grolbp(1) — Linux manual page

Name \| Synopsis \| Description \| Options \| Exit status \| Environment \| Files \| See also \| COLOPHON

grolbp(1)                General Commands Manual                grolbp(1)

Name top

       grolbp - groff output driver for Canon CaPSL printers

Synopsis top

       grolbp [-l] [-c num-copies] [-F font-directory] [-o orientation]
              [-p paper-format] [-w width] [file ...]

       grolbp [--copies=num-copies] [--fontdir=font-directory]
              [--landscape] [--linewidth=width]
              [--orientation=orientation] [--papersize=paper-format]
              [file ...]

       grolbp -h

       grolbp --help

       grolbp -v

       grolbp --version

Description top

This GNU roff output driver translates the output of troff(1) into
a CaPSL and VDM format suitable for Canon LBP-4 and LBP-8
printers. Normally, grolbp is invoked by groff(1) when the latter
is given the “-T lbp” option. (In this installation, ps is the
default output device.) Use groff's -P option to pass any options
shown above to grolbp. If no file arguments are given, or if file
is “-”, grolbp reads the standard input stream. It writes to the
standard output stream.

Typefaces
The driver supports the Dutch, Swiss, and Swiss-Narrow scalable
typefaces, each in the regular, bold, italic, and bold-italic
styles. Additionally, the bitmapped, monospaced Courier and Elite
typefaces are available in regular, bold, and italic styles;
Courier at 8 and 12 points, Elite at 8 and 10 points. The
following chart summarizes the groff font names used to access
them.

┌───────────────┬─────────┬────────┬──────────┬──────────────┐
│ Typeface │ Roman │ Bold │ Italic │ Bold-Italic │
├───────────────┼─────────┼────────┼──────────┼──────────────┤
│ Dutch │ TR │ TB │ TI │ TBI │
├───────────────┼─────────┼────────┼──────────┼──────────────┤
│ Swiss │ HR │ HB │ HI │ HBI │
├───────────────┼─────────┼────────┼──────────┼──────────────┤
│ Swiss Narrow │ HNR │ HNB │ HNI │ HNBI │
├───────────────┼─────────┼────────┼──────────┼──────────────┤
│ Courier │ CR │ CB │ CI │ │
├───────────────┼─────────┼────────┼──────────┼──────────────┤
│ Elite │ ER │ EB │ EI │ │
└───────────────┴─────────┴────────┴──────────┴──────────────┘

Paper format, orientation, and device description file
grolbp supports paper formats “A4”, “letter”, “legal”, and
“executive”. These are matched case-insensitively. The -p,
--papersize option overrides any setting in the device description
file DESC. If neither specifies a paper format, A4 is assumed.

In its DESC file, grolbp (case-insensitively) recognizes an
orientation directive accepting one mandatory argument, portrait
or landscape. The first valid orientation directive encountered
controls. The -l, -o, and --orientation command-line options
override any setting in DESC. If none of the foregoing specify
the orientation, portrait is assumed.

Font description files
In addition to the font description file directives documented in
groff_font(5), grolbp recognizes lbpname, which maps the groff
font name to the font name used internally by the printer. Its
syntax is as follows.
lbpname printer-font-name
lbpname's argument is case-sensitive. The printer's font names
are encoded as follows.

For bitmapped fonts, printer-font_name has the form N⟨base-font-
name⟩⟨font-style⟩. base-font-name is the font name as it appears
in the printer's font listings without the first letter, up to
(but not including) the font size. font-style can be one of the
letters R, I, or B, indicating the roman, italic, and bold styles,
respectively. For instance, if the printer's “font listing A”
shows “Nelite12I.ISO_USA”, the corresponding entry in the groff
font description file is “lbpname NeliteI”. You may need to
modify grolbp to add support for new bitmapped fonts, since the
available font names and font sizes of bitmapped fonts (as
documented above) are hard-coded into the program.

For scalable fonts, printer-font-name is identical to the font
name as it appears in the printer's “font listing A”. For
instance, to select the “Swiss” font in bold-italic style, which
appears in the font listing as “Swiss-BoldOblique”, “lbpname
Swiss-BoldOblique” is the required directive, and this is what we
find in the groff font description file HBI for the lbp device.

Drawing commands
For compatibility with grolj4(1), an additional drawing command is
available.

\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).

Options top

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

       -c num-copies
       --copies=num-copies
              Produce num-copies copies of each page.

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

       -l
       --landscape
              Format the document in landscape orientation.

       -o orientation
       --orientation=orientation
              Format the document in the given orientation, which must be
              “portrait” or “landscape”.

       -p paper-format
       --papersize=paper-format
              Set the paper format to paper-format, which must be a valid
              paper format as described above.

       -w width
       --linewidth=width
              Set the default line thickness to width thousandths of an
              em; the default is 40 (0.04 em).

Exit status top

       grolbp 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 seek the selected output
              device'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/devlbp/DESC
              describes the lbp output device.

       /usr/local/share/groff/1.23.0/font/devlbp/F
              describes the font known as F on device lbp.

       /usr/local/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/lbp.tmac
              defines macros for use with the lbp output device.  It is
              automatically loaded by troffrc when the lbp output device
              is selected.

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 2025-08-11.  (At
       that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
       the repository was 2025-08-09.)  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                      grolbp(1)