grodvi(1) General Commands Manual grodvi(1)
Name
grodvi - groff output driver for TeX DVI format
Synopsis
grodvi [-dl] [-F dir] [-p paper-format] [-w n] [file ...]
grodvi --help
grodvi -v
grodvi --version
Description
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. It writes to the standard
output stream.
The DVI file generated by grodvi can be 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. See subsection "Device extension commands" below.
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 not
mounted by default.
You can load the ec.tmac macro file to employ the EC and TC fonts
instead of CM, which they resemble. They also provide Euro \[Eu] and
per mille \[%0] glyphs. Do so before loading localization macro files,
because ec.tmac does not set up automatic hyphenation codes.
Device extension commands
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.
grodvi supports one device extension, accessed with the groff request
device or roff \X escape sequence.
\X'papersize=width,length'
Set the page dimensions in centimeters to width by length. If
the -l option was specified, these dimensions are swapped.
Changes to the paper dimensions should occur prior to the first
page, or during page ejection before starting a subsequent one.
Caution: the ordering of dimensions differs from that used by
papersize.tmac and troff(1)'s "-d paper" option.
The parameter(s) to device and \X are translated to the same DVI file
instructions as would be produced by \special{anything} in TeX;
anything cannot contain a newline.
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
--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).
Exit status
grodvi 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
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
/opt/local/share/groff/1.24.1/font/devdvi/DESC
describes the dvi output device.
/opt/local/share/groff/1.24.1/font/devdvi/F
describes the font known as F on device dvi.
/opt/local/share/groff/1.24.1/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.
/opt/local/share/groff/1.24.1/tmac/ec.tmac
configures the dvi output device to use the EC and TC font
families instead of CM (Computer Modern).
Bugs
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
"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)
groff 1.24.1 2026-05-15 grodvi(1)
groff 1.24.1 - Generated Mon May 18 08:20:55 CDT 2026