grolj4(1) General Commands Manual grolj4(1)
Name
grolj4 - groff output driver for HP LaserJet 4 and compatible printers
Synopsis
grolj4 [-l] [-c num-copies] [-d [n]] [-F font-directory]
[-p paper-format] [-w line-width] [file_...]
grolj4 --help
grolj4 -v
grolj4 --version
Description
This GNU roff output driver translates the output of troff(1) into a
PCL5 format suitable for an HP LaserJet 4 printer. Normally, grolj4 is
invoked by groff(1) when the latter is given the “-T lj4” option. (In
this installation, ps is the default output device.) Use groff's -P
option to pass any options shown above to grolj4. If no file arguments
are given, or if file is “-”, grolj4 reads the standard input stream.
Output is written to the standard output stream.
Typefaces
grolj4 supports the standard four styles: R (roman), I (italic), B
(bold), and BI (bold-italic). Fonts are grouped into families A, C, G,
O, T, TN, U, and UC having members in each style.
AB Arial Bold
ABI Arial Bold Italic
AI Arial Italic
AR Arial Roman
CB Courier Bold
CBI Courier Bold Italic
CI Courier Italic
CR Courier Roman
GB Garamond Halbfett
GBI Garamond Kursiv Halbfett
GI Garamond Kursiv
GR Garamond Antiqua
OB CG Omega Bold
OBI CG Omega Bold Italic
OI CG Omega Italic
OR CG Omega Roman
OB CG Omega Bold
OBI CG Omega Bold Italic
OI CG Omega Italic
OR CG Omega Roman
TB CG Times Bold
TBI CG Times Bold Italic
TI CG Times Italic
TR CG Times Roman
TNRB M Times Bold
TNRBI M Times Bold Italic
TNRI M Times Italic
TNRR M Times Roman
UB Univers Bold
UBI Univers Bold Italic
UI Univers Medium Italic
UR Univers Medium
UCB Univers Condensed Bold
UCBI Univers Condensed Bold Italic
UCI Univers Condensed Medium Italic
UCR Univers Condensed Medium
The following fonts are not members of a family.
ALBB Albertus Extra Bold
ALBR Albertus Medium
AOB Antique Olive Bold
AOI Antique Olive Italic
AOR Antique Olive Roman
CLARENDON Clarendon
CORONET Coronet
LGB Letter Gothic Bold
LGI Letter Gothic Italic
LGR Letter Gothic Roman
MARIGOLD Marigold
The special font is S (PostScript Symbol); SYMBOL (M Symbol), and
WINGDINGS (Wingdings) are also available but not mounted by default.
Paper format and device description file
grolj4 supports paper formats “A4”, “B5”, “C5”, “com10”, “DL”,
“executive”, “legal”, “letter”, and “monarch”. These are matched case-
insensitively. The -p option overrides any setting in the device
description file DESC. If neither specifies a paper format, “letter”
is assumed.
Font description files
grolj4 recognizes four font description file directives in addition to
those documented in groff_font(5).
pclweight n
Set the stroke weight to n, an integer in the range -7 to +7;
the default is 0.
pclstyle n
Set the style to n, an integer in the range 0 to 32767; the
default is 0.
pclproportional n
Set the proportional spacing Boolean flag to n, which can be
either 0 or 1; the default is 0.
pcltypeface n
Set the typeface family to n, an integer in the range 0 to
65535; the default is 0.
Drawing commands
An additional drawing command is recognized as an extension to those
documented in groff(7).
\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), at which the drawing position will be
afterward. This generates a PCL fill rectangle command, and so
will work on printers that do not support HP-GL/2, unlike the
other \D commands.
Fonts
Nominally, all Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 4-series and newer printers
have the same internal fonts: 45 scalable fonts and one bitmapped
Lineprinter font. The scalable fonts are available in sizes between
0.25 points and 999.75 points, in 0.25-point increments; the
Lineprinter font is available only in 8.5-point size.
The LaserJet font files included with groff assume that all printers
since the LaserJet 4 are identical. There are some differences between
fonts in the earlier and more recent printers, however. The LaserJet 4
printer used Agfa Intellifont technology for 35 of the internal
scalable fonts; the remaining 10 scalable fonts were TrueType.
Beginning with the LaserJet 4000-series printers introduced in 1997,
all scalable internal fonts have been TrueType. The number of
printable glyphs differs slightly between Intellifont and TrueType
fonts (generally, the TrueType fonts include more glyphs), and there
are some minor differences in glyph metrics. Differences among printer
models are described in the PCL_5 Comparison Guide and the PCL_5
Comparison Guide Addendum (for printers introduced since approximately
2001).
LaserJet printers reference a glyph by a combination of a 256-glyph
symbol set and an index within that symbol set. Many glyphs appear in
more than one symbol set; all combinations of symbol set and index that
reference the same glyph are equivalent. For each glyph, hpftodit(1)
searches a list of symbol sets, and selects the first set that contains
the glyph. The printing code generated by hpftodit is an integer that
encodes a numerical value for the symbol set in the high byte(s), and
the index in the low byte. See groff_font(5) for a complete
description of the font file format; symbol sets are described in
greater detail in the PCL_5 Printer Language Technical Reference
Manual.
Two of the scalable fonts, Symbol and Wingdings, are bound to 256-glyph
symbol sets; the remaining scalable fonts, as well as the Lineprinter
font, support numerous symbol sets, sufficient to enable printing of
more than 600 glyphs.
The metrics generated by hpftodit assume that the DESC file contains
values of 1200 for res and 6350 for unitwidth, or any combination
(e.g., 2400 and 3175) for which res × unitwidth = 7620000. Although HP
PCL 5 LaserJet printers support an internal resolution of 7200 units
per inch, they use a 16-bit signed integer for positioning; if devlj4
is to support U.S. ledger paper (11 in × 17 in; in = inch), the maximum
usable resolution is 32767 ÷ 17, or 1927 units per inch, which rounds
down to 1200 units per inch. If the largest required paper dimension
is less (e.g., 8.5 in × 11 in, or A5), a greater res (and lesser
unitwidth) can be specified.
Font metrics for Intellifont fonts were provided by Tagged Font Metric
(TFM) files originally developed by Agfa/Compugraphic. The TFM files
provided for these fonts supported 600+ glyphs and contained extensive
lists of kerning pairs.
To accommodate developers who had become accustomed to TFM files, HP
also provided TFM files for the 10 TrueType fonts included in the
LaserJet 4. The TFM files for TrueType fonts generally included less
information than the Intellifont TFMs, supporting fewer glyphs, and in
most cases, providing no kerning information. By the time the
LaserJet 4000 printer was introduced, most developers had migrated to
other means of obtaining font metrics, and support for new TFM files
was very limited. The TFM files provided for the TrueType fonts in the
LaserJet 4000 support only the Latin 2 (ISO 8859-2) symbol set, and
include no kerning information; consequently, they are of little value
for any but the most rudimentary documents.
Because the Intellifont TFM files contain considerably more
information, they generally are preferable to the TrueType TFM files
even for use with the TrueType fonts in the newer printers. The
metrics for the TrueType fonts are very close, though not identical, to
those for the earlier Intellifont fonts of the same names. Although
most output using the Intellifont metrics with the newer printers is
quite acceptable, a few glyphs may fail to print as expected. The
differences in glyph metrics may be particularly noticeable with
composite parentheses, brackets, and braces used by eqn(1). A script,
located in
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/groff/1.23.0_1/share/groff/1.23.0/font/devlj4/generate,
can be used to adjust the metrics for these glyphs in the special font
“S” for use with printers that have all TrueType fonts.
At the time HP last supported TFM files, only version 1.0 of the
Unicode standard was available. Consequently, many glyphs lacking
assigned code points were assigned by HP to the Private Use Area (PUA).
Later versions of the Unicode standard included code points outside the
PUA for many of these glyphs. The HP-supplied TrueType TFM files use
the PUA assignments; TFM files generated from more recent TrueType font
files require the later Unicode values to access the same glyphs.
Consequently, two different mapping files may be required: one for the
HP-supplied TFM files, and one for more recent TFM files.
Options
--help displays a usage message, while -v and --version show version
information; all exit afterward.
-c num-copies
Format num-copies copies of each page.
-d [n] Use duplex mode n: 1 is long-side binding (default), and 2 is
short-side binding.
-F 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 lj4.
-l Format the document in landscape orientation.
-p paper-format
Set the paper format to paper-format, which must be a valid
paper format as described above.
-w line-width
Set the default line thickness to line-width thousandths of an
em; the default is 40 (0.04 em).
Environment
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
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/groff/1.23.0_1/share/groff/1.23.0/font/devlj4/DESC
describes the lj4 output device.
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/groff/1.23.0_1/share/groff/1.23.0/font/devlj4/F
describes the font known as F on device lj4.
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/groff/1.23.0_1/share/groff/1.23.0/tmac/lj4.tmac
defines macros for use with the lj4 output device. It is
automatically loaded by troffrc when the lj4 output device is
selected.
Bugs
Small dots.
See also
HP PCL/PJL Reference: PCL_5 Printer Language Technical Reference
Manual, Part I <http://www.hp.com/ctg/Manual/bpl13210.pdf>
hpftodit(1), groff(1), troff(1), groff_out(5), groff_font(5),
groff_char(7)
groff 1.23.0 5 July 2023 grolj4(1)