grodvi(1) — Linux manual page

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grodvi(1)                General Commands Manual                grodvi(1)

Name         top

       grodvi - groff output driver for TeX DVI format

Synopsis         top

       grodvi [-dl] [-F dir] [-p paper-format] [-w n] [file ...]

       grodvi --help

       grodvi -v

       grodvi --version

Description         top

       The GNU roff DVI output driver translates the output of troff(1)
       into TeX DVI format.  Normally, grodvi is invoked by groff(1) when
       the latter is given the “-T dvi” option.  (In this installation,
       ps is the default output device.)  Use groff's -P option to pass
       any options shown above to grodvi.  If no file arguments are
       given, or if file is “-”, grodvi reads the standard input stream.
       It writes to the standard output stream.

       The DVI file generated by grodvi can be interpreted by any
       correctly written DVI driver.  troff drawing primitives are
       implemented using tpic version 2 specials.  If the driver does not
       support these, \D escape sequences will not produce any output.

       Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) files can be easily included; use
       the PSPIC macro.  pspic.tmac is loaded automatically by dvi.tmac.
       See groff_tmac(5).

       The default color used by the \m and \M escape sequences is black.
       Currently, the stroke color for \D drawing escape sequences is
       black; fill color values are translated to gray.

       In groff, as in AT&T troff, the \N escape sequence can be used to
       access any glyph in the current font by its position in the
       corresponding TFM file.

       By design, the DVI format doesn't care about the physical
       dimensions of the output medium.  See subsection “Device extension
       commands” below.

   Typefaces
       grodvi supports the standard four styles: R (roman), I (italic), B
       (bold), and BI (bold-italic).  Fonts are grouped into families T
       and H having members in each style.  “CM” abbreviates “Computer
       Modern”.

              TR     CM Roman (cmr10)
              TI     CM Text Italic (cmti10)
              TB     CM Bold Extended Roman (cmbx10)
              TBI    CM Bold Extended Text Italic (cmbxti10)
              HR     CM Sans Serif (cmss10)
              HI     CM Slanted Sans Serif (cmssi10)
              HB     CM Sans Serif Bold Extended (cmssbx10)
              HBI    CM Slanted Sans Serif Bold Extended (cmssbxo10)

       The following fonts are not members of a family.

              CW     CM Typewriter Text (cmtt10)
              CWI    CM Italic Typewriter Text (cmitt10)

       Special fonts include MI (cmmi10), S (cmsy10), EX (cmex10), SC
       (cmtex10, only for CW), and, perhaps surprisingly, TR, TI, and CW,
       because TeX places some glyphs in text fonts that troff generally
       does not.  For italic fonts, CWI is used instead of CW.

       Finally, the symbol fonts of the American Mathematical Society are
       available as special fonts SA (msam10) and SB (msbm10).  They are
       not mounted by default.

       You can load the ec.tmac macro file to employ the EC and TC fonts
       instead of CM, which they resemble.  They also provide Euro \[Eu]
       and per mille \[%0] glyphs.  Do so before loading localization
       macro files, because ec.tmac does not set up automatic hyphenation
       codes.

   Device extension commands
       grodvi emits the equivalent to TeX's \special{
       papersize=width,length} on the first page; dvips (or another DVI
       driver) then sets the page size accordingly.  If either the page
       width or length is not positive, no papersize special is output.

       grodvi supports one device extension, accessed with the groff
       request device or roff \X escape sequence.

       \X'papersize=width,length'
              Set the page dimensions in centimeters to width by length.
              If the -l option was specified, these dimensions are
              swapped.  Changes to the paper dimensions should occur
              prior to the first page, or during page ejection before
              starting a subsequent one.

              Caution: the ordering of dimensions differs from that used
              by papersize.tmac and troff(1)'s “-d paper” option.

       The parameter(s) to device and \X are translated to the same DVI
       file instructions as would be produced by \special{anything} in
       TeX; anything cannot contain a newline.

   Font description files
       Use tfmtodit(1) to create groff font description files from TFM
       (TeX font metrics) files.  The font description file should
       contain the following additional directives, which tfmtodit
       generates automatically.

       internalname name
              The name of the TFM file (without the .tfm extension) is
              name.

       checksum n
              The checksum in the TFM file is n.

       designsize n
              The design size in the TFM file is n.

   Drawing commands
       grodvi supports an additional drawing command.

       \D'R dh dv'
              Draw a rule (solid black rectangle) with one corner at the
              drawing position, and the diagonally opposite corner at the
              drawing position +(dh,dv), which becomes the new drawing
              position afterward.  This command produces a rule in the
              DVI file and so can be printed even with a driver that does
              not support tpic specials, unlike the other \D commands.

Options         top

       --help displays a usage message, while -v and --version show
       version information; all exit afterward.

       -d      Do not use tpic specials to implement drawing commands.
               Horizontal and vertical lines are implemented by rules.
               Other drawing commands are ignored.

       -F dir  Prepend directory dir/devname to the search path for font
               and device description files; name is the name of the
               device, usually dvi.

       -l      Use landscape orientation rather than portrait.

       -p paper-format
               Set physical dimensions of output medium, overriding the
               papersize, paperlength, and paperwidth directives in the
               DESC file.  paper-format can be any argument accepted by
               the papersize directive; see groff_font(5).

       -w n    Draw rules (lines) with a thickness of n thousandths of an
               em.  The default thickness is 40 (0.04 em).

Exit status         top

       grodvi exits with status 0 on successful operation, status 2 if
       the program cannot interpret its command-line arguments, and
       status 1 if it encounters an error during operation.

Environment         top

       GROFF_FONT_PATH
              lists directories in which to search for devdvi, grodvi's
              directory of device and font description files.  See
              troff(1) and groff_font(5).

Files         top

       /usr/local/share/groff/1.23.0/font/devdvi/DESC
              describes the dvi output device.

       /usr/local/share/groff/1.23.0/font/devdvi/F
              describes the font known as F on device dvi.

       /usr/local/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/dvi.tmac
              defines font mappings, special characters, and colors for
              use with the dvi output device.  It is automatically loaded
              by troffrc when the dvi output device is selected.

       /usr/local/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/ec.tmac
              configures the dvi output device to use the EC and TC font
              families instead of CM (Computer Modern).

Bugs         top

       DVI files produced by grodvi use a different resolution (57,816
       units per inch) from those produced by TeX.  Incorrectly written
       drivers which assume the resolution used by TeX, rather than using
       the resolution specified in the DVI file, will not work with
       grodvi.

       When using the -d option with boxed tables, vertical and
       horizontal lines can sometimes protrude by one pixel.  This is a
       consequence of the way TeX requires that the heights and widths of
       rules be rounded.

See also         top

       “What are the EC fonts?”  ⟨https://texfaq.org/FAQ-ECfonts⟩; TeX
       FAQ: Frequently Asked Question List for TeX

       tfmtodit(1), groff(1), troff(1), groff_out(5), groff_font(5),
       groff_char(7), groff_tmac(5)

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the groff (GNU troff) project.  Information
       about the project can be found at 
       ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/groff/⟩.  If you have a bug report for
       this manual page, see ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/groff/⟩.  This
       page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/groff.git⟩ on 2025-02-02.  (At
       that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
       the repository was 2025-01-28.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
       a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

groff 1.23.0.2722-658f-dirty    2025-01-02                      grodvi(1)