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GROFF_OUT(5)                  File Formats Manual                 GROFF_OUT(5)

NAME
       groff_out - groff intermediate output format

DESCRIPTION
       This  manual  page  describes the intermediate output format of the GNU
       roff(7) text processing system groff(1).  This output is produced by  a
       run  of  the GNU troff(1) program.  It contains already all device-spe-
       cific information, but it is not yet fed into  a  device  postprocessor
       program.

       As  the  GNU  roff processor groff(1) is a wrapper program around troff
       that automatically calls a postprocessor, this output does not show  up
       normally.   This is why it is called intermediate within the groff sys-
       tem.  The groff program provides the option -Z to inhibit  postprocess-
       ing,  such  that  the  produced intermediate output is sent to standard
       output just like calling troff manually.

       In this document, the term troff output describes what is output by the
       GNU  troff  program,  while  intermediate output refers to the language
       that is accepted by the parser that prepares this output for the  post-
       processors.   This parser is smarter on whitespace and implements obso-
       lete elements for compatibility, otherwise both formats are  the  same.
       Both formats can be viewed directly with gxditview(1).

       The  main  purpose  of the intermediate output concept is to facilitate
       the development of postprocessors by providing a common programming in-
       terface  for  all  devices.   It has a language of its own that is com-
       pletely different from the groff(7) language.  While the groff language
       is  a high-level programming language for text processing, the interme-
       diate output language is a kind  of  low-level  assembler  language  by
       specifying all positions on the page for writing and drawing.

       The pre-groff roff versions are denoted as classical troff.  The inter-
       mediate output produced by groff is fairly  readable,  while  classical
       troff  output was hard to understand because of strange habits that are
       still supported, but not used any longer by GNU troff.

LANGUAGE CONCEPTS
       During the run of troff, the roff input is cracked down to the informa-
       tion on what has to be printed at what position on the intended device.
       So the language of the intermediate output format can be  quite  small.
       Its only elements are commands with or without arguments.  In this doc-
       ument, the term “command” always refers to the intermediate output lan-
       guage,  never to the roff language used for document formatting.  There
       are commands for positioning and text writing, for drawing, and for de-
       vice controlling.

   Separation
       Classical  troff  output  had  strange requirements on whitespace.  The
       groff output parser, however, is smart about whitespace  by  making  it
       maximally  optional.   The whitespace characters, i.e., the tab, space,
       and newline characters, always have a syntactical  meaning.   They  are
       never printable because spacing within the output is always done by po-
       sitioning commands.

       Any sequence of space or tab characters is treated as a single  syntac-
       tical space.  It separates commands and arguments, but is only required
       when there would occur a clashing between the command code and the  ar-
       guments  without  the  space.   Most  often, this happens when variable
       length command names, arguments, argument lists,  or  command  clusters
       meet.   Commands  and  arguments with a known, fixed length need not be
       separated by syntactical space.

       A line break is a syntactical element, too.  Every command argument can
       be  followed  by whitespace, a comment, or a newline character.  Thus a
       syntactical line break is defined to consist  of  optional  syntactical
       space  that  is optionally followed by a comment, and a newline charac-
       ter.

       The normal commands, those for positioning and text, consist of a  sin-
       gle letter taking a fixed number of arguments.  For historical reasons,
       the parser allows stacking of such commands on the same line, but  for-
       tunately, in groff intermediate output, every command with at least one
       argument is followed by a line break, thus  providing  excellent  read-
       ability.

       The  other commands — those for drawing and device controlling — have a
       more complicated structure; some recognize long command names, and some
       take  a variable number of arguments.  So all D and x commands were de-
       signed to request a syntactical line break after their  last  argument.
       Only  one  command, ‘x X’ has an argument that can stretch over several
       lines, all other commands must have all of their arguments on the  same
       line  as  the  command,  i.e., the arguments may not be split by a line
       break.

       Empty lines, i.e., lines containing only space and/or  a  comment,  can
       occur everywhere.  They are just ignored.

   Argument Units
       Some commands take integer arguments that are assumed to represent val-
       ues in a measurement unit, but the letter for the  corresponding  scale
       indicator  is  not  written  with  the  output  command  arguments; see
       groff(7) and Groff: The GNU Implementation of troff, the groff  Texinfo
       manual, for more on this topic.  Most commands assume the scale indica-
       tor u, the basic unit of the device, some use z, the scaled point  unit
       of  the  device,  while others, such as the color commands expect plain
       integers.  Note that these scale indicators are relative to the  chosen
       device.   They  are defined by the parameters specified in the device's
       DESC file; see groff_font(5).

       Note that single characters can have the eighth bit  set,  as  can  the
       names  of fonts and special characters (this is, glyphs).  The names of
       glyphs and fonts can be of arbitrary length.  A glyph  that  is  to  be
       printed will always be in the current font.

       A string argument is always terminated by the next whitespace character
       (space, tab, or newline); an embedded # character is regarded  as  part
       of the argument, not as the beginning of a comment command.  An integer
       argument is already terminated by the next non-digit  character,  which
       then  is  regarded  as the first character of the next argument or com-
       mand.

   Document Parts
       A correct intermediate output document consists of two parts, the  pro-
       logue and the body.

       The  task of the prologue is to set the general device parameters using
       three exactly specified commands.  The groff prologue is guaranteed  to
       consist of the following three lines (in that order):

              x T device
              x res n h v
              x init

       with  the  arguments set as outlined in subsection “Device Control Com-
       mands” below.  However, the parser for the intermediate  output  format
       is able to swallow additional whitespace and comments as well.

       The body is the main section for processing the document data.  Syntac-
       tically, it is a sequence of any commands different from the ones  used
       in  the prologue.  Processing is terminated as soon as the first x stop
       command is encountered; the last line of any groff intermediate  output
       always contains such a command.

       Semantically,  the  body  is page oriented.  A new page is started by a
       p command.  Positioning, writing, and drawing commands are always  done
       within  the  current page, so they cannot occur before the first p com-
       mand.  Absolute positioning (by the H and V commands) is done  relative
       to the current page, all other positioning is done relative to the cur-
       rent location within this page.

COMMAND REFERENCE
       This section describes all intermediate output commands, the  classical
       commands as well as the groff extensions.

   Comment Command
       #anything⟨end-of-line⟩
              A comment.  Ignore any characters from the # character up to the
              next newline character.

       This command is the only possibility for commenting in the intermediate
       output.   Each  comment can be preceded by arbitrary syntactical space;
       every command can be terminated by a comment.

   Simple Commands
       The commands in this subsection have a command  code  consisting  of  a
       single character, taking a fixed number of arguments.  Most of them are
       commands for positioning and text writing.  These  commands  are  smart
       about  whitespace.   Optionally,  syntactical space can be inserted be-
       fore, after, and between the command letter and its arguments.  All  of
       these  commands are stackable, i.e., they can be preceded by other sim-
       ple commands or followed by arbitrary other commands on the same  line.
       A separating syntactical space is only necessary when two integer argu-
       ments would clash or if the preceding argument ends with a string argu-
       ment.

       C xxx⟨white-space⟩
              Print  a glyph (special character) named xxx.  The trailing syn-
              tactical space or line break is necessary to allow  glyph  names
              of  arbitrary length.  The glyph is printed at the current print
              position; the glyph's size is read  from  the  font  file.   The
              print position is not changed.

       c c    Print glyph with single-letter name c at the current print posi-
              tion; the glyph's size is read from the font  file.   The  print
              position is not changed.

       f n    Set font to font number n (a non-negative integer).

       H n    Move  right  to the absolute vertical position n (a non-negative
              integer in basic units u) relative to left edge of current page.

       h n    Move n (a non-negative integer) basic units  u  horizontally  to
              the  right.   [CSTR  #54] allows negative values for n also, but
              groff doesn't use this.

       m color-scheme [component ...]
              Set the color for text (glyphs), line drawing, and  the  outline
              of  graphic objects using different color schemes; the analogous
              command for the filling color of graphic  objects  is  DF.   The
              color  components  are  specified as integer arguments between 0
              and 65536.  The number of color  components  and  their  meaning
              vary for the different color schemes.  These commands are gener-
              ated by the groff escape sequence  \m.   No  position  changing.
              These commands are a groff extension.

              mc cyan magenta yellow
                     Set  color using the CMY color scheme, having the 3 color
                     components cyan, magenta, and yellow.

              md     Set color to the  default  color  value  (black  in  most
                     cases).  No component arguments.

              mg gray
                     Set  color to the shade of gray given by the argument, an
                     integer between 0 (black) and 65536 (white).

              mk cyan magenta yellow black
                     Set color using the CMYK color scheme, having the 4 color
                     components cyan, magenta, yellow, and black.

              mr red green blue
                     Set  color using the RGB color scheme, having the 3 color
                     components red, green, and blue.

       N n    Print glyph with index n (an integer, normally non-negative)  of
              the  current  font.   The  print  position  is  not changed.  If
              -T html or -T xhtml is used, negative values are emitted also to
              indicate  an  unbreakable  space with given width.  For example,
              N -193 represents an unbreakable space  which  has  a  width  of
              193u.  This command is a groff extension.

       n b a  Inform the device about a line break, but no positioning is done
              by this command.  In classical troff, the  integer  arguments  b
              and a informed about the space before and after the current line
              to make the intermediate output more human readable without per-
              forming  any  action.  In groff, they are just ignored, but they
              must be provided for compatibility reasons.

       p n    Begin a new page in the outprint.  The page number is set to  n.
              This  page is completely independent of pages formerly processed
              even if those have the same page number.  The vertical  position
              on  the  outprint  is  automatically set to 0.  All positioning,
              writing, and drawing is always done relative to  a  page,  so  a
              p command must be issued before any of these commands.

       s n    Set point size to n scaled points (this is unit z in GNU troff).
              Classical troff used the unit points (p)  instead;  see  section
              “Compatibility” below.

       t xyz...⟨white-space⟩
       t xyz... dummy-arg⟨white-space⟩
              Print  a  word,  i.e.,  a  sequence of glyphs with single-letter
              names x, y, z, etc., terminated by a space character or  a  line
              break;  an optional second integer argument is ignored (this al-
              lows the formatter to generate an  even  number  of  arguments).
              The  first  glyph should be printed at the current position, the
              current horizontal position should  then  be  increased  by  the
              width  of the first glyph, and so on for each glyph.  The widths
              of the glyph are read from the font file, scaled for the current
              point  size, and rounded to a multiple of the horizontal resolu-
              tion.  Special characters (glyphs with names longer than a  sin-
              gle letter) cannot be printed using this command; use the C com-
              mand for those glyphs.  This command is a groff extension; it is
              only used for devices whose DESC file contains the tcommand key-
              word; see groff_font(5).

       u n xyz...⟨white-space⟩
              Print word with track kerning.  This is the same as the  t  com-
              mand except that after printing each glyph, the current horizon-
              tal position is increased by the sum of the width of that  glyph
              and  n  (an  integer in basic units u).  This command is a groff
              extension; it is only used for devices whose DESC file  contains
              the tcommand keyword; see groff_font(5).

       V n    Move  down  to  the absolute vertical position n (a non-negative
              integer in basic units u) relative  to  upper  edge  of  current
              page.

       v n    Move  n  basic  units  u  down  (n  is  a non-negative integer).
              [CSTR #54] allows negative values for n also, but groff  doesn't
              use this.

       w      Informs  about  a  paddable  whitespace to increase readability.
              The spacing itself must be performed explicitly by a  move  com-
              mand.

   Graphics Commands
       Each graphics or drawing command in the intermediate output starts with
       the letter D followed by one or two characters that specify  a  subcom-
       mand;  this  is followed by a fixed or variable number of integer argu-
       ments that are separated by a single space character.  A D command  may
       not  be followed by another command on the same line (apart from a com-
       ment), so each D command is terminated by a syntactical line break.

       troff output follows the classical spacing rules (no space between com-
       mand and subcommand, all arguments are preceded by a single space char-
       acter), but the parser allows optional space between the  command  let-
       ters and makes the space before the first argument optional.  As usual,
       each space can be any sequence of tab and space characters.

       Some graphics commands can take a variable  number  of  arguments.   In
       this  case,  they  are  integers  representing a size measured in basic
       units u.  The h arguments stand for horizontal distances where positive
       means  right,  negative  left.  The v arguments stand for vertical dis-
       tances where positive means down, negative up.  All these distances are
       offsets relative to the current location.

       Unless  indicated otherwise, each graphics command directly corresponds
       to a similar groff \D escape sequence; see groff(7).

       Unknown D commands are assumed to be  device-specific.   Its  arguments
       are  parsed as strings; the whole information is then sent to the post-
       processor.

       In the following command reference,  the  syntax  element  ⟨line-break⟩
       means  a  syntactical  line break as defined in subsection “Separation”
       above.

       D~ h1 v1 h2 v2 ... hn vn⟨line-break⟩
              Draw B-spline from current position to offset (h1, v1), then  to
              offset  (h2, v2)  if  given,  etc., up to (hn, vn). This command
              takes a variable number of argument pairs; the current  position
              is moved to the terminal point of the drawn curve.

       Da h1 v1 h2 v2⟨line-break⟩
              Draw  arc from current position to (h1, v1)+(h2, v2) with center
              at (h1, v1); then move the current position to the  final  point
              of the arc.

       DC d⟨line-break⟩
       DC d dummy-arg⟨line-break⟩
              Draw a solid circle using the current fill color with diameter d
              (integer in basic units u) with leftmost point  at  the  current
              position;  then move the current position to the rightmost point
              of the circle.  An optional second integer argument  is  ignored
              (this  allows  the formatter to generate an even number of argu-
              ments).  This command is a groff extension.

       Dc d⟨line-break⟩
              Draw circle line with diameter d (integer in basic units u) with
              leftmost  point  at  the current position; then move the current
              position to the rightmost point of the circle.

       DE h v⟨line-break⟩
              Draw a solid ellipse in the current fill color with a horizontal
              diameter of h and a vertical diameter of v (both integers in ba-
              sic units u) with the leftmost point at  the  current  position;
              then  move  to the rightmost point of the ellipse.  This command
              is a groff extension.

       De h v⟨line-break⟩
              Draw an outlined ellipse with a horizontal diameter of h  and  a
              vertical diameter of v (both integers in basic units u) with the
              leftmost point at current position; then move to  the  rightmost
              point of the ellipse.

       DF color-scheme [component ...]⟨line-break⟩
              Set  fill  color for solid drawing objects using different color
              schemes; the analogous command for setting the  color  of  text,
              line  graphics,  and  the  outline of graphic objects is m.  The
              color components are specified as integer  arguments  between  0
              and  65536.   The  number  of color components and their meaning
              vary for the different color schemes.  These commands are gener-
              ated  by  the  groff escape sequences \D'F ...'  and \M (with no
              other corresponding graphics commands).  No  position  changing.
              This command is a groff extension.

              DFc cyan magenta yellow⟨line-break⟩
                     Set  fill  color  for solid drawing objects using the CMY
                     color scheme, having the 3  color  components  cyan,  ma-
                     genta, and yellow.

              DFd ⟨line-break⟩
                     Set  fill  color for solid drawing objects to the default
                     fill color value (black in most cases).  No component ar-
                     guments.

              DFg gray⟨line-break⟩
                     Set  fill color for solid drawing objects to the shade of
                     gray given by the argument, an integer between 0  (black)
                     and 65536 (white).

              DFk cyan magenta yellow black⟨line-break⟩
                     Set  fill  color for solid drawing objects using the CMYK
                     color scheme, having the 4  color  components  cyan,  ma-
                     genta, yellow, and black.

              DFr red green blue⟨line-break⟩
                     Set  fill  color  for solid drawing objects using the RGB
                     color scheme, having the 3 color components  red,  green,
                     and blue.

       Df n⟨line-break⟩
              The argument n must be an integer in the range -32767 to 32767.

              0≤n≤1000
                     Set  the  color  for  filling  solid drawing objects to a
                     shade of gray, where 0 corresponds to solid  white,  1000
                     (the  default)  to  solid black, and values in between to
                     intermediate shades of gray; this is obsoleted by command
                     DFg.

              n<0 or n>1000
                     Set  the filling color to the color that is currently be-
                     ing used for the text and the  outline,  see  command  m.
                     For example, the command sequence

                            mg 0 0 65536
                            Df -1

                     sets all colors to blue.

              No position changing.  This command is a groff extension.

       Dl h v⟨line-break⟩
              Draw  line  from  current position to offset (h, v) (integers in
              basic units u); then set current position  to  the  end  of  the
              drawn line.

       Dp h1 v1 h2 v2 ... hn vn⟨line-break⟩
              Draw  a  polygon  line from current position to offset (h1, v1),
              from there to offset (h2, v2), etc., up to offset (hn, vn),  and
              from  there  back to the starting position.  For historical rea-
              sons, the position is changed by adding the sum of all arguments
              with  odd  index  to the actual horizontal position and the even
              ones to the vertical position.  Although this doesn't make sense
              it  is  kept  for compatibility.  This command is a groff exten-
              sion.

       DP h1 v1 h2 v2 ... hn vn⟨line-break⟩
              The same macro as the corresponding Dp command with the same ar-
              guments,  but  draws  a  solid polygon in the current fill color
              rather than an outlined polygon.  The position is changed in the
              same way as with Dp.  This command is a groff extension.

       Dt n⟨line-break⟩
              Set  the  current  line  thickness  to  n  (an  integer in basic
              units u) if n>0; if  n=0  select  the  smallest  available  line
              thickness;  if  n<0  set  the line thickness proportional to the
              point size (this is the default before the first Dt command  was
              specified).   For historical reasons, the horizontal position is
              changed by adding the argument to the  actual  horizontal  posi-
              tion, while the vertical position is not changed.  Although this
              doesn't make sense it is kept for compatibility.   This  command
              is a groff extension.

   Device Control Commands
       Each  device  control  command  starts  with the letter x followed by a
       space character (optional or arbitrary space/tab in groff) and  a  sub-
       command  letter  or  word; each argument (if any) must be preceded by a
       syntactical space.  All x commands are terminated by a syntactical line
       break;  no device control command can be followed by another command on
       the same line (except a comment).

       The subcommand is basically a single letter, but to increase  readabil-
       ity,  it can be written as a word, i.e., an arbitrary sequence of char-
       acters terminated by the next tab, space, or  newline  character.   All
       characters  of  the  subcommand  word but the first are simply ignored.
       For example, troff outputs the initialization command x i as x init and
       the  resolution command x r as x res.  But writings like x i_like_groff
       and x roff_is_groff are accepted as well to mean the same commands.

       In the following, the syntax element ⟨line-break⟩ means  a  syntactical
       line break as defined in subsection “Separation” above.

       xF name⟨line-break⟩
              (Filename control command)
              Use  name as the intended name for the current file in error re-
              ports.  This is useful for remembering the  original  file  name
              when groff uses an internal piping mechanism.  The input file is
              not changed by this command.  This command is a groff extension.

       xf n s⟨line-break⟩
              (font control command)
              Mount font position n (a non-negative integer) with font named s
              (a text word); see groff_font(5).

       xH n⟨line-break⟩
              (Height control command)
              Set  character  height  to  n  (a  positive  integer  in  scaled
              points z).  Classical troff used the unit  points  (p)  instead;
              see section “Compatibility” below.

       xi ⟨line-break⟩
              (init control command)
              Initialize device.  This is the third command of the prologue.

       xp ⟨line-break⟩
              (pause control command)
              Parsed but ignored.  The classical documentation reads pause de-
              vice, can be restarted.

       xr n h v⟨line-break⟩
              (resolution control command)
              Resolution is n, while h is the minimal horizontal motion, and v
              the minimal vertical motion possible with this device; all argu-
              ments are positive integers in basic units u per inch.  This  is
              the second command of the prologue.

       xS n⟨line-break⟩
              (Slant control command)
              Set slant to n degrees (an integer in basic units u).

       xs ⟨line-break⟩
              (stop control command)
              Terminates  the  processing  of  the current file; issued as the
              last command of any intermediate troff output.

       xt ⟨line-break⟩
              (trailer control command)
              Generate trailer information, if any.  In groff, this  is  actu-
              ally just ignored.

       xT xxx⟨line-break⟩
              (Typesetter control command)
              Set  name  of device to word xxx, a sequence of characters ended
              by the next whitespace character.  The possible device names co-
              incide  with  those from the groff -T option.  This is the first
              command of the prologue.

       xu n⟨line-break⟩
              (underline control command)
              Configure underlining of spaces.  If n is 1,  start  underlining
              of  spaces;  if  n  is  0,  stop underlining of spaces.  This is
              needed for the cu request in nroff mode and  is  ignored  other-
              wise.  This command is a groff extension.

       xX anything⟨line-break⟩
              (X-escape control command)
              Send  string  anything uninterpreted to the device.  If the line
              following this command starts with a + character  this  line  is
              interpreted  as a continuation line in the following sense.  The
              + is ignored, but a newline character is sent instead to the de-
              vice,  the rest of the line is sent uninterpreted.  The same ap-
              plies to all following lines until the first character of a line
              is  not  a  + character.  This command is generated by the groff
              escape sequence \X.  The line-continuing feature is a groff  ex-
              tension.

   Obsolete Command
       In classical troff output, emitting a single glyph was mostly done by a
       very strange command that combined a horizontal move and  the  printing
       of  a  glyph.   It  didn't have a command code, but is represented by a
       3-character argument consisting of exactly 2 digits and a character.

       ddc    Move right dd (exactly two decimal digits) basic units  u,  then
              print glyph with single-letter name c.

              In  groff,  arbitrary  syntactical  space around and within this
              command is allowed to be added.  Only when a  preceding  command
              on the same line ends with an argument of variable length a sep-
              arating space is obligatory.  In classical troff, large clusters
              of  these  and  other commands were used, mostly without spaces;
              this made such output almost unreadable.

       For modern high-resolution devices, this command does  not  make  sense
       because the width of the glyphs can become much larger than two decimal
       digits.  In groff, this is only used for the devices X75, X75-12, X100,
       and  X100-12.  For other devices, the commands t and u provide a better
       functionality.

POSTPROCESSING
       The roff postprocessors are programs that have the  task  to  translate
       the  intermediate output into actions that are sent to a device.  A de-
       vice can be some piece of hardware such as a  printer,  or  a  software
       file  format suitable for graphical or text processing.  The groff sys-
       tem provides powerful means that make the programming of such  postpro-
       cessors an easy task.

       There  is  a  library  function that parses the intermediate output and
       sends the information obtained to the device via  methods  of  a  class
       with a common interface for each device.  So a groff postprocessor must
       only redefine the methods of this class.  For details, see  the  refer-
       ence in section “Files” below.

EXAMPLES
       This  section  presents the intermediate output generated from the same
       input for three different devices.  The  input  is  the  sentence  hell
       world fed into groff on the command line.

       • High-resolution device ps

         shell> echo "hell world" | groff -Z -T ps

         x T ps
         x res 72000 1 1
         x init
         p1
         x font 5 TR
         f5
         s10000
         V12000
         H72000
         thell
         wh2500
         tw
         H96620
         torld
         n12000 0
         x trailer
         V792000
         x stop

       This  output can be fed into the postprocessor grops(1) to get its rep-
       resentation as a PostScript file, or gropdf(1) to  output  directly  to
       PDF.

       • Low-resolution device latin1

         This  is  similar to the high-resolution device except that the posi-
         tioning is done at a minor scale.  Some comments (lines starting with
         #)  were added for clarification; they were not generated by the for-
         matter.

         shell> "hell world" | groff -Z -T latin1

         # prologue
         x T latin1
         x res 240 24 40
         x init
         # begin a new page
         p1
         # font setup
         x font 1 R
         f1
         s10
         # initial positioning on the page
         V40
         H0
         # write text ‘hell’
         thell
         # inform about a space, and do it by a horizontal jump
         wh24
         # write text ‘world’
         tworld
         # announce line break, but do nothing because ...
         n40 0
         # ... the end of the document has been reached
         x trailer
         V2640
         x stop

       This output can be fed into the postprocessor grotty(1) to get  a  for-
       matted text document.

       • Classical style output

         As  a  computer  monitor has a very low resolution compared to modern
         printers the intermediate output for the X devices can use the  jump-
         and-write command with its 2-digit displacements.

         shell> "hell world" | groff -Z -T X100

         x T X100
         x res 100 1 1
         x init
         p1
         x font 5 TR
         f5
         s10
         V16
         H100
         # write text with old-style jump-and-write command
         ch07e07l03lw06w11o07r05l03dh7
         n16 0
         x trailer
         V1100
         x stop

       This   output  can  be  fed  into  the  postprocessor  xditview(1x)  or
       gxditview(1) for displaying in X.

       Due to the obsolete jump-and-write command, the text  clusters  in  the
       classical output are almost unreadable.

COMPATIBILITY
       The intermediate output language of the classical troff was first docu-
       mented in [CSTR #97] .  The groff intermediate output format is compat-
       ible with this specification except for the following features.

       • The classical quasi device independence is not yet implemented.

       • The  old  hardware was very different from what we use today.  So the
         groff devices are also fundamentally different from the ones in clas-
         sical troff.  For example, the classical PostScript device was called
         post and had a resolution of 720 units per inch, while groff's ps de-
         vice  has a resolution of 72000 units per inch.  Maybe, by implement-
         ing some rescaling mechanism similar to the  classical  quasi  device
         independence, these could be integrated into modern groff.

       • The B-spline command D~ is correctly handled by the intermediate out-
         put parser, but the drawing routines aren't implemented  in  some  of
         the postprocessor programs.

       • The  argument  of the commands s and x H has the implicit unit scaled
         point z in groff, while classical troff had point (p).  This isn't an
         incompatibility,  but a compatible extension, for both units coincide
         for all devices without a sizescale parameter, including all  classi-
         cal  and  the  groff  text  devices.   The  few  groff devices with a
         sizescale parameter either did not exist, had a  different  name,  or
         seem to have had a different resolution.  So conflicts with classical
         devices are very unlikely.

       • The position changing after the commands Dp, DP, and Dt is illogical,
         but as old versions of groff used this feature it is kept for compat-
         ibility reasons.

       The differences between groff and classical  troff  are  documented  in
       groff_diff(7).

FILES
       /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/font/devname/DESC
              Device description file for device name.

       src/libs/libdriver/input.cpp
              Defines  the  parser and postprocessor for the intermediate out-
              put.  It is located relative to the top directory of  the  groff
              source tree.  This parser is the definitive specification of the
              groff intermediate output format.

AUTHORS
       James Clark wrote an early version of this  document,  which  described
       only the differences between ditroff(7)'s output format and that of GNU
       roff.  The present version was completely rewritten in  2001  by  Bernd
       Warken ⟨groff-bernd.warken-72@web.de⟩.

SEE ALSO
       A  reference  like groff(7) refers to a manual page; here groff in sec-
       tion 7 of the man page documentation system.  To read the example, look
       up section 7 in your desktop help system or call from the shell prompt

              shell> man 7 groff

       For more details, see man(1).

       groff(1)
              option -Z and further readings on groff.

       groff(7)
              for  details  of  the groff language such as numerical units and
              escape sequences.

       groff_font(5)
              for details on the device scaling parameters of the DESC file.

       troff(1)
              generates the device-independent intermediate output.

       roff(7)
              for historical aspects and the general structure  of  roff  sys-
              tems.

       groff_diff(7)
              The  differences  between  the  intermediate output in groff and
              classical troff.

       gxditview(1)
              Viewer for the intermediate output.

       grodvi(1), grohtml(1), grolbp(1), grolj4(1), grops(1), grotty(1)
              the groff postprocessor programs.

       Groff: The GNU Implementation of troff, by Trent A. Fisher  and  Werner
       Lemberg,  is the primary groff manual.  You can browse it interactively
       with “info groff”.

       The classical troff output language is described in two AT&T Bell  Labs
       CSTR  documents  available  on-line  at  Bell  Labs  CSTR site ⟨http://
       cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/cstr.html⟩.

       [CSTR #97]
              A Typesetter-independent TROFF by Brian Kernighan is the  origi-
              nal and most comprehensive documentation on the output language;
              see CSTR #97 ⟨http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/cstr/97.ps.gz⟩.

       [CSTR #54]
              The 1992 revision of the Nroff/Troff User's Manual by J. F.  Os-
              sanna  and  Brian Kernighan isn't as comprehensive as [CSTR #97]
              regarding  the  output   language;   see   CSTR   #54   ⟨http://
              cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/cstr/54.ps.gz⟩.

groff 1.22.4                     7 March 2023                     GROFF_OUT(5)

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