.TH groff_font 5 "13 September 2023" "groff 1.23.0"
.SH Name
groff_font \- GNU
.I roff
device and font description files
.
.
.\" ====================================================================
.\" Legal Terms
.\" ====================================================================
.\"
.\" Copyright (C) 1989-2021 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
.\"
.\" This file is part of groff (GNU roff), which is a free software
.\" project.
.\"
.\" You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU
.\" General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation,
.\" either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later
.\" version.
.\"
.\" You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
.\" along with this program.  If not, see
.\" <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html>.
.
.
.\" Save and disable compatibility mode (for, e.g., Solaris 10/11).
.do nr *groff_groff_font_5_man_C \n[.cp]
.cp 0
.
.\" Define fallback for groff 1.23's MR macro if the system lacks it.
.nr do-fallback 0
.if !\n(.f           .nr do-fallback 1 \" mandoc
.if  \n(.g .if !d MR .nr do-fallback 1 \" older groff
.if !\n(.g           .nr do-fallback 1 \" non-groff *roff
.if \n[do-fallback]  \{\
.  de MR
.    ie \\n(.$=1 \
.      I \%\\$1
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.      IR \%\\$1 (\\$2)\\$3
.  .
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.rr do-fallback
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.\" ====================================================================
.SH Description
.\" ====================================================================
.
.\" BEGIN Keep parallel with groff.texi node "Device and Font Files".
The
.I groff
font and output device description formats are slight
extensions of those used by AT&T device-independent
.IR troff . \" AT&T
.
In distinction to the AT&T implementation,
.I groff
lacks a binary format;
all files are text files.
.
(Plan\~9
.I troff \" Plan 9
has also abandoned the binary format.)
.
The device and font description files for a device
.I name
are stored in a
.IR dev name
directory.
.
The device description file is called
.IR DESC ,
and,
for each font supported by the device,
a font description file is
.RI called\~ f,
where
.IR f \~is
usually an abbreviation of a font's name and/or style.
.
For example,
the
.B ps
(PostScript)
device has
.I groff
font description files for Times roman
.RB ( TR )
and Zapf Chancery Medium italic
.RB ( ZCMI ),
among many others,
while the
.B utf8
device
(for terminal emulators)
has only font descriptions for the roman,
italic,
bold,
and bold-italic styles
.RB ( R ,
.BR I ,
.BR B ,
and
.BR BI ,
respectively).
.
.
.P
Device and font description files are read by the formatter,
.IR \%troff ,
and by output drivers.
.
The programs typically delegate these files' processing to an internal
library,
.IR libgroff ,
ensuring their consistent interpretation.
.
.
.\" ====================================================================
.SH "\f[I]DESC\f[] file format"
.\" ====================================================================
.
The
.I DESC
file contains a series of directives;
each begins a line.
.
Their order is not important,
with two exceptions:
(1) the
.B res
directive must precede any
.B \%papersize
directive;
and
(2) the
.B charset
directive must come last
(if at all).
.
If a directive name is repeated,
later entries in the file override previous ones
(except that the paper dimensions are computed based on the
.B res
directive last seen when
.B \%papersize
is encountered).
.
Spaces and/or tabs separate words and are ignored at line boundaries.
.
Comments start with the
.RB \[lq] # \[rq]
character and extend to the end of a line.
.
Empty lines are ignored.
.
.
.TP
.BI family\~ fam
The default font family is
.IR fam .
.
.
.TP
.BI fonts\~ "n F1"\~\c
.RI .\|.\|.\&\~ Fn
Fonts
.IR F1 ", \|.\|.\|.\|, " Fn
are mounted at font positions
.IR m "\|+\|1, \|.\|.\|., " m \|+\| n
where
.I m
is the number of
.B styles
(see below).
.
This directive may extend over more than one line.
.
A font name
.RB of\~ 0
causes no font to be mounted at the corresponding position.
.
.
.TP
.BI hor\~ n
The horizontal motion quantum is
.IR n \~basic
units.
.
Horizontal quantities are rounded to multiples
.RI of\~ n.
.
.
.TP
.BI image_generator\~ program
Use
.I program
to generate PNG images from PostScript input.
.
Under GNU/Linux,
this is usually
.MR gs 1 ,
but under other systems
(notably Cygwin)
it might be set to another name.
.
The
.MR grohtml 1
driver uses this directive.
.
.
.TP
.BI paperlength\~ n
The vertical dimension of the output medium is
.IR n \~basic
units
(deprecated:
use
.B \%papersize
instead).
.
.
.TP
.BI papersize\~ format-or-dimension-pair-or-file-name\c
\~.\|.\|.
The dimensions of the output medium are as according to the
argument,
which is either
a standard paper format,
a pair of dimensions,
or the name of a plain text file containing either of the foregoing.
.
Recognized paper formats are the ISO and DIN formats
.BR A0 \[en] A7 ,
.BR B0 \[en] B7 ,
.BR C0 \[en] C7 ,
and
.BR D0 \[en] D7 ;
.\" XXX: tmac/papersize.tmac does not support [ABCD]7.
the U.S.\& formats
.BR letter ,
.BR legal ,
.BR tabloid ,
.BR ledger ,
.BR statement ,
and
.BR executive ;
and the envelope formats
.BR com10 ,
.BR monarch ,
and
.BR DL .
.
Matching is performed without regard for lettercase.
.
.
.IP
Alternatively,
the argument can be a custom paper format
.IB length , width
(with no spaces before or after the comma).
.
Both
.I length
and
.I width
must have a unit appended;
valid units are
.RB \[lq] i \[rq]
for inches,
.RB \[lq] c \[rq]
for centimeters,
.RB \[lq] p \[rq]
for points,
and
.RB \[lq] P \[rq]
for picas.
.
Example:
.RB \[lq] 12c,235p \[rq].
.
An argument that starts with a digit is always treated as a custom paper
format.
.
.
.IP
Finally,
the argument can be a file name
(e.g.,
.IR /etc/papersize );
if the file can be opened,
the first line is read and a match attempted against each other form.
.
No comment syntax is supported.
.
.
.IP
More than one argument can be specified;
each is scanned in turn and the first valid paper specification used.
.
.
.TP
.BI paperwidth\~ n
The horizontal dimension of the output medium is
.IR n \~basic
units
(deprecated:
use
.B \%papersize
instead).
.
.
.TP
.B pass_filenames
Direct
.I \%troff
to emit the name of the source file being processed.
.
This is achieved with the intermediate output command
.RB \[lq] "x F" \[rq],
which
.I \%grohtml
interprets.
.
.
.TP
.BI postpro\~ program
Use
.I program
as the postprocessor.
.
.
.TP
.BI prepro\~ program
Use
.I program
as a preprocessor.
.
The
.B html
and
.B xhtml
output devices use this directive.
.
.
.TP
.BI print\~  program
Use
.I program
as the print spooler.
.
If omitted,
.IR groff 's
.B \-l
and
.B \-L
options are ignored.
.
.
.TP
.BI res\~ n
The device resolution is
.I n
basic units per inch.
.
.
.TP
.BI sizes\~ s1\~\c
.RI .\|.\|.\&\~ sn\~\c
.B 0
The device has fonts at
.IR s1 ,
\&.\|.\|.,
.I sn
scaled points
(see below).
.
The list of sizes must be terminated by
.RB a\~ 0 .
.
Each
.I si
can also be a range of sizes
.IR m \[en] n .
.
The list can extend over more than one line.
.
.
.TP
.BI sizescale\~ n
A typographical point
is subdivided into
.IR n \~scaled
points.
.
The default
.RB is\~ 1 .
.
.
.TP
.BI styles\~ S1\~\c
.RI .\|.\|.\&\~ Sm
The
.RI first\~ m
font mounting positions are associated with styles
.IR S1 ,
\&.\|.\|.,
.IR Sm .
.
.
.TP
.B tcommand
The postprocessor can handle the
.B t
.RB and\~ u
intermediate output commands.
.
.
.TP
.B unicode
The output device supports the complete Unicode repertoire.
.
This directive is useful only for devices which produce character
entities instead of glyphs.
.
.
.IP
If
.B unicode
is present,
no
.B charset
section is required in the font description files since the Unicode
handling built into
.I groff
is used.
.
However,
if there are entries in a font description file's
.B charset
section,
they either override the default mappings for those particular
characters or add new mappings
(normally for composite characters).
.
.
.IP
The
.BR utf8 ,
.BR html ,
and
.B xhtml
output devices use this directive.
.
.
.TP
.BI unitwidth\~ n
Quantities in the font description files are in basic units for fonts
whose type size is
.IR n \~scaled
points.
.
.
.TP
.B unscaled_charwidths
Make the font handling module always return unscaled glyph widths.
.
The
.I \%grohtml
driver uses this directive.
.
.
.TP
.B use_charnames_in_special
.I \%troff
should encode named glyphs inside device control commands.
.
The
.I \%grohtml
driver uses this directive.
.
.
.TP
.BI vert\~ n
The vertical motion quantum is
.IR n \~basic
units.
.
Vertical quantities are rounded to multiples
.RI of\~ n.
.
.
.TP
.B charset
This directive and the rest of the file are ignored.
.
It is recognized for compatibility with other
.I troff \" generic
implementations.
.
In GNU
.IR troff , \" GNU
character set repertoire is described on a per-font basis.
.
.
.P
.I \%troff
recognizes but ignores the directives
.BR spare1 ,
.BR spare2 ,
and
.BR biggestfont .
.
.
.P
The
.BR res ,
.BR unitwidth ,
.BR fonts ,
and
.B sizes
lines are mandatory.
.
Directives not listed above are ignored by
.I \%troff
but may be used by postprocessors to obtain further information about
the device.
.
.
.\" ====================================================================
.SH "Font description file format"
.\" ====================================================================
.
On typesetting output devices,
each font is typically available at multiple sizes.
.
While paper measurements in the device description file are in absolute
units,
measurements applicable to fonts must be proportional to the type size.
.
.I groff
achieves this using the precedent set by AT&T device-independent
.IR troff : \" AT&T
one font size is chosen as a norm,
and all others are scaled linearly relative to that basis.
.
The \[lq]unit width\[rq] is the number of basic units per point when the
font is rendered at this nominal size.
.
.
.P
For instance,
.IR groff 's
.B lbp
device uses a
.B unitwidth
of\~800.
.
Its Times roman font
.RB (\[lq] TR \[rq])
has a
.B spacewidth
of\~833;
this is also the width of its comma,
period,
centered period,
and mathematical asterisk,
while its \[lq]M\[rq] is 2,963 basic units.
.
Thus,
an \[lq]M\[rq] on the
.B lbp
device is 2,963 basic units wide at a notional type size of 800\~points.
.
(800-point type is not practical for most purposes,
but using it enables the quantities in the font description files to be
expressed as integers.)
.
.
.P
A font description file has two sections.
.
The first is a sequence of directives,
and is parsed similarly to the
.I DESC
file described above.
.
Except for the directive names that begin the second section,
their ordering is immaterial.
.
Later directives of the same name override earlier ones,
spaces and tabs are handled in the same way,
and the same comment syntax is supported.
.
Empty lines are ignored throughout.
.
.
.TP
.BI name\~ F
The name of the font
.RI is\~ F .
.
.RB \[lq] DESC \[rq]
is an invalid font name.
.
Simple integers are valid,
but their use is discouraged.
.
.RI ( groff
requests and escape sequences interpret non-negative font names as
mounting positions instead.
.
Further,
a font named
.RB \[lq] 0 \[rq]
cannot be automatically mounted by the
.B fonts
directive of a
.I DESC
file.)
.
.
.TP
.BI spacewidth\~  n
The width of an unadjusted inter-word space is
.IR n \~basic
units.
.
.
.P
The directives above must appear in the first section;
those below are optional.
.
.
.TP
.BI slant\~ n
The font's glyphs have a slant of
.IR n \~degrees;
a positive
.I n
slants in the direction of text flow.
.
.
.TP
.BI ligatures\~ lig1\~\c
.RI .\|.\|.\&\~ lign\~\c
.RB [ 0 ]
Glyphs
.IR lig1 ,
\&.\|.\|.,
.I lign
are ligatures;
possible ligatures are
.BR ff ,
.BR fi ,
.BR fl ,
.BR ffi ,
and
.BR ffl .
.
For compatibility with other
.I troff
implementations,
the list of ligatures may be terminated with
.RB a\~ 0 .
.
The list of ligatures must not extend over more than one line.
.
.
.TP
.B special
The font is
.IR special :
when a glyph is requested that is not present in the current font,
it is sought in any mounted fonts that bear this property.
.
.
.P
Other directives in this section are ignored by
.IR \%troff ,
but may be used by postprocessors to obtain further information about
the font.
.
.
.P
The second section contains one or two subsections.
.
These can appear in either order;
the first one encountered commences the second section.
.
Each starts with a directive on a line by itself.
.
A
.B charset
subsection is mandatory unless the associated
.I DESC
file contains the
.B unicode
directive.
.
Another subsection,
.BR \%kernpairs ,
is optional.
.
.
.P
The directive
.B charset
starts the character set subsection.
.
(For typesetter devices,
this directive is misnamed since it starts a list of glyphs,
not characters.)
.
It precedes a series of glyph descriptions,
one per line.
.
Each such glyph description comprises a set of fields separated by
spaces or tabs and organized as follows.
.
.
.IP
.I name metrics type code
.RI [ entity-name ]
.RB [ \-\-
.IR comment ]
.
.
.P
.I name
identifies the glyph:
if
.I name
is a printable
.RI character\~ c ,
it corresponds to the
.I troff \" generic
ordinary
.RI character\~ c .
.
If
.I name
is a multi-character sequence not beginning with
.BR \[rs] ,
it corresponds to the GNU
.I troff \" GNU
special character escape sequence
\[lq]\c
.BI \[rs][ name ]\c
\[rq].
.
A name consisting of three minus signs,
.RB \[lq] \-\-\- \[rq],
indicates that the glyph is unnamed:
such glyphs can be accessed only by the
.B \[rs]N
escape sequence in
.IR troff . \" generic; \N is portable
.
A special character named
.RB \[lq] \-\-\- \[rq]
can still be defined using
.B .char
and similar requests.
.
The
.I name
.RB \[lq] \[rs]\- \[rq]
defines the minus sign glyph.
.
.\" TODO: Withdraw support for this.  No one seems to use it.
Finally,
.I name
can be the horizontal motion escape sequences,
.B \[rs]|
and
.B \[rs]\[ha]
(\[lq]thin\[rq] and \[lq]hair\[rq] spaces,
respectively),
in which case only the width metric described below is applied;
a font can thus customize the widths of these spaces.
.\" XXX: For exhaustivity purposes...you can define "\whatever", which
.\" has to be accessed with \C'\\whatever' or \[\\whatever], but the
.\" parser matches predefined escape sequences before looking up special
.\" characters.  Most such definitions are inaccessible from the
.\" language, because nearly every '\x', where 'x' is a Unicode basic
.\" Latin character, is a predefined groff escape sequence.
.
.
.br
.ne 4v \" Keep next paragraph together with (possibly 2-line) synopsis.
.P
The form of the
.I metrics
field is as follows
(on one line;
it may be broken here for readability).
.
.
.IP
.\" XXX: Turning off adjustment is ugly; thanks to meter-long specimens
.\" like this, we need an escape sequence that selectively disables
.\" adjustment at the end of a word.
.na
.I width\/\c
.RI [\fB,\fP[ \:height\/\c
.RI [\fB,\fP[ \:depth\/\c
.RI [\fB,\fP[ \:\%italic-correction\/\c
.RI [\fB,\fP[ \:\%left-italic-correction\/\c
.RI [\fB,\fP[ \:\%subscript-correction ]]]]]]]]]]
.ad \*[AD]
.
.
.P
There must not be any spaces,
tabs,
or newlines between these
.I subfields,
.
which are in basic units expressed as decimal integers.
.
Unspecified subfields default
.RB to\~ 0 .
.
Since there is no associated binary format,
these values are not required to fit into the C language data type
.B char
as they are in AT&T device-independent
.IR troff . \" AT&T
.
.
.P
The
.I width
subfield gives the width of the glyph.
.
The
.I height
subfield gives the height of the glyph
(upwards is positive);
if a glyph does not extend above the baseline,
it should be given a zero height,
rather than a negative height.
.
The
.I depth
subfield gives the depth of the glyph,
that is,
the distance below the baseline to which the glyph extends
(downwards is positive);
if a glyph does not extend below the baseline,
it should be given a zero depth,
rather than a negative depth.
.
Italic corrections are relevant to glyphs in italic or oblique styles.
.
The
.I italic-correction
is the amount of space that should be added after an oblique glyph to be
followed immediately by an upright glyph.
.
The
.I left-italic-correction
is the amount of space that should be added before an oblique glyph to
be preceded immediately by an upright glyph.
.
The
.I
subscript-correction
is the amount of space that should be added after an oblique glyph to be
followed by a subscript;
it should be less than the italic correction.
.
.
.P
For fonts used with typesetting devices,
the
.I type
field gives a featural description of the glyph:
it is a bit mask recording whether the glyph is an ascender,
descender,
both,
or neither.
.
When a
.B \[rs]w
escape sequence is interpolated,
these values are bitwise or-ed together
for each glyph
and stored in the
.B ct
register.
.
In font descriptions for terminal devices,
all glyphs might have a type of zero,
regardless of their appearance.
.
.
.TP
0
means the glyph lies entirely between the baseline and
a horizontal line at the \[lq]x-height\[rq] of the font,
as with \[lq]a\[rq],
\[lq]c\[rq],
and
\[lq]x\[rq];
.
.
.TP
1
means the glyph descends below the baseline,
like \[lq]p\[rq];
.
.
.TP
2
means the glyph ascends above the font's x-height,
like \[lq]A\[rq] or
\[lq]b\[rq]);
and
.
.
.TP
3
means the glyph is both an ascender and a descender\[em]this is true of
parentheses in some fonts.
.
.
.P
The
.I code
field gives a numeric identifier that the postprocessor uses to render
the glyph.
.
The glyph can be specified to
.I troff \" generic
using this code by means of the
.B \[rs]N
escape sequence.
.
The code can be any integer
(that is,
any integer parsable by the C standard library's
.MR strtol 3
function).
.
.
.P
The
.I entity-name
field defines an identifier for the glyph that the postprocessor
uses to print the
.I \%troff
glyph
.IR name .
.
This field is optional;
it was introduced so that the
.I \%grohtml
output driver could encode its character set.
.
For example,
the glyph
.B \[rs][Po]
is represented by
.RB \[lq] &pound; \[rq]
in HTML 4.0.
.
For efficiency,
these data are now compiled directly into
.IR \%grohtml .
.
.I grops
uses the field to build sub-encoding arrays for PostScript fonts
containing more than 256 glyphs.
.
Anything on the line after the
.I entity-name
field or
.RB \[lq] \-\- \[rq]
is ignored.
.
.
.P
A line in the
.B charset
section can also have the form
.
.RS
.IB name\~ \[dq]
.RE
.
identifying
.I name
as another name for the glyph mentioned in the preceding line.
.
Such aliases can be chained.
.
.
.P
The directive
.B \%kernpairs
starts a list of kerning adjustments to be made to adjacent glyph pairs
from this font.
.
It contains a sequence of lines formatted as follows.
.
.RS
.I g1 g2 n
.RE
.
The foregoing means that when glyph
.I g1
is typeset immediately before
.IR g2 ,
the space between them should be increased
.RI by\~ n .
.
Most kerning pairs should have a negative value
.RI for\~ n .
.\" END Keep parallel with groff.texi node "Device and Font Files".
.
.
.br
.ne 4v
.\" ====================================================================
.SH Files
.\" ====================================================================
.
.TP
.IR /usr/\:\%share/\:\%groff/\:\%1.23.0/\:\%font/\:\%dev name /\:DESC
describes the output device
.IR name .
.
.
.TP
.IR /usr/\:\%share/\:\%groff/\:\%1.23.0/\:\%font/\:\%dev name / F
describes the font known
.RI as\~ F
on device
.IR name .
.
.
.\" ====================================================================
.SH "See also"
.\" ====================================================================
.
.IR "Groff: The GNU Implementation of troff" ,
by Trent A.\& Fisher and Werner Lemberg,
is the primary
.I groff
manual.
.
You can browse it interactively with \[lq]info groff\[rq].
.
.
.P
\[lq]Troff User's Manual\[rq]
by Joseph F.\& Ossanna,
1976
(revised by Brian W.\& Kernighan,
1992),
AT&T Bell Laboratories Computing Science Technical Report No.\& 54,
widely called simply \[lq]CSTR\~#54\[rq],
documents the language,
device and font description file formats,
and device-independent output format
referred to collectively in
.I groff
documentation as
.RI \[lq]AT&T\~ troff \[rq].
.
.
.P
\[lq]A Typesetter-independent TROFF\[rq]
by Brian W.\& Kernighan,
1982,
AT&T Bell Laboratories Computing Science Technical Report No.\& 97,
provides additional insights into the
device and font description file formats
and device-independent output format.
.
.
.P
.MR groff 1 ,
subsection \[lq]Utilities\[rq],
lists programs available for describing fonts in a variety of formats
such that
.I groff
output drivers can use them.
.
.
.P
.MR \%troff 1
documents the default device and font description file search path.
.
.
.P
.MR groff_out 5 ,
.MR addftinfo 1
.
.
.\" Restore compatibility mode (for, e.g., Solaris 10/11).
.cp \n[*groff_groff_font_5_man_C]
.do rr *groff_groff_font_5_man_C
.
.
.\" Local Variables:
.\" fill-column: 72
.\" mode: nroff
.\" End:
.\" vim: set filetype=groff textwidth=72: