grodvi(1) — Linux manual page

Name | Synopsis | Description | Options | Environment | Files | Bugs | See also | COLOPHON

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.
       Output is written to the standard output stream.

       The DVI file generated by grodvi can 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.  Instead, 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.

       A device control escape sequence \X'anything' is translated to the
       same DVI file instructions as would be produced by
       \special{anything} in TeX; anything cannot contain a newline.

   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
       are not mounted by default.

       The troff option -mec loads the ec.tmac macro file, employing the
       EC and TC fonts instead of CM.  These are designed similarly to
       the Computer Modern fonts; further, they provide Euro \[Eu] and
       per mille \[%0] glyphs.  ec.tmac must be loaded before any
       language-specific macro files because it does not set up the codes
       necessary for automatic hyphenation.

   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).

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 tarball groff-1.23.0.tar.gz fetched
       from ⟨https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/groff/⟩ on 2026-01-16.  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                   2 July 2023                      grodvi(1)