanted PostScript metrics have been changed again; they no longer
889 contain negative left italic correction values. This assures correct
895 o The font cmtex10 has been added as the special font `SC' to the DVI fonts.
896 It is used as a font-specific special font for CW and CWI.
898 o New options -l and -p to set landscape orientation and the paper size.
899 grodvi now emits a `papersize' special which is understood by DVI drivers
902 Consequently, the DESC file should contain a `papersize' keyword.
904 o The glyph shapes for \[*f] and \[*e] have been exchanged with \[+f] and
905 \[+e], respectively, to be in sync with all other devices.
907 o Glyphs \[HE] and \[DI] have been replaced with \[u2662] and \[u2661],
908 respectively, since the former two glyphs have a black (filled) shape
909 which grodvi doesn't provide by default (it never has actually).
914 o The glyphs \[*e] and \[+e] have been exchanged to be in sync with
917 o The glyph \[~=] is now called \[|=]. Similar to other devices, \[~=]
918 is now another name for glyph \[~~].
923 o New option `-r'. It is similar to the -i option except it tells grotty to
924 use the `reverse video' attribute to render italic fonts.
929 o New command `figname' to set the name of a picture's output box in TeX
935 o The environment variable `REFER' to override the name of the default
936 database isn't new but hasn't been documented before.
941 o New option `-r' to avoid emission of `.lf' lines.
943 o New option `-t' to emit TeX comment lines (giving current file and the
944 line number) instead of `.lf' lines.
949 o Unencoded glyphs in an AFM file are output also (since grops can now emit
950 multiple encoding vectors for a single font).
952 o New option `-m' to prevent negative left italic correction values.
954 o The mapping and encoding file together with file `DESC' are now searched
955 in the default font directory also. Please refer to the man page of
956 afmtodit for more details.
961 o Larry Kollar <kollar@alltel.net> and others made the man macros more
964 . New command line options -rFT, -rIN, and -rSN to set the vertical
965 location of the footer line, the body text indentation, and the
966 sub-subheading indentation.
968 . New command line option -rHY (similar to the ms macros) to control
971 . New macros `.PT' and `.BT' to print the header and footer strings.
972 They can be replaced with a customized version in `man.local'.
974 . The string `HF' now holds the typeface to print headings and
977 . Similar to the ms macros, the LT register now defaults to LL if not
978 explicitly specified on the command line.
980 o troff's start-up file `troffrc' now includes `papersize.tmac' to set
981 the paper size with the command line option `-dpaper=<size>'.
983 Possible values for `<size>' are the same as the predefined `papersize'
984 values in the DESC file (only lowercase; see the groff_font man page)
985 except a7-d7. An appended `l' (ell) character denotes landscape
986 orientation. Examples: `a4', `c3l', `letterl'.
988 Most output drivers need additional command line switches `-p' and
989 `-l' to override the default paper length and orientation as set in
990 the driver specific DESC file.
992 For example, use the following for PS output on A4 paper in landscape
995 groff -Tps -dpaper=a4l -P-pa4 -P-l -ms foo.ms > foo.ps
1004 o The non-slanted PostScript font definition files have been regenerated to
1005 include left and right italic correction values. Applying those to a
1006 glyph (this is, prepending the glyph with `\,' and appending `\/' to the
1007 glyph) sets the glyph width to the real value given by the horizontal
1008 bounding box values. Without those escapes, the advance width for the
1009 particular glyph is used (which can differ considerably).
1011 Most users will neither need this feature nor notice a difference in
1012 existing documents (provided \, and \/ is used as advertised, namely for
1013 italic fonts only); its main goal is to improve image generation with
1016 This is an experimental change, and feedback is welcome.
1021 o Added global option `nospaces' to ignore leading and trailing spaces in
1027 o The option -w (--linewidth) has been added (similar to other device
1028 drivers) to set the default line width.
1033 o Support for b-spline and Bezier curves has been added.
1038 o New option `--shell' to select the shell under which groffer shall run.
1043 o The string `Am' (producing an ampersand) has been added to mdoc for
1044 compatibility with NetBSD.
1046 o `.IX' is now deprecated for mom; you should use `.IQ' (Indent Quit)
1049 o In mom, new inlines `FWD', `BCK', `UP', and `DOWN' deal with horizontal
1050 and vertical movements; please refer to contrib/mom/NEWS for more
1053 o New macro ENDNOTES_HDRFTR_CENTER for mom to better control headers.
1058 o The `papersize' keyword in the DESC file now accepts multiple arguments.
1059 It is scanned from left to the right, and the first valid argument is
1060 used. This makes it possible to provide a fallback paper size.
1064 papersize /etc/papersize a4
1066 o A local font directory has been prepended to the default font path; it
1067 defaults to /usr/local/share/groff/site-font. Similar to the normal
1068 font searching process, files must be placed into a devXXX subdirectory,
1071 /usr/local/share/groff/site-font/devps/FOO
1073 for a PostScript font definition file FOO.
1079 ***************************************************************************
1081 * PLEASE READ THE CHANGES BELOW REGARDING GROTTY, GROFF'S TTY FRONTEND. *
1083 ***************************************************************************
1088 o Color support has been added to troff and pic (and to the device drivers
1089 grops, grodvi, grotty, and grohtml -- other preprocessors and drivers will
1090 follow). A new function `defcolor' defines colors; the escape sequence
1091 `\m' sets the drawing color, the escape sequence `\M' specifies the
1092 background color for closed objects created with \D'...' commands.
1093 `\m[]' and `\M[]' switch back to the previous color. `\m' and `\M'
1094 correspond to the new troff output command sets starting with `m' and
1095 `DF'. The device-specific default color is called `default' and can't be
1098 Use the `color' request to toggle the usage of colors (default is on); the
1099 read-only register `.color' is 0 if colors are not active, and non-zero
1102 The old `Df' output command is mapped onto `DFg'; all color output
1103 commands don't change the current font position (consequently, `Df'
1106 Outputting color can be disabled in troff and groff with the option -c
1107 (it is always disabled in compatibility mode). See the section on grotty
1108 for the GROFF_NO_SGR environment variable also.
1110 For defining color components as fractions between 0 and 1, a new scaling
1111 indicator `f' has been introduced: 1f = 65536u. For testing whether a
1112 color is defined (with .if and .ie), a new conditional operator `m' is
1115 More details can be found in the groff_diff.7 manual page and in
1118 o Similar to \m and \M, \f[] switches back to the previous font. \fP
1119 (and \f[P]) is still valid for backwards compatibility.
1121 o The new escape \F is the same as `.fam'; \F[] switches back to previous
1122 family -- \F[P] selects family `P'.
1124 o Two new glyph symbols are available: `eu' is the official Euro symbol;
1125 `Eu' is a font-specific glyph variant.
1127 o The new glyph symbols `t+-', `tdi', and `tmu' are textual variants of
1128 `+-', `di', and `mu', respectively.
1130 o Latin-1 character 181 (PS name `mu', Unicode name U+00B5 MICRO SIGN) has
1131 got the troff glyph name `mc'.
1133 o -Tutf8 is now available on EBCDIC hosts.
1135 o Strings can take arguments, using this syntax: \*[foo arg1 arg2 ...].
1138 .ds xxx This is a \\$1 test.
1141 o It is now possible to have whitespace between the first and second dot (or
1142 the name of the ending macro) to end a macro definition. Example:
1148 . nop Hello, I'm `foo'.
1149 . nop I will now define `bar'.
1151 . nop Hello, I'm `bar'.
1155 o `.fn' is a new string-valued register which returns the (internal) real
1156 font name; styles and families are properly concatenated.
1158 o Three new read/write registers `seconds', `minutes', and `hours' contain
1159 the current time, set at start-up of troff. Use the `af' request to
1160 control their output format.
1162 o The new request `fchar' can be used to provide fallback characters. It
1163 has the same syntax as the `char' request; the only difference is that a
1164 character defined with `.char' hides the glyph with the same name in the
1165 current font, whereas a character defined with `.fchar' is checked only if
1166 the particular glyph isn't found in the current font. This test happens
1167 before checking special fonts.
1169 o In analogy to the `tmc' request, `.writec' is the same as `.write' but
1170 doesn't emit a final newline.
1172 o The new request `itc' is a variant of `.it' for which a line interrupted
1173 with \c counts as one input line.
1175 o Two new requests `ds1' and `as1' which are similar to `ds' and `as' but
1176 with compatibility mode disabled during expansion of strings defined by
1179 o The syntax of the `substring' request has been changed: The first
1180 character in a string now has index 0, the last character has index -1.
1181 Note that this is an incompatible change.
1183 o To emit strings directly to the intermediate output, a new `output'
1184 request has been added; it is similar to `\!' used at the top level.
1186 o `.hpf' has been extended. It can now handle most TeX hyphenation
1187 pattern files without modification. To do that, the commands \patterns,
1188 \hyphenation, and \endinput are recognized. Please refer to groff_diff.7
1189 for more information.
1191 o `hpfcode' is a new request to provide an input encoding mapping for the
1194 o The new request `hpfa' appends hyphenation patterns (`hpf' replaces
1195 already existing patterns).
1197 o A new request `ami' (append macro indirect) has been added. The first and
1198 second parameter of `ami' are taken from string registers rather than
1199 directly; this very special request is needed to make `trace.tmac'
1200 independent from the escape character (which might even be disabled).
1202 o The new request `sizes' is similar to the `sizes' command in DESC files.
1203 It expects the same syntax; the data must be on a single line, and the
1204 final `0' can be omitted.
1206 o `trin' (translate input) is a new request which is similar to `tr' with
1207 the exception that the `asciify' request uses the character code (if
1208 any) before the character translation. Example:
1220 The result is `x a'. Using `tr', the result would be `x x'.
1222 o The request `pvs' isn't new, but hasn't been documented before. It
1223 adds vertical space after a line has been output. This makes it an
1224 alternative to the `ls' request to produce double-spaced documents.
1225 The read-only register `.pvs' holds the current amount of the
1226 post-vertical line space.
1228 o For compatibility with plan 9's troff, multiple `pi' requests are
1234 is now equivalent to
1238 o A new escape sequence `\O' is available to disable and enable glyph
1239 output. Please see groff_diff.7 and groff.texinfo for more details.
1241 o The escapes `\%', `\&', `\)', and `\:' no longer cause an error in \X;
1242 they are ignored now. Additionally `\ ' and `\~' are converted to
1243 single space characters.
1245 o The default tab distance in nroff mode is now 0.8i to be compatible
1248 o Using the latin-1 input character 0xAD (soft hyphen) for the `shc'
1249 request was a bad idea. Instead, it is now translated to `\%', and
1250 the default hyphenation character is again \[hy]. Note that the glyph
1251 \[shc] is not useful for typographic purposes; it only exists to have
1252 glyph names for all latin-1 characters.
1257 o Peter Schaffter <df191@ncf.ca> has contributed a new major macro package
1258 called `mom', mainly for non-scientific writers, which takes care of
1259 many typographic issues. It comes with a complete reference (in HTML
1260 format) and some examples. `mom' has been designed to format documents
1261 for PostScript output only.
1263 o Two macros `AT' (AT&T) and `UC' (Univ. of California) have been added to
1264 the man macros for compatibility with older BSD releases.
1266 o Both the man and mdoc macro packages now use the LL and LT registers for
1267 setting the line and title length, respectively (similar to those
1268 registers in the ms macro package). If not set on the command line or
1269 in a macro file loaded before the macro package itself, they default to
1270 78n in nroff mode and 6.5i in troff mode.
1272 o The `-xwidth' specifier in the mdoc macro package has been removed. Its
1273 functionality is now integrated directly into `-width'. Similarly,
1274 `-column' has been extended to provide this functionality also.
1276 o A new macro `Ex' has been added to the mdoc macro package to document an
1279 o The PSPIC macro has been extended to work with DVI output (`pspic.tmac' is
1280 now automatically loaded for -Tdvi), using a dvips special to load the EPS
1283 o The trace.tmac package now traces calls to `am' also. Additionally, it
1284 works in compatibility mode.
1286 o `troff.1' has been split. Differences to UNIX troff are now documented
1287 in the new man page `groff_diff.7'.
1289 o `groff_mwww.7' has been renamed to `groff_www.7'. The file mwww.tmac
1292 o `groff_ms.7' has been completely rewritten. It now contains a complete
1293 reference to the ms macros.
1295 o `groff_trace.7' documents the trace macro package.
1297 o Changes in www.tmac:
1299 Note that HTML support is still in alpha change, so it is rather likely
1300 that both macro names and macro syntax will change. Some of the macros
1301 mentioned below aren't really new but haven't been documented properly
1304 The following macros have been renamed:
1310 For consistency, the macros `URL', `FTL', and `MTO' now all have the
1311 address as the first parameter followed by the description.
1313 By default, grohtml generates links to all section headings at the top
1314 of the document. Use the new `LK' macro to specify a different place.
1316 For specifying the background color and a background image, use the
1317 new macros `BCL' and `BGIMG', respectively.
1319 The macro `NHR' has been added; it suppresses the generation of top and
1320 bottom rules which grohtml emits by default.
1322 The new macro `HX' determines the cut-off point for automatic link
1323 generation to headings.
1325 The image position parameter names in `IMG' have been changed to `-L',
1328 New macro `PIMG' for inclusion of a PNG image (it automatically
1329 converts it into an EPS file if not -Thtml is used).
1331 New macro `MPIMG' for putting a PNG image into the left or right margin
1332 (it automatically converts it into an EPS file if not -Thtml is used).
1334 New macros `HnS', `HnE' to start and end a header line block.
1336 New macro `DC' to produce dropcap characters.
1338 New macro `HTL' to generate an HTML title line only but no H1 heading.
1340 New macros `ULS' and `ULE' to start and end an unordered list. The new
1341 macro `LI' inserts a list item.
1346 o The new command line option `-c' disables color output (which is always
1347 disabled in compatibility mode).
1352 o Two new command line options `-c' and `-C'; the former passes `-c' to
1353 grotty (switching to the old output scheme); the latter passes `-C' to
1354 groff (enabling compatibility mode).
1359 o New keywords `color' (or `colour', `colored', `coloured'), `outline' (or
1360 `outlined'), and `shaded' are available. `outline' sets the color of the
1361 outline, `shaded' the fill color, and `color' sets both. Example:
1363 circle shaded "green" outline "black" ;
1365 Filled arrows always use the outline color for filling.
1367 Color support for TeX output is not implemented yet.
1372 o A new script contributed by Eric S. Raymond <esr@thyrsus.com>. It
1373 converts a PIC diagram into a cropped image. Since it uses gs and the PNM
1374 library, virtually all graphics formats are available for output.
1379 o A new script contributed by Eric S. Raymond <esr@thyrsus.com>. It
1380 converts an EQN diagram into a cropped image. Since it uses gs and the PNM
1381 library, virtually all graphics formats are available for output.
1386 o A new script contributed by Bernd Warken <bwarken@mayn.de>. It displays
1387 groff files and man pages on X and tty, taking care of most parameters
1393 o Documents using the mom macro package are recognized.
1398 o Color support has been added.
1400 o A new option `-p' is available to select the output paper size. It has
1401 the same syntax as the new `papersize' keyword in the DESC file.
1406 o By default, font sizes are now available in the range 5-10000pt, similar
1407 to PS fonts. If you want the old behaviour (i.e., font sizes at discrete
1408 values only), insert the following at the start of your document:
1411 . sizes 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1095 1200 1400 1440 1600 \
1412 1728 1800 2000 2074 2200 2400 2488 2800 3600
1414 o A new font file HBI (using cmssbxo10; this is slanted sans serif bold
1415 extended) has been added.
1417 o Two font families are now available: `T' and `H'.
1419 o EC and TC fonts have been integrated. Use `-mec' (calling the file
1420 ec.tmac) to switch to them. Those fonts give a much better coverage of
1421 the symbols defined by groff than the CM fonts.
1423 Note that ec.tmac must be called before any language-specific files; it
1424 doesn't take care of hcode values.
1426 o Color support has been added. For drawing commands, colors are translated
1427 to gray values currently.
1432 o Color support has been added, using the SGR (ISO 6429, sometimes called
1433 ANSI color) escape sequences.
1435 o SGR escape sequences are now used by default for underlining and bold
1436 printing also, no longer using the backspace character trick. To revert
1437 to the old behaviour, use the `-c' switch.
1439 Note that you have to use the `-R' option of `less' to make SGR escapes
1440 display correctly. On the other hand, terminal programs and consoles like
1441 `xterm' which support SGR sequences natively can directly display the
1442 output of grotty. Consequently, the options `-b', `-B', `-u', and `-U'
1443 work only in combination with `-c' and are ignored silently otherwise.
1445 For the `man' program, it may be necessary to add the `-R' option of
1446 `less' to the $PAGER environment variable (or $MANPAGER, depending on the
1447 used `man' program); alternatively, you can use `man's `-P' option (or
1448 adapt its configuration file accordingly). See man(1) for more details.
1450 o If the environment variable GROFF_NO_SGR is set, SGR output is disabled,
1451 reverting to the old behaviour.
1453 o A new special \X'tty: sgr n' has been added; if n is non-zero or missing,
1454 enable SGR output (the default).
1456 o If the new option `-i' is used (only in SGR mode), grotty sends escape
1457 sequences to set the italic font attribute instead of the underline
1458 attribute for italic fonts. Note that many terminals don't have support
1459 for this (including xterm).
1464 o Color support for glyphs has been added.
1466 o New option `-h' to select the style of headings in HTML output.
1468 o New option `-b' to set the background colour to white.
1470 o New options `-a' and `-g' to control the number of bits for anti-aliasing
1471 used for text and graphics, respectively. Default value is 4; 0 means
1474 o groff character/glyph entities now map onto HTML 4 character entities.
1479 o Valid paper sizes are now specified as with the new `papersize' keyword
1480 in the DESC file. Specifically, the old custom paper type format
1481 `custAAAxBBB' is no longer supported.
1486 o A new manual page `ditroff.7' is available.
1488 o The groff texinfo manual is installed now, together with a bunch
1491 o A new keyword `papersize' has been added to the DESC file format. Its
1494 . a predefined paper format (e.g. `A4' or `letter')
1496 . a file name pointing to a file which must contain a paper size
1497 specification in its first line (e.g. `/etc/papersize')
1499 . a custom paper size definition like `35c,4i'
1501 See groff_font(5) for more details. This keyword only affects the
1502 physical dimensions of the output medium; grops, grolj4, and grolbp use it
1503 currently. troff completely ignores it.
1509 This is major bug-fixing release which should replace 1.17.1.
1514 o The `IMAGE' macro in www.tmac has changed: Now the optional 2nd parameter
1515 gives the horizontal image location (left, centered, or right), and the
1516 optional 3rd and 4th parameter the image dimensions.
1522 This is mainly a bug-fixing release.
1527 o Two new requests `de1' and `am1' which are similar to `de' and `am' but
1528 with compatibility mode disabled during expansion of macros defined by
1531 o Added request `brp'. This is the same as `\p'.
1533 o Similar to other versions of troff, the `ns' request now works in all
1534 diversions, not only in the top-level one.
1536 o New read-only number register `.ns'. Returns 1 if in no-space mode,
1542 o Options -p (pic) and -t (tbl) added.
1544 o The environment variable GROFF_BIN_PATH is now checked before PATH for
1550 o New option `-D dir' to specify a directory in which all images are placed.
1552 o New option `-I stem' to specify an image name stame. If not given,
1553 `grohtml-XXX' is used (`XXX' is the process ID).
1562 o `-mFOO' now searches first for `FOO.tmac' and then for `tmac.FOO'. The
1563 old behaviour has been changed to overcome problems with platforms which
1564 have an 8+3 file name limit, and platforms which have other versions of
1565 troff installed also. Additionally, all macro files have been renamed
1566 using the latter scheme to avoid 8+3 name clashes.
1568 o The new environment variable GROFF_BIN_PATH is checked for programs groff
1569 is calling (preprocessors, troff, and output devices) before PATH. If not
1570 set, it defaults to the directory where the groff binary is located.
1571 Previously, it was PATH only. The nroff script only uses GROFF_BIN_PATH
1572 to find the groff binary but passes both the GROFF_BIN_PATH and PATH
1573 environment variables to groff.
1578 o The mdoc package has been completely rewritten, using the full power of
1579 GNU troff to remove limitations of Unix troff (which is no longer
1580 supported). Most important changes are:
1583 . Almost all macros are parsed and callable (if it makes sense)
1584 . `.Lb': prints library names
1585 . `.Nm <punctuation>' now works as expected; `.Nm "" <punctuation>' has
1587 . Updated `.St' command
1588 . `.Fx': prints FreeBSD
1589 . `.Ox': prints OpenBSD
1590 . `.Bsx': prints BSD/OS
1591 . `.Brq', `.Bro', `.Brc': brace enclosure macros
1592 . `.Bd -centered': center lines
1593 . `.Bl -xwidth <string>': interpret <string> and use the resulting width
1594 . Support for double-sided printing (-rD1 command line switch)
1595 . Support for 11pt and 12pt document sizes (-rS11, -rS12 command line
1598 `groff_mdoc.7' replaces `groff_mdoc.samples.7'; it now completely
1599 documents the mdoc package.
1601 Great care has been taken to assure backwards compatibility. If you
1602 encounter any abnormal results, please report them to bug-groff@gnu.org.
1604 o A new command line option for the `man' macros (similar to the `mdoc'
1605 package) has been implemented: `-rcR=1' (now the default in nroff mode)
1606 produces one single, very long page instead of multiple pages. `-rcR=0'
1609 o The `return' request has been added to return immediately from a macro.
1611 o A new request `nop' (no operation) has been added which is similar to
1612 `if 1'. For example,
1618 can now be written as
1624 o `box' and `boxa' are two new requests which behave similarly to `di' and
1625 `da' but don't include a partially filled line (which is restored after
1626 ending the diversion).
1628 o The `asciify' request has been extended to `unformat' space characters
1629 and some other escape sequences also.
1631 `\ ' is no longer unformatted as a space but remains an unpaddable,
1632 unbreakable space character.
1634 o The new `unformat' request is similar to `asciify' but only handles space
1635 characters and tabs specially if the diversion is reread, retaining font
1636 information. This makes it possible to reformat diversions; for example
1641 a01 a02 a03 a04 a05 a06 a07 a08 a09 a10.
1646 \f[B]b01 b02 b03 b04 b05 b06 b07 b08 b09 b10.\f[P]
1651 c01 c02 c03 c04 c05 c06 c07 c08 c09 c10.
1658 a01 a02 a03 a04 a05 a06 a07
1659 a08 a09 a10. c01 c02 c03 c04
1660 c05 c06 c07 c08 c09 c10. b01
1661 b02 b03 b04 b05 b06 b07 b08
1664 Without the `unformat' request, space characters are converted to word
1665 space nodes which are no longer stretchable, and the result would be
1667 a01 a02 a03 a04 a05 a06 a07
1668 a08 a09 a10. c01 c02 c03 c04
1669 c05 c06 c07 c08 c09 c10. b01
1670 b02 b03 b04 b05 b06 b07 b08
1673 o The new request `linetabs' controls the `line-tabs' mode. In line-tabs
1674 mode, tab distances are computed relative to the (current) output line.
1675 Otherwise they are taken relative to the input line. For example, the
1690 In line-tabs mode, the same code gives
1694 The new read-only number register `.linetabs' returns 1 if in line-tabs
1695 mode, and 0 otherwise.
1697 o Two new requests `tm1' and `tmc' have been added to improve writing
1698 messages to the terminal. `tm1' is similar to `tm' but allows leading
1699 whitespace. `tmc' is similar to `tm1' but doesn't emit a final newline.
1701 o For compatibility with sqtroff, the request `output' has been added.
1702 The behaviour is similar to `\!' at the top-level, that is, it directly
1703 inserts its argument into the intermediate output format. The syntax
1704 is similar to .tm1, allowing leading whitespace.
1706 o The new `spreadwarn' request makes troff warn if spaces in an output
1707 line are widened by a given limit or more.
1709 o Use `warnscale' to change the scaling indicator troff uses for
1712 o A new request `dei' (define indirect) has been added. The first and
1713 second parameter of `dei' are taken from string registers rather than
1714 directly; this very special request is needed to make `trace.tmac'
1715 independent from the escape character (which might even be disabled).
1717 o It is now possible to save and restore the escape character with two new
1718 requests `ecs' and `ecr'.
1720 o The new escape sequence \B'...' is an analogon to `\A': If the string
1721 within the delimiters is a valid numeric expression, return character `1',
1724 o The new escape sequence `\:' inserts a zero-width break point. This is
1725 similar to `\%' but without a soft hyphen character.
1727 o The `tr' request can now map characters onto `\~'.
1729 o Calling the `fam' request without an argument switches back to the
1730 previous font family.
1732 o The new read-only register `.int' is set to a positive value if the last
1733 output line is interrupted (i.e., if the input line contains `\c').
1735 o The `writem' request is not new, but hasn't been documented before. This
1736 is similar to `write' but instead of a string the contents of a given
1737 macro or string is written to a stream.
1739 o The read/write number register `hp' to get/set the current horizontal
1740 position relative to the input line isn't new but hasn't been documented
1743 o `\X' and `\Y' are now transparent for end-of-sentence recognition.
1745 o The `cu' request in nroff mode now works as documented (i.e., it
1746 underlines spaces also).
1751 o The grog script now works in non-compatibility mode also (which is the
1752 default). As usual, use the `-C' option to activate compatibility mode.
1757 o A new option `-P' resp. a new environment variable `GROPS_PROLOGUE' has
1758 been added to select a different prologue file.
1760 o The effect of the former `-mpsnew' option to access more Type 1 characters
1761 is now the default and no longer available. To get the old behaviour
1762 (i.e., emulation of some glyphs by composition) use `-mpsold'.
1767 o For security reasons the following changes have been done:
1769 . The tmac.safer file has been replaced with a built-in solution; .open,
1770 .opena, .pso, .sy, and .pi are completely disabled in safer mode (which
1771 is the default); to enable these requests the `-U' command line flag
1774 . Files specified with the .mso request or given with the `-m' command
1775 line option, and hyphenation patterns loaded with `.hpf' are no longer
1776 searched in the current directory by default (besides the usual tmac
1777 path). Instead, the home directory is used. To add the current
1778 directory, either use the `-U' or `-M' command line option or set the
1779 GROFF_TMAC_PATH environment variable to an appropriate value.
1781 . troffrc, troffrc-end, and eqnrc are neither searched in the current nor
1782 in the home directory (even if -U is given). Use -M or GROFF_TMAC_PATH
1785 . Similarly, the current directory is no longer part of the font path.
1786 Use the `-F' command line option or the GROFF_FONT_PATH environment
1787 variable if you really need the current directory.
1789 o groff now installs its data files into /usr/local/share/groff/<version> by
1790 default, following the GNU standard. Additionally, a local tmac directory
1791 (by default /usr/local/share/groff/site-tmac) is scanned before the
1792 standard tmac directory. Wrapper files for system-specific macro packages
1793 (if necessary) are put into /usr/local/lib/groff/site-tmac; this directory
1794 is searched before the local tmac directory.
1796 o All programs now have option `-v' to show the version number; they exit
1797 immediately afterwards, following the GNU standards. Additionally,
1798 `--version' and `--help' have been added, doing the obvious actions.
1804 Bug fixes only; no user-visible changes.
1813 The anachronism of calling the man macro package with `-man' has been fixed;
1814 now you can say `-m man' also. The same is true for `ms', `me', `markup',
1815 `mandoc', and `mdoc'.
1817 A new switch `-g' for calling `grn' is available.
1819 A new switch `-G' for calling `grap' is available.
1821 EBCDIC support for tty devices has been added. On such hosts, IBM code page
1822 1047 is available with -Tcp1047 instead of -Tascii and -Tlatin1 (and, for
1823 the moment, -Tutf8). Note that non-tty devices are not yet supported (but
1829 A new command line option to the `man' macros is available: `-rSxx' (with
1830 `xx' either 10, 11, or 12) to set the base document font size to `xx'
1831 points. Additionally, `.SH' now produces larger headings than `.SS'.
1833 To solve a problem with the .PSPIC macro which needs the `-U' switch of
1834 troff to access an external program (psbb), a new request .psbb is now
1835 available to get the bounding box of a PostScript image file. The values
1836 (in PostScript units) are returned in the new read-only number registers
1837 `llx', `lly', `urx', and `ury'. Consequently, .PSPIC has been adapted to
1838 use the new request, and the psbb program has been removed.
1840 A new predefined writable number register, `year', has been added. It
1841 contains the current year.
1843 A new read-only register, `.Y', has been added. It contains the revision
1844 number of the groff package.
1846 `\fP' now behaves as expected in situations like the following where the
1847 font `foo' is undefined:
1850 normal text \f[foo]bar\fP normal text
1852 Previously, the text after \fP appeared as bold.
1854 The `substring' request is not new, but hasn't been documented before.
1856 The predefined `.T' string register (which holds the current output device)
1857 is not new, but hasn't been documented before.
1859 A new request `length' computes the length of a string and returns it in
1862 The macro files `tmac.a4' (for specifying A4 paper format) and `tmac.trace'
1863 (a debugging aid) are now installed also.
1865 A new resource file, `troffrc-end', is now available. It is invoked after
1866 all user-specified macros. Currently used by the html device to include
1867 tmac.html; thus no need for users to specify -mhtml anymore.
1869 The soft hyphen character now has a glyph name: `shc'.
1871 The latin-1 character 173 (PS name `periodcentered') has got the troff glyph
1872 name `pc' and is no longer intermixed with the symbol character `md' (PS
1875 ASCII character 34 (PS name `quotedbl') has got the troff glyph name `dq'
1876 (which is an alias to character `"').
1878 ASCII character 39 (PS name `quoteright') has got the troff glyph name `cq'
1879 (which is an alias to character "'").
1881 Some additions to the font description files have been implemented for
1882 better support of HTML output:
1884 The new format of lines in the `charset' subsection of font description
1887 name metrics type code [entity_name] [-- comment]
1889 Currently, only the font description files in devhtml use the optional
1890 entity_name string to define glyph entities in HTML. Everything after the
1891 entity_name field is ignored; in case this field isn't used, two hyphen
1892 characters are now necessary to start a comment.
1894 Two new requests are available in DESC files (currently used only with
1897 use_charnames_in_special
1898 This command indicates that troff should encode named characters
1899 inside special commands.
1902 requests that troff tells the driver the source file name being
1903 processed. This is achieved by another tcommand: `F filename'.
1908 Bruno Haible <haible@clisp.cons.org> contributed support for UTF8 output.
1913 Added .LINE macro to tmac.arkup.
1915 The obsolete `.LINK' macro has been removed.
1917 .URL, .FTP, and .MAILTO macros now accept an optional third argument which
1918 is immediately appended to the second argument (to be used with
1919 punctuation, for example).
1924 The font size 11pt has been changed to 10.95pt (as used in LaTeX 2e).
1926 A new font file CWI (using cmitt10; this is typewriter italic) has been
1932 A new driver for Canon CAPSL printers (LBP-4 and LBP-8 series laser
1933 printers). This code has been contributed by Francisco Andres Verdu
1934 <pandres@dragonet.es>.
1939 A new preprocessor to process gremlin pictures. It is based on the
1940 original Berkeley implementation of grn, written by David Slattengren
1941 and Barry Roitblat, and has been adapted to groff by Daniel Senderowicz
1942 <daniel@synchrods.com> and Werner Lemberg <wl@gnu.org>.
1947 Added the `srand' command to set the seed for a new sequence of
1948 pseudo-random numbers to be returned by `rand'.
1953 Simplified installation: The Imakefile is now configured (by groff's
1959 Three new man pages are available: groff_tmac.5 (documenting how troff macros
1960 are accessed and where they are found), groff.7 (a short reference of the GNU
1961 roff language), and roff.7 (a general survey on GNU troff).
1966 A partial port to win32 (for use with Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0) is now part
1967 of the distribution. It has been contributed by Blake McBride
1968 <blake@florida-software.com>.
1970 More information about programs, macros, documentation, etc., which is
1971 related to groff has been collected in the file `MORE.STUFF'.
1974 VERSION 1.13, 1.14, 1.15
1975 ========================
1977 Bug fixes only; no user-visible changes.
1983 Finally, there are new maintainers for groff. Mailing lists and a development
1984 repository are available also. See the file README for details. Not all
1985 reported bugs could be fixed, so please send mails again if something is
1988 Most of the installation problems should have vanished now (most
1989 notably the $(tmac_wrap) bug).
1991 There is now a man page called groff_man.7 which documents the basics of the
1992 -man macros. It has been originally written by Susan G. Kleinmann
1995 A (still incomplete) groff reference manual in texinfo format originally
1996 contributed by Trent A. Fisher <trent@gnurd.portland.or.us>.
1998 me.man and msafer.man have been renamed to groff_me.man
1999 resp. groff_msafer.man for consistency.
2001 Default strings for macros in doc-common resp. tmac.an no longer contain the
2004 groff should now be Y2k safe (fixes contributed by Paul Eggert
2005 <eggert@twinsun.com>).
2007 Following the GNU standards, groff now uses the prefix `/usr/local/' as
2008 the default instead of replacing an existent groff binary.
2010 groff, troff, nroff, and pic now support the -U flag to activate unsafe
2011 behaviour (without -msafer); the -S flag for using the -msafer macros is now
2017 This is a new output device for producing HTML output contributed by Gaius
2018 Mulley <gaius@glam.ac.uk>. It is still very alpha but has been included
2019 into the distribution so that a lot of people have a chance to test it. Bug
2020 reports are highly welcome.
2025 Duplex printing support has been contributed by Jeffrey Copeland
2031 Added -I option for defining include paths (patch contributed by Peter
2032 Miller <peterm@jna.com.au>).
2037 Fallback resources added (patch contributed by Larry Jones
2038 <larry.jones@sdrc.com>).
2040 Will now support 8 gray levels.
2045 New version 1.32 (contributed by Joergen Haegg <jh@axis.com>).
2051 Complete documentation for pic is now in the file doc/pic.ms. It was
2052 contributed by Eric S. Raymond, <esr@thyrsus.com>, who is emphatically
2053 *not* volunteering to take over groff as he is way overworked with
2054 half a dozen other projects.
2060 The directory where data files are installed has been changed from
2061 /usr/local/lib/groff to /usr/local/share/groff to comply with the
2062 latest GNU coding standards.
2064 By default groff programs with Unix equivalents are installed with a
2065 "g" prefix unless there is an existing (non-groff) troff installation.
2067 A new approach is used to make system macro packages available to
2068 groff. Instead of simply including /usr/lib/tmac in the list of
2069 directories searched by groff, the installation process creates for
2070 each system macro package a wrapper macro package in the groff macro
2071 directory that references the system macro package. The groff macro
2072 packages are now installed with a leading "g" prefix if there is a
2073 system version of the same macro package, and otherwise without the
2074 "g" prefix, with the exception that the groff version of -me which is
2075 always installed as -me.
2077 There is a new device, lj4, for the HP LaserJet 4 (and PCL5
2083 groff has a -S option that prevents the use of unsafe features in pic
2084 and troff. This uses a new -S option of pic and the -msafer macros
2090 The `blm' request specifies a macro to be invoked when a blank line is
2096 A -S (safer) option disables the sh command.
2101 The -m option enables manual feed.
2107 \(rn now produces a character that has the traditional metrics,
2108 and form corners with \(ul and \(br. This means that it does not
2109 align properly with \(sr. Instead there's a new character
2110 \[radicalex] which aligns with \(sr; this is used by eqn for doing
2116 The `pso' request allows you to read from the standard output of a
2122 The PSPIC macro has options to allow the horizontal alignment of the
2123 graphic to be specified.
2132 The escape sequence \V[xxx] interpolates the value of the
2133 environment variable xxx.
2138 The decimalpoint option can be used to specify the character to be
2139 recognized as the decimal point character in place of the default
2149 The environment variable GROFF_COMMAND_PREFIX can be used to control
2150 whether groff looks for `gtroff' or `troff' (similarily for the
2156 Multilingual hyphenation is supported by new `hpf' and `hla' requests,
2157 and by a `\n[.hla]' number register. The -H option has been removed.
2158 Files of hyphenation patterns can have comments.
2160 When a font cannot be found, troff gives a warning (of type `font',
2161 enabled by default) instead of an error.
2163 There's a new request `trnt' that's like `tr' except that it doesn't
2164 apply to text transparently throughput into a diversion with \!.
2169 There is a `nokeep' option which tells tbl not to use diversions to
2170 try to keep the table on one page.
2175 Setting the parameter `nroff' to a non-zero value causes `ndefine' to
2176 behave like `define' and `tdefine' to be ignored. This is done by
2177 eqnrc when the current device is ascii or latin1. There's a `neqn'
2178 script that just does `eqn -Tascii'.
2183 grotty uses whatever page length was specified using the `pl' request
2184 rather than using the paperlength command in the DESC file. The
2185 paperwidth command in the DESC file is also ignored.
2191 The programs in groff that have Unix counterparts can now be installed
2192 without a leading `g' prefix. See the `g' variable in the Makefile.
2194 The g?nroff script simulates the nroff command using groff.
2196 New special characters \(+h, \(+f, \(+p, \(Fn, \(Bq, \(bq, \(aq, \(lz,
2197 \(an. See groff_char(7).
2199 ^L is now a valid input character.
2204 The Xps pseudo-device has disappeared. Instead there is a new -X
2205 option that tells groff to use gxditview instead of the usual
2206 postprocessor. (So instead of -TXps, use -XTps or just -X if your
2207 default device is ps.)
2209 The postprocessor to be used for a particular device is now specified
2210 by a `postpro' command in the DESC file rather than being compiled
2211 into groff. Similarly the command to be used for printing (with the
2212 -l option) is now specified by a `print' command in the DESC file.
2214 The groff command no longer specifies eqnchar as an input file for
2215 eqn. Instead eqn automatically loads a file `eqnrc'. The groff
2216 command no longer passes the -D option to eqn. Instead eqnrc sets the
2217 draw_lines parameter.
2219 The groff command no longer tells troff to load a device-specific
2220 macro file. This is handled instead by the `troffrc' file, which is
2221 always loaded by troff.
2223 The shell script version of groff has been removed.
2228 The `rchar' request removes a character definition established with `char'.
2230 Compatibility mode is disabled and the escape character is set to `\'
2231 while a character definition is being processed.
2233 The `\#' escape sequence is like `\"' except that the terminating
2236 The `shc' request tells troff which character to insert (instead of
2237 the default \(hy) when a word is hyphenated at a line break.
2239 A font name of 0 (zero) in the DESC file causes no font to be
2240 mounted on the corresponding font position. This is useful for
2241 arranging that special fonts are mounted on positions on which users
2242 are not likely explicitly to mount fonts. All groff devices now avoid
2243 initially mounting fonts on positions 5-9.
2245 The `do' request allows a single request or macro to be interpreted
2246 with compatibility mode disabled.
2248 troff automatically loads a file `troffrc' before any other input file.
2249 This can be prevented with the -R option. This file is responsible
2250 for loading the device-specific macros.
2255 The -x option has been removed and a -n option has been added. By
2256 default, pic now assumes that the postprocessor supports groff
2257 extensions. The -n option tells pic to generate output that works
2258 with ditroff drivers. The -z option now applies only to TeX mode.
2260 The -p option has been removed. Instead if the -n option is not
2261 specified, pic generates output that uses \X'ps: ...' if the \n(0p
2262 register is non-zero and tmac.ps sets this register to 1.
2264 In places where you could 1st or 5th you can now say `i'th or `i+1'th
2265 (the quotes are required).
2270 Eqn now automatically reads a file `eqnrc' from the macro directory.
2271 This performs the same role that the eqnchar files used to. This can
2272 be prevented by the -R option.
2274 Setting the draw_lines parameter to a non-zero value causes lines to
2275 be drawn using \D rather than \l. The -D option is now obsolete.
2277 `uparrow', `downarrow' and `updownarrow' can be used with `left' and
2280 The amount of extra space added before and after lines containing
2281 equations can be controlled using the `body_height' and `body_depth'
2287 Font description files have been regenerated from newer AFM files.
2288 You can get access to the additional characters present in the text
2289 fonts in newer PostScript printers by using -mpsnew.
2291 The default value of the -b option is specified by a `broken' command
2294 With the -g option, grops generates PostScript code that guesses
2295 the page height. This allows documents to be printed on both letter
2296 (8.5x11) and A4 paper without change.
2301 ISO Latin-1 characters are available with -Tdvi. Format groff_char(7)
2302 with groff -Tdvi for more information.
2307 The -mtty-char macros contain additional character definitions for
2313 In previous releases the groff -me macros treated the $r and $R number
2314 registers in a way that was incompatible with the BSD -me macros. The
2315 reason for this was that the approach used by the BSD -me macros does
2316 not work with low resolution devices such as -TX75 and -TX100.
2317 However, this caused problems with existing -me documents. In this
2318 release, the vertical spacing is controlled by the $v and $V registers
2319 which have the same meaning as $r and $R in earlier groff releases.
2320 In addition, if the $r or $R register is set to a value that would be
2321 correct for for the BSD -me macros and a low resolution device is not
2322 being used, then an appropriate value for the $v or $V register
2323 is derived from the $r or $R register.
2325 The groff -me macros work with -C and (I think) with Unix troff.
2327 For backward compatibility with BSD -me, the \*{ and \*} strings are
2328 also available as \*[ and \*]. Of course, \*[ is only usable
2331 The \*T string has been deleted. Use \*(Tm instead.
2336 The `n', Space and Return keys are bound to the Next Page action. The
2337 `p', BackSpace and Delete keys are bound to the Previous Page action.
2338 The `q' key is bound to the Quit action.
2340 The `r' key is bound to a rerasterize action that reruns groff, and
2341 redisplays the current page.
2350 There is a alternative assignment operator `:=' which interacts
2351 differently with blocks.
2353 There is a new command `command', which allows the values of variables
2354 to be passed through to troff or TeX.
2356 The `print' command now accepts multiple arguments.
2358 String comparison expressions (using `==' or `!=') are allowed in more
2364 Horizontal and vertical lines drawn with \D'l ...' are rendered
2365 using -, | and + characters. This is intended to give reasonable
2366 results with boxed tables. It won't work well with pic.
2371 The -mdoc macros have been upgraded to the version in the second
2372 Berkeley networking release. This version is not completely
2373 compatible with earlier versions; the old version is still available
2374 as -mdoc.old. The grog script has been enhanced so that it can
2375 usually determine whether a document requires the old or new versions.
2377 With -TX75, -TX100 and -TXps, the PSPIC macro produces a box
2378 around where the picture would appear with -Tps.
2384 An implementation of the -mm macros is included.
2386 The directory in which temporary files are created can be controlled
2387 by setting the GROFF_TMPDIR or TMPDIR environment variables.
2392 Some MS-DOS support (see pic/make-dos-dist).
2397 There are two new \X commands (\X'ps: invis' and \X'ps: endinvis')
2398 which make it possible to have substitute characters that are
2399 displayed when previewing with -TXps but ignored when printing with
2405 Support for scalable fonts.
2411 No changes other than bug fixes.
2417 There is an implementation of refer and associated programs. groff -R
2418 preprocesses with grefer; no mechanism is provided for passing
2419 arguments to grefer because most grefer options have equivalent
2420 commands which can be included in the file. grog also supports refer.
2422 There is an alternative perl implementation of the grog script.
2424 The code field in lines in the charset section of font description
2425 files is now allowed to contain an arbitrary integer (previously it
2426 was required to lie between 0 and 255). Currently grops and grodvi
2427 use only the low order 8 bits of the value. Grodvi uses the
2428 complete value; however, this is unlikely to be useful with
2429 traditional TeX tools (.tfm files only allow 8 bit character codes.)
2431 Left and right double quotes can be obtained with \(lq and \(rq
2434 There is a new program called pfbtops which translates PostScript
2435 fonts in pfb format to ASCII.
2437 A slightly modified version of the Berkeley tmac.doc is included.
2442 In long escape names the closing ] is now required to be at the same
2443 input level as the opening [.
2445 The \A'S' escape sequence returns 1 or 0 according as S is or is not
2446 suitable for use as a name.
2448 \~ produces an unbreakable space that can be stretched when the line
2451 The `mso' request is like the `so' request except that it searches for
2452 the file in the same directories in which tmac.X is searched for when
2453 the -mX option is given.
2455 The escape sequence `\R' is similar to the `nr' request.
2460 A new `special' primitive allows you to add new types of unary
2461 constructs by writing a troff macro.
2466 The implementation no longer uses gperf.
2471 The compile-time -DBROKEN_SPOOLER option has been replaced by a
2472 BROKEN_SPOOLER_FLAGS option. This allows more precise control over
2473 how grops should workaround broken spoolers and previewers. There is
2474 a new -b option that can change this at run-time.
2476 Grops now generates PostScript that complies with version 3.0 of the
2477 Document Structuring Convention.
2479 The resource management component of grops (the part that deals with
2480 imported documents and downloadable fonts) has been rewritten and now
2481 supports version 3.0 of the Document Structuring Conventions. The
2482 %%DocumentFonts comment is no longer supported; you must use the
2483 %%Document{Needed,Supplied}{Fonts,Resources} comments instead
2486 tmac.psatk contains some macros that support the mechanism used by the
2487 Andrew Toolkit for including PostScript graphics in troff documents.
2492 Parts of xditview have been rewritten so that it can be used with the
2493 output of gtroff -Tps. groff -TXps runs gtroff -Tps with
2496 There is a new menu entry `Print' which brings up a dialog box for
2497 specifying a command with which the file being previewed should be
2500 Xditview now uses imake.
2506 The groff command now understands the gtroff `-a' and `-i' options.
2508 With the `m' and `n' scale indicators, the scale factor is rounded
2509 horizontally before being applied. This makes (almost) no difference
2510 for devices with `hor' equal to 1, but it makes groff with -Tascii or
2511 -Tlatin1 behave more like nroff in its treatment of these scale
2512 indicators. Accordingly tmac.tty now calls the `nroff' request so
2513 that the `n' condition is true.
2515 The device-specific macros (tmac.ps, tmac.dvi, tmac.tty and tmac.X)
2516 have been made to work at least somewhat with -C. In particular the
2517 special characters defined by these macros now work with -C.
2519 groff -Tdvi -p now passes pic the -x flag; this enables filling
2520 of arrowheads and boxes, provided that your dvi driver supports the
2521 latest version of the tpic specials.
2526 There is a new `-N' option that tells eqn not to allow newlines in
2527 delimiters. This allows eqn to recover better from missing closing
2528 delimiters. The groff command passes on a `-N' option to eqn.
2533 You can now use psfig with grops. See the file ps/psfig.diff. I do
2534 not recommend using psfig for new documents.
2536 The command \X'ps: file F' is similar to \X'ps: exec ...' except that
2537 the PostScript code is read from the file F instead of being contained
2538 within the \X command. This was added to support psfig.
2543 There are font files HB and HI corresponding to cmsssbx10 and cmssi10.
2548 The groff -me macros now work with the -C option. As a result, they
2549 may also work with Unix nroff/troff.
2551 In -me, the $r and $R number registers now contain the line spacing as
2552 a percentage of the pointsize expressed in units (normally about 120).
2553 The previous definition was useless with low resolution devices such
2560 A -ms-like macro-package is now included.
2562 The name for the Icelandic lowercase eth character has been changed
2568 There is a new request `nroff', which makes the `n' built-in condition
2569 true and the `t' built-in condition false; also a new request `troff'
2570 which undoes the effect of the `nroff' request. This is intended only
2571 for backward compatibility: it is usually better to test \n(.H or
2572 \n(.V or to use the `c' built-in condition.
2574 The \R escape sequence has been deleted. Use \E instead.
2576 There are `break' and `continue' requests for use with the `while'
2579 There is a request `hym' that can ensure that when the current
2580 adjustment mode is not `b' a line is not hyphenated if it is no
2581 more than a given amount short, and a request `hys' that can ensure
2582 that when the current adjustment mode is `b' a line is not
2583 hyphenated if it can be justified by adding no more than a given
2584 amount of extra space to each word space.
2586 There is a request `rj' similar to `ce' that right justifies lines.
2588 A warning of type `space' is given when a call is made to an
2589 undefined request or macro with a name longer than two characters, and
2590 the first two characters of the name make a name that is defined.
2591 This is intended to find places where a space has been omitted been a
2592 request or macro and its argument. This type of warning is enabled by
2598 A comma is permitted between the arguments to the `reset' command.
2600 For use with TeX, there is a new `-c' option that makes gpic treat
2601 lines beginning with `.' in a way that is more compatible with tpic
2607 It is no longer necessary to add `space 0' at the beginning of
2608 complicated equations inside pictures.
2610 `prime' is now treated as an ordinary character, as in Unix eqn. The
2611 previous behaviour of `prime' as an operator can now be obtained using
2617 There are two new devices X75-12 and X100-12 which are the same as X75
2618 and X100 except that they are optimized for documents that use mostly
2625 The installation process has been refined to make it easy for you to
2626 share groff with someone who has the same type of machine as you but
2627 does not have a C++ compiler. See the end of the INSTALL file for
2630 There is a man page for the tfmtodit program which explains how to use
2631 your own fonts with groff -Tdvi.
2633 There is a man page for afmtodit which explains how to use your own
2634 PostScript fonts with groff -Tps.
2636 The \N escape sequence is now fully supported. It can now be used to
2637 access any character in a font by its output code, even if it doesn't
2638 have a groff name. This is made possible by a convention in the font
2639 files that a character name of `---' refers to an unnamed character.
2640 The drivers now all support the `N' command required for this. The font
2641 description files have been updated to include unnamed characters.
2643 The `x' command in font description files has been removed: instead
2644 any unknown commands are automatically made available to the drivers.
2645 If you constructed your own font files with an earlier version of
2646 tfmtodit or afmtodit, you must construct them again using the current
2649 Characters between 0200 and 0237 octal are no longer valid input
2650 characters. Note that these are not used in ISO 8859.
2652 A command called `grog' has been added, similar to the `doctype'
2653 command described in Kernighan and Pike.
2658 The groff command has some new options: -V prints the pipeline
2659 instead of executing it; -P passes an argument to the postprocessor,
2660 -L passes an argument to the spooler.
2662 There is a C++ implementation of the groff command. This handles some
2663 things slightly better than the shell script. In particular, it can
2664 correctly handle arguments containing characters that have a special
2665 meaning to the shell; it can give an error message when child
2666 processes other than the last in the pipeline terminate abnormally;
2667 its exit status can take account of the exit statuses of all its child
2668 processes; it is a little more efficient; when geqn is used, it
2669 searches for the eqnchar file in the same way that font metric files
2670 are searched for, rather than expecting to find it in one particular
2676 There is font translation feature: For example, you can tell gtroff to
2677 use font `HR' whenever font `H' is requested with the line
2679 This would be useful for a document that uses `H' to refer to
2682 There are some new number registers: `.kern' contains the current kern
2683 mode, `.lg' the current ligature mode, `.x' the major version number,
2684 `.y' the minor version number, `.ce' the number of lines to be
2685 centered in the current environment, `.trunc' the amount of vertical
2686 space truncated by the most recently sprung vertical position trap,
2687 `.ne' the amount of vertical space needed in the last `ne' request
2688 that caused a vertical position trap to be sprung.
2690 The `cf' request now behaves sensibly in a diversion. If used in a
2691 diversion, it now arranges for the file to be copied to the output
2692 when the diversion is reread.
2694 There is a new request `trf' (transparent file) similar to `cf', but
2697 There is a new escape sequence `\Y[xxx]', roughly equivalent to
2698 `\X'\*[xxx]'', except that the contents of string or macro xxx are not
2699 interpreted, and xxx may contain newlines. This requires an output
2700 format extension; the drivers have been modified to understand this.
2701 Grops has also been modified to cope with newlines in the arguments to
2702 \X commands; grops has a new \X command mdef, which is like def except
2703 that it has a first argument giving the number of definitions.
2705 There is a new warning category `escape' which warns about unknown
2708 The `fp' request now takes an optional third argument giving the external
2711 The `\_' character is now automatically translated to `\(ul' as in troff.
2713 The environment variable `GROFF_HYPHEN' gives the name of the file
2714 containing the hyphenation patterns.
2716 There is a `\C'xxx'' escape sequence equivalent to `\[xxx]'.
2718 Characters ", ', ), ], *, \(dg are now initially transparent for the purposes
2719 of end of sentence recognition.
2721 There is an anti-recursion feature in the `char' request, so you can
2722 say `.char \(bu \s+2\(bu\s-2'.
2724 The limit on the number of font positions has been removed.
2725 Accordingly `\n[.fp]' never returns 0.
2727 The restriction on the number of numbered environments has been removed.
2729 There is a new escape sequence `\E' that makes it possible to
2730 guarantee that an escape sequence won't get interpreted in copy-mode.
2731 The `\R' escape sequence is accordingly now deprecated.
2736 Arguments of the form `X anything X' (in the `copy thru', `sh', `for',
2737 `if' and `define' constructs) can now be of the form `{ anything }'.
2739 If the `linethick' variable is negative (as it now is initially),
2740 lines are drawn with a thickness proportional to the current point
2743 The `rand' function now takes no arguments and returns a number between
2744 0 and 1. The old syntax is still supported.
2746 `^' can be used in expressions to indicate exponentiation.
2748 In the `for' construct the argument to the by clause can be prefixed
2749 by `*' to indicate that the increment is multiplicative.
2751 A bare expression may be used as an attribute. If the current
2752 direction is `dir', then an attribute `expr' is equivalent to
2755 There is a `sprintf' construct that allows numbers to be formatted and used
2756 wherever a quoted string can be used.
2758 The height of a text object without an explicit height attribute is
2759 the number of text strings associated with the object times the value
2760 of the `textht' variable.
2762 The maximum height and width of a picture is controlled by the
2763 `maxpswid' and `maxpsht' variables.
2768 Gtbl can now handle gracefully the situation where the `ce' request
2769 has been applied to a table.
2774 The `ifdef' primitive has been generalized.
2776 A tilde accent can be put underneath a box using `utilde'. This
2777 defined using a general `uaccent' primitive.
2782 There is a new PostScript font downloading scheme which handles font
2783 downloading for imported illustrations. Previously, the name of the
2784 file containing the font was given in the `x download' line in the
2785 groff font metric file. Now, there is a `download' file which says
2786 for each PostScript font name which file contains that font. Grops
2787 can also now handle inter-font dependencies, where one downloadable
2788 font depends on some other (possibly downloadable) font.
2790 The `T' font has been removed. The characters it used to provide are
2791 now provided by `char' definitions in tmac.ps. TSymbol.ps has also
2792 been removed, and the tweaks it provided are now provided by `char'
2797 version-control: never
projects / platform / upstream / groff.git / blob