grops(1)

📦
version 1.24.2 · 18 versions
, in alpine 3.24

💅 grops — the grops(1) page, Gen Z remix ✨

okay bestie, buckle up — this is grops, from the General Commands Manual fam. she's the PostScript plug and she's lowkey iconic. 🌈

✨ NAME ✨

grops — groff output driver for PostScript. periodt. 🎀

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

grops [-glm] [-b brokenness-flags] [-c num-copies] [-F font-directory]
      [-I inclusion-directory] [-p paper-format] [-P prologue-file]
      [-w rule-thickness] [file ...]

grops --help

grops -v

grops --version

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so basically: this is the GNU roff PostScript output driver, and what she does is translate the output of troff(1) into PostScript. 🦋 like, that's the whole job. Normally grops gets invoked by groff(1) when the latter is given the -T ps option. (and in this installation, ps is the default output device — main character behavior, honestly 👑.)

Use groff's -P option to pass any of the options shown above through to grops. 💌

If no file arguments are given, or if file is -, grotty reads the standard input stream. It writes to the standard output stream. (yes, that's what it says. no, we're not editing it. 💀)

⚠️ important vibe check: when called with multiple file arguments, grops doesn't produce a valid document structure (one conforming to the Document Structuring Conventions). To print such catenated output, it is necessary to deactivate DSC handling in the printing program or previewer. fr fr, don't skip this one.

See section “Font installation” below for a guide to installing fonts for grops. 📚

✨ OPTIONS ✨

  • --help — displays a usage message. -v and --version show version information. all of them exit afterward, so it's a one-and-done situation. 💅
  • -b n — work around problems with spoolers, previewers, and older printers. Normally grops produces output at PostScript LanguageLevel 2 that conforms to version 3.0 of the Document Structuring Conventions. Some software and devices can't handle such a data stream 😭 — the value of n determines what grops does to make its output acceptable to such consumers. If n is 0, grops employs no workarounds, which is the default; it can be changed by modifying the broken directive in grops's DESC file.
    • Add 1 to suppress generation of %%BeginDocumentSetup and %%EndDocumentSetup comments; this is needed for early versions of TranScript that get confused by anything between the %%EndProlog comment and the first %%Page comment.
    • Add 2 to omit lines in included files beginning with %!, which confuse Sun's pageview previewer.
    • Add 4 to omit lines in included files beginning with %%Page, %%Trailer and %%EndProlog; this is needed for spoolers that don't understand %%BeginDocument and %%EndDocument comments.
    • Add 8 to write %!PS-Adobe-2.0 rather than %!PS-Adobe-3.0 as the first line of the PostScript output; this is needed when using Sun's Newsprint with a printer that requires page reversal.
    • Add 16 to omit media size information (that is, output neither a %%DocumentMedia comment nor the setpagedevice PostScript command). This was the behavior of groff 1.18.1 and earlier; it is needed for older printers that don't understand PostScript LanguageLevel 2, and is also necessary if the output is further processed to produce an EPS file; see subsection “Escapsulated PostScript” below. (yes, “Escapsulated.” we keep it. 🙈)
  • -c n — output n copies of each page. 🖨️ slay.
  • -F dir — prepend directory dir/devname to the search path for font and device description and PostScript prologue files; name is the name of the device, usually ps.
  • -g — generate PostScript code to guess the page length. the guess is correct only if the imageable area is vertically centered on the page, so like… read that twice. 👀 This option allows you to generate documents that can be printed on both U.S. letter and A4 paper formats without change. versatile queen.
  • -I dir — search the directory dir for files named in \X'ps: file' and \X'ps: import' escape sequences. -I may be specified more than once; each dir is searched in the given order. To search the current working directory before others, add -I . at the desired place; it is otherwise searched last.
  • -l — use landscape orientation rather than portrait. rotate that vibe. 🌀
  • -m — turn on manual feed for the document. 🫶
  • -p fmt — set physical dimensions of output medium, overriding the papersize, paperlength, and paperwidth directives in the DESC file. fmt can be any argument accepted by the papersize directive; see groff_font(5).
  • -P prologue — use the file prologue, sought in the groff font search path, as the PostScript prologue, overriding the default (see section “Files” below) and the environment variable GROPS_PROLOGUE. 👑
  • -w n — draw rules (lines) with a thickness of n thousandths of an em. the default thickness is 40 (0.04 em). skinny legend. ✨

✨ USAGE ✨

The input to grops must be in the format output by troff(1), described in groff_out(5). In addition, the device and font description files for the device used must meet certain requirements. 🧚

  • The device resolution must be an integer multiple of 72 times the sizescale.
  • The device description file must contain a valid paper format; see groff_font(5).
  • Each font description file must contain a directive:
internalname psname

which says that the PostScript name of the font is psname.

A font description file may also contain a directive:

encoding enc-file

which says that the PostScript font should be reencoded using the encoding described in enc-file; this file should consist of a sequence of lines of the form:

pschar code

where pschar is the PostScript name of the character, and code is its position in the encoding expressed as a decimal integer; valid values are in the range 0 to 255. Lines starting with # and blank lines are ignored. 💖

The code for each character given in the font description file must correspond to the code for the character in encoding file, or to the code in the default encoding for the font if the PostScript font is not to be reencoded. This code can be used with the \N escape sequence in troff to select the character, even if it does not have a groff glyph name. Every character in the font description file must exist in the PostScript font, and the widths given in the font description file must match the widths used in the PostScript font. no cap, that's a hard requirement. 😤

grops assumes that a character with a groff name of space is blank (makes no marks on the page); it can make use of such a character to generate more efficient and compact PostScript output. efficient AND compact, we love a resourceful icon. 💅

grops is able to display all glyphs in a PostScript font; it is not limited to 256 of them. 🔥 enc-file (or the default encoding if no encoding file is specified) just defines the order of glyphs for the first 256 characters; all other glyphs are accessed with additional encoding vectors which grops produces on the fly. on the fly, bestie!! she's improvising!!

grops can embed fonts in a document that are necessary to render it; this is called “downloading”. Such fonts must be in PFA format. Use pfbtops(1) to convert a Type 1 font in PFB format. Downloadable fonts must be listed a download file containing lines of the form:

psname file

where psname is the PostScript name of the font, and file is the name of the file containing it. Blank lines and those beginning with # are ignored; fields are separated by tabs. ⚠️ tabs, not spaces — she's specific. file is sought using the same mechanism as for groff font description files. The download file itself is as well; currently, the first matching file found in the device and font description search path is used.

If the file containing a downloadable font or imported document conforms to the Adobe Document Structuring Conventions, then grops interprets any comments in the files sufficiently to ensure that its own output is conforming. It also supplies any needed font resources that are listed in the download file as well as any needed file resources. It is also able to handle inter-resource dependencies. 🧠

for example — suppose that you have a downloadable font called Garamond, and also a downloadable font called Garamond-Outline which depends on Garamond (typically it would be defined to copy Garamond's font dictionary, and change the PaintType), then it is necessary for Garamond to appear before Garamond-Outline in the PostScript document. grops handles this automatically provided that the downloadable font file for Garamond-Outline indicates its dependence on Garamond by means of the Document Structuring Conventions, for example by beginning with the following lines:

%!PS-Adobe-3.0 Resource-Font
%%DocumentNeededResources: font Garamond
%%EndComments
%%IncludeResource: font Garamond

In this case, both Garamond and Garamond-Outline would need to be listed in the download file. A downloadable font should not include its own name in a %%DocumentSuppliedResources comment. 🙅‍♀️

grops does not interpret %%DocumentFonts comments. The %%DocumentNeededResources, %%DocumentSuppliedResources, %%IncludeResource, %%BeginResource, and %%EndResource comments (or possibly the old %%DocumentNeededFonts, %%DocumentSuppliedFonts, %%IncludeFont, %%BeginFont, and %%EndFont comments) should be used. iykyk. 🎀

The default stroke and fill colors are black. For colors defined in the “rgb” color space, setrgbcolor is used; for “cmy” and “cmyk”, setcmykcolor; and for “gray”, setgray. 🔥 heads up though: setcmykcolor is a PostScript LanguageLevel 2 command and thus not available on some older printers. 💀

✨ Typefaces ✨

Styles called R, I, B, and BI mounted at font positions 1 to 4. Text fonts are grouped into families A, BM, C, H, HN, N, P, and T, each having members in each of these styles. 🌸 look at the whole squad:

  • AR — AvantGarde-Book
  • AI — AvantGarde-BookOblique
  • AB — AvantGarde-Demi
  • ABI — AvantGarde-DemiOblique
  • BMR — Bookman-Light
  • BMI — Bookman-LightItalic
  • BMB — Bookman-Demi
  • BMBI — Bookman-DemiItalic
  • CR — Courier
  • CI — Courier-Oblique
  • CB — Courier-Bold
  • CBI — Courier-BoldOblique
  • HR — Helvetica
  • HI — Helvetica-Oblique
  • HB — Helvetica-Bold
  • HBI — Helvetica-BoldOblique
  • HNR — Helvetica-Narrow
  • HNI — Helvetica-Narrow-Oblique
  • HNB — Helvetica-Narrow-Bold
  • HNBI — Helvetica-Narrow-BoldOblique
  • NR — NewCenturySchlbk-Roman
  • NI — NewCenturySchlbk-Italic
  • NB — NewCenturySchlbk-Bold
  • NBI — NewCenturySchlbk-BoldItalic
  • PR — Palatino-Roman
  • PI — Palatino-Italic
  • PB — Palatino-Bold
  • PBI — Palatino-BoldItalic
  • TR — Times-Roman
  • TI — Times-Italic
  • TB — Times-Bold
  • TBI — Times-BoldItalic

Another text font is not a member of a family. she's independent, she's solo, she's:

  • ZCMI — ZapfChancery-MediumItalic

(and there's more coming, bestie — keep scrolling ⬇️)

okay so special fonts include S, the PostScript Symbol font; ZD, Zapf Dingbats; SS (slanted symbol), which contains oblique forms of lowercase Greek letters derived from Symbol; EURO, which offers a Euro glyph for use with old devices lacking it; and ZDR, a reversed version of Zapf Dingbats (with symbols flipped about the vertical axis). Most glyphs in these fonts are unnamed and must be accessed using \N. The last three are not standard PostScript fonts, but supplied by groff and therefore included in the default download file.

grops furthermore supports a naming scheme for East Asian typefaces shared with grohtml(1), gropdf(1), and grotty(1). the lineup is giving multilingual icon energy 🌈:

  • CSH — Simplified Chinese, Hei style
  • CSS — Simplified Chinese, Song style
  • CTH — Traditional Chinese, Hei style
  • CTS — Traditional Chinese, Song style
  • JPG — Japanese, Gothic style
  • JPM — Japanese, Mincho style
  • KOG — Korean, Gothic style
  • KOM — Korean, Mincho style

👾 Device extension commands 👾

grops recognizes device extension commands produced by the groff request device or roff \X escape sequence, but bestie, it interprets only those that begin with a “ps:” tag. the way that filter works is very gatekeep, but okay 💅

  • \X'ps: exec code' — Execute the arbitrary PostScript commands code. The PostScript currentpoint is set to the groff drawing position when the \X escape sequence is interpreted before executing code. The origin is at the top left corner of the page; x coordinates increase to the right, and y coordinates down the page. A procedure u is defined that converts groff basic units to the coordinate system in effect (provided the user doesn't change the scale). For example:
.nr x 1i
\X'ps: exec \nx u 0 rlineto stroke'

draws a horizontal line one inch long. code may make changes to the graphics state, but any changes persist only to the end of the page. A dictionary containing the definitions specified by the def and mdef commands is on top of the dictionary stack. If your code adds definitions to this dictionary, you should allocate space for them using “\X'ps: mdef n'”. Any definitions persist only until the end of the page. If you use the \Y escape sequence with an argument that names a macro, code can extend over multiple lines. For example:

.nr x 1i
.de y
ps: exec
\nx u 0 rlineto
stroke
..
\Yy

is another way to draw a horizontal line one inch long. The single backslash before “nx”—the only reason to use a register while defining the macro “y”—is to convert a user-specified dimension “1i” to groff basic units which are in turn converted to PostScript units with the u procedure.

grops wraps user-specified PostScript code into a dictionary, nothing more. In particular, it doesn't start and end the inserted code with save and restore, respectively. This must be supplied by the user, if necessary.

  • \X'ps: file name' — This is the same as the exec command except that the PostScript code is read from file name.
  • \X'ps: def code' — Place a PostScript definition contained in code in the prologue. There should be at most one definition per \X command. Long definitions can be split over several \X commands; all the code arguments are simply joined together separated by newlines. The definitions are placed in a dictionary which is automatically pushed on the dictionary stack when an exec command is executed. If you use the \Y escape sequence with an argument that names a macro, code can extend over multiple lines.
  • \X'ps: mdef n code' — Like def, except that code may contain up to n definitions. grops needs to know how many definitions code contains so that it can create an appropriately sized PostScript dictionary to contain them.
  • \X'ps: import file llx lly urx ury width [height]' — Import a PostScript graphic from file. The arguments llx, lly, urx, and ury give the bounding box of the graphic in the default PostScript coordinate system. They should all be integers: llx and lly are the x and y coordinates of the lower left corner of the graphic; urx and ury are the x and y coordinates of the upper right corner of the graphic; width and height are integers that give the desired width and height in groff basic units of the graphic.

The graphic is scaled so that it has this width and height and translated so that the lower left corner of the graphic is located at the position associated with \X command. If the height argument is omitted it is scaled uniformly in the x and y axes so that it has the specified width.

The contents of the \X command are not interpreted by troff, so vertical space for the graphic is not automatically added, and the width and height arguments are not allowed to have attached scaling indicators.

If the PostScript file complies with the Adobe Document Structuring Conventions and contains a %%BoundingBox comment, then the bounding box can be automatically extracted from within groff input by using the psbb request.

See groff_tmac(5) for a description of the PSPIC macro which provides a convenient high-level interface for inclusion of PostScript graphics.

  • \X'ps: invis'
  • \X'ps: endinvis' — No output is generated for text and drawing commands that are bracketed with these \X commands. These commands are intended for use when output from troff is previewed before being processed with grops; if the previewer is unable to display certain characters or other constructs, then other substitute characters or constructs can be used for previewing by bracketing them with these \X commands.

For example, gxditview is not able to display a proper \[em] character because the standard X11 fonts do not provide it; this problem can be overcome with the following request.

.char \[em] \X'ps: invis'\
\Z'\v'-.25m'\h'.05m'\D'l .9m 0'\h'.05m''\
\X'ps: endinvis'\[em]

In this case, gxditview is unable to display the \[em] character and draws the line, whereas grops prints the \[em] character and ignores the line (this code is already in file Xps.tmac, which is loaded if a document intended for grops is previewed with gxditview).

If a PostScript procedure BPhook has been defined via a “ps: def” or “ps: mdef” device extension command, it is executed at the beginning of every page (before anything is drawn or written by groff). For example, to underlay the page contents with the word “DRAFT” in light gray, you might use the following.

.de XX
ps: def
/BPhook
{ gsave .9 setgray clippath pathbbox exch 2 copy
  .5 mul exch .5 mul translate atan rotate pop pop
  /NewCenturySchlbk-Roman findfont 200 scalefont setfont
  (DRAFT) dup stringwidth pop -.5 mul -70 moveto show
  grestore }
def
..
.devicem XX

Or, to cause lines and polygons to be drawn with square linecaps and mitered linejoins instead of the round linecaps and linejoins normally used by grops, use the following.

.de XX
ps: def
/BPhook { 2 setlinecap 0 setlinejoin } def
..
.devicem XX

(Square linecaps, as opposed to butt linecaps (“0 setlinecap”), give true corners in boxed tables even though the lines are drawn unconnected.)

🎀 Encapsulated PostScript 🎀

grops itself doesn't emit bounding box information. The following script, groff2eps, produces an EPS file.

#!/bin/sh
groff -P-b16 "$1" > "$1".ps
gs -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=bbox -- "$1".ps 2> "$1".bbox
sed -e "/^%%Orientation/r $1.bbox" \
    -e "/^%!PS-Adobe-3.0/s/$/ EPSF-3.0/" "$1".ps > "$1".eps
rm "$1".ps "$1".bbox

You can then use groff2eps foo to convert file foo to foo.eps. slay ✨

🌈 TrueType and other font formats 🌈

To use TrueType fonts with grops, convert them first to Type 42 format, a PostScript wrapper equivalent to the PFA format described in pfbtops(1). Several methods exist to generate a Type 42 wrapper; some of them involve the use of a PostScript interpreter such as Ghostscript—see gs(1).

FontForge converts most outline font formats. Here's how we'd set up Roboto Slab Serif for use with groff.

MAP=/usr/share/groff/1.24.2/font/devps/generate/text.map
TTF=/usr/share/fonts/truetype/roboto/slab/RobotoSlab-Regular.ttf
BASE=$(basename "$TTF")
INT=${BASE%.ttf}
PFA=$INT.pfa
AFM=$INT.afm
GFN=RSR
DIR=$HOME/.local/groff/font
mkdir -p "$DIR"/devps
fontforge -lang=ff -c "Open(\"$TTF\");\
Generate(\"$DIR/devps/$PFA\");"
afmtodit "$DIR/devps/$AFM" "$MAP" "$DIR/devps/$GFN"
printf "$BASE\t$PFA\n" >> "$DIR/devps/download"

fontforge and afmtodit may produce warnings depending on font file attributes. Test the font as follows.

printf ".ft RSR\nHello, world!\n" | groff -F "$DIR" > hello.ps

Once you're satisfied that the font works, you may want to generate any available related styles (for instance, Roboto Slab also has “Bold”, “Light”, and “Thin” styles) and set up GROFF_FONT_PATH in your environment to include the directory you keep the generated fonts in so that you don't have to use the -F option. 🫶

🎀 FONT INSTALLATION 🎀

okay bestie, groff has your back: it ships install-font.bash, a shell script that interactively helps you configure fonts for the GNU troff formatter and the grops output driver. Peep section “Files” below for where it lives.

Here's the step-by-step font installation guide for grops, no cap:

  • Step 1: get your font into a format groff speaks. Groff understands a PostScript Type 1 font in PFA format or a PostScript Type 42 font, plus an AFM file. A PFA file starts like this:
%!PS-AdobeFont-1.0:

A PFB file contains this string too, just with some non-printing bytes before it. If your font is PFB, use groff's pfbtops(1) program to convert it to PFA. For TrueType and other font formats, we recommend fontforge, which can convert most outline font formats. A Type 42 font file starts like this:

%!PS-TrueTypeFont

That's a wrapper format for TrueType fonts. Old PostScript printers might not support them (like, they might not have a built-in TrueType font interpreter). In the next steps, we're going to use CTAN's BrushScriptX-Italic font in PFA format as our example.

  • Step 2: turn the AFM file into a groff font description file with the afmtodit(1) program. For example:
$ afmtodit BrushScriptX-Italic.afm text.map BSI

This converts the Adobe Font Metric file BrushScriptX-Italic.afm into the groff font description file BSI.

If your font family gives you regular upright (roman), bold, italic, and bold-italic styles (where “italic” may be “oblique” or “slanted”), we recommend using the letters R, B, I, and BI, respectively, as suffixes to the groff font family name to enable groff's font family and style selection features. Example: groff's built-in Times support abbreviates the font family name as T, so the groff font names are TR, TB, TI, and TBI. In our BrushScriptX example, though, the font only comes in one style: italic. Not me crying in single-style 😭.

  • Step 3: install the groff font description file(s) in a devps subdirectory inside the search path groff uses for device and font file descriptions. Check the GROFF_FONT_PATH entry in section “Environment” of troff(1) for the current value of the font search path. Groff doesn't directly use AFM files, but storing them next to its font description files is a good idea (lowkey tidy).
  • Step 4: register fonts in the devps/download file so they can be found and embedded in the PostScript files grops generates. Only the first download file encountered in the font search path is read — so if you're in doubt, copy the default download file (section “Files” below) to the first directory in the font search path and add your fonts there. The PostScript font name grops uses is stored in the internalname field of the groff font description file. (This name doesn't necessarily resemble the font's file name.) Add this line to download:
BrushScriptX-Italic→BrushScriptX-Italic.pfa

A tab character, depicted as →, separates the fields. Slay.

  • Step 5: test the selection and embedding of your new font.
printf "\\f[BSI]Hello, world!\n" | groff -T ps >hello.ps
see hello.pdf

🕰️ OLD FONTS 🕰️

groff versions 1.19.2 and earlier shipped descriptions of a slightly different set of the base 35 PostScript level 2 fonts defined by Adobe. The older set has 314 glyphs and a larger set of kerning pairs; the newer one has only 229 glyphs, but it includes the Euro sign. For backward compatibility, those old font descriptions are also installed in the /usr/share/groff/1.24.2/oldfont/devps directory.

To use them, make sure grops finds the fonts before the default system fonts (the ones with the same names). You can either give grops the -F command-line option:

$ groff -Tps -P-F -P/usr/share/groff/1.24.2/oldfont ...

or add the directory to groff's font and device description search path environment variable when the command runs:

$ GROFF_FONT_PATH=/usr/share/groff/1.24.2/oldfont \
       groff -Tps ...

🚦 EXIT STATUS 🚦

grops exits with status 0 on successful operation, status 2 if the program can't interpret its command-line arguments, and status 1 if it hits an error during operation. Simple as that, bestie.

🌱 ENVIRONMENT 🌱

  • GROFF_FONT_PATH — a list of directories in which to seek the selected output device's directory of device and font description files. See troff(1) and groff_font(5).
  • GROPS_PROLOGUE — if this is set to foo, then grops uses the file foo (in the font path) instead of the default prologue file prologue. The option -P overrides this environment variable.
  • SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH — a timestamp (expressed as seconds since the Unix epoch) to use as the output creation timestamp in place of the current time. The time is converted to human-readable form using gmtime(3) and asctime(3), and recorded in a PostScript comment.
  • TZ — the time zone to use when converting the current time to human-readable form; see tzset(3). If SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH is used, it is always converted to human-readable form using UTC.

📁 FILES 📁

  • /usr/share/groff/1.24.2/font/devps/DESC — describes the ps output device.
  • /usr/share/groff/1.24.2/font/devps/F — describes the font known as F on device ps.
  • /usr/share/groff/1.24.2/font/devps/download — lists fonts available for embedding within the PostScript document (or download to the device).
  • /usr/share/groff/1.24.2/font/devps/prologue — is the default PostScript prologue prefixed to every output file.
  • /usr/share/groff/1.24.2/font/devps/text.enc — describes the encoding scheme used by most PostScript Type 1 fonts; the encoding directive of font description files for the ps device refers to it.
  • /usr/share/groff/1.24.2/tmac/ps.tmac — defines macros for use with the ps output device. It is automatically loaded by troffrc when the ps output device is selected.
  • /usr/share/groff/1.24.2/tmac/pspic.tmac — defines the PSPIC macro for embedding images in a document; see groff_tmac(5). It is automatically loaded by troffrc.
  • /usr/share/groff/1.24.2/tmac/psold.tmac — provides replacement glyphs for text fonts that lack complete coverage of the ISO Latin-1 character set; using it, groff can produce glyphs like eth (ð) and thorn (þ) that older PostScript printers do not natively support.
  • /usr/share/doc/groff-1.24.2/examples/install-font.bash — this script, contributed by mom macro package author Peter Schaffter and long available at his web site, assists with making TrueType (.ttf), OpenType (.otf), and PostScript Type 1 (.pfa, .pfb) fonts available to groff.

Change to its directory and run bash install-font.bash -H for a man page-like description of its features and operation.

grops creates temporary files using the template gropsXXXXXX; see groff(1).

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

That's the whole vibe: page grops(1), from groff 1.24.2, dated 2026-10-01. Periodt 💅✨

📦 where this page comes from