NEWS revision 69626
1This file describes recent user-visible changes in groff.  Bug fixes
2are not described.  There are more details in the man pages.
3
4VERSION 1.16.1
5==============
6
7Bug fixes only; no user-visible changes.
8
9VERSION 1.16
10============
11
12Groff
13-----
14
15The anachronism of calling the man macro package with `-man' has been fixed;
16now you can say `-m man' also. The same is true for `ms', `me', `markup',
17`mandoc', and `mdoc'.
18
19A new switch `-g' for calling `grn' is available.
20
21A new switch `-G' for calling `grap' is available.
22
23EBCDIC support for tty devices has been added.  On such hosts, IBM code page
241047 is available with -Tcp1047 instead of -Tascii and -Tlatin1 (and, for
25the moment, -Tutf8).  Note that non-tty devices are not yet supported (but
26installed).
27
28Troff
29-----
30
31A new command line option to the `man' macros is available: `-rSxx' (with
32`xx' either 10, 11, or 12) to set the base document font size to `xx'
33points.  Additionally, `.SH' now produces larger headings than `.SS'.
34
35To solve a problem with the .PSPIC macro which needs the `-U' switch of
36troff to access an external program (psbb), a new request .psbb is now
37available to get the bounding box of a PostScript image file.  The values
38(in PostScript units) are returned in the new read-only number registers
39`llx', `lly', `urx', and `ury'.  Consequently, .PSPIC has been adapted to
40use the new request, and the psbb program has been removed.
41
42A new predefined writable number register, `year', has been added.  It
43contains the current year.
44
45A new read-only register, `.Y', has been added.  It contains the revision
46number of the groff package.
47
48`\fP' now behaves as expected in situations like the following where the
49font `foo' is undefined:
50
51  .B bold text
52  normal text \f[foo]bar\fP normal text
53
54Previously, the text after \fP appeared as bold.
55
56The `substring' request is not new, but hasn't been documented before.
57
58The predefined `.T' string register (which holds the current output device)
59is not new, but hasn't been documented before.
60
61A new request `length' computes the length of a string and returns it in
62a number register.
63
64The macro files `tmac.a4' (for specifying A4 paper format) and `tmac.trace'
65(a debugging aid) are now installed also.
66
67A new resource file, `troffrc-end', is now available.  It is invoked after
68all user-specified macros.  Currently used by the html device to include
69tmac.html; thus no need for users to specify -mhtml anymore.
70
71The soft hyphen character now has a glyph name: `shc'.
72
73The latin-1 character 173 (PS name `periodcentered') has got the troff glyph
74name `pc' and is no longer intermixed with the symbol character `md' (PS
75name `mathdot').
76
77ASCII character 34 (PS name `quotedbl') has got the troff glyph name `dq'
78(which is an alias to character `"').
79
80ASCII character 39 (PS name `quoteright') has got the troff glyph name `cq'
81(which is an alias to character "'").
82
83Some additions to the font description files have been implemented for
84better support of HTML output:
85
86  The new format of lines in the `charset' subsection of font description
87  files is
88
89     name metrics type code [entity_name] [-- comment]
90
91  Currently, only the font description files in devhtml use the optional
92  entity_name string to define glyph entities in HTML.  Everything after the
93  entity_name field is ignored; in case this field isn't used, two hyphen
94  characters are now necessary to start a comment.
95
96  Two new requests are available in DESC files (currently used only with
97  grohtml):
98
99    use_charnames_in_special
100      This command indicates that troff should encode named characters
101      inside special commands.
102
103    pass_filenames
104      requests that troff tells the driver the source file name being
105      processed.  This is achieved by another tcommand: `F filename'.
106
107Grotty
108------
109
110Bruno Haible <haible@clisp.cons.org> contributed support for UTF8 output.
111
112Grohtml
113-------
114
115Added .LINE macro to tmac.arkup.
116
117The obsolete `.LINK' macro has been removed.
118
119.URL, .FTP, and .MAILTO macros now accept an optional third argument which
120will be immediately appended to the second argument (to be used with
121punctuation, for example).
122
123Grodvi
124------
125
126The font size 11pt has been changed to 10.95pt (as used in LaTeX 2e).
127
128A new font file CWI (using cmitt10; this is typewriter italic) has been
129added.
130
131Grolbp
132------
133
134A new driver for Canon CAPSL printers (LBP-4 and LBP-8 series laser
135printers).  This code has been contributed by Francisco Andres Verdu
136<pandres@dragonet.es>.
137
138Grn
139---
140
141A new preprocessor to process gremlin pictures.  It is based on the
142original Berkeley implementation of grn, written by David Slattengren
143and Barry Roitblat, and has been adapted to groff by Daniel Senderowicz
144<daniel@synchrods.com> and Werner Lemberg <wl@gnu.org>.
145
146Pic
147---
148
149Added the `srand' command to set the seed for a new sequence of
150pseudo-random numbers to be returned by `rand'.
151
152Gxditview
153---------
154
155Simplified installation: The Imakefile will now be configured (by groff's
156configure script).
157
158Documentation
159-------------
160
161Three new man pages are available: groff_tmac.5 (documenting how troff macros
162are accessed and where they are found), groff.7 (a short reference of the GNU
163roff language), and roff.7 (a general survey on GNU troff).
164
165Miscellaneous
166-------------
167
168A port to win32 (for use with Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0) is now part of the
169distribution.  It has been contributed by Blake McBride
170<blake@florida-software.com>.
171
172More information about programs, macros, documentation, etc., which is
173related to groff has been collected in the file `MORE.STUFF'.
174
175VERSION 1.13, 1.14, 1.15
176========================
177
178Bug fixes only; no user-visible changes.
179
180VERSION 1.12
181============
182
183Finally, there are new maintainers for groff.  Mailing lists and a CVS
184repository are available also.  See the file README for details.  Not
185all reported bug could be fixed, so please send mails again if
186something is still not working.
187
188Most of the installation problems should have vanished now (most
189notably the $(tmac_wrap) bug).
190
191There is now a man page called groff_man.man which documents the
192basics of the -man macros.  It has been originally written by Susan
193G. Kleinmann <sgk@debian.org>.
194
195A (still incomplete) groff reference manual in texinfo format
196originally contributed by Trent A. Fisher <trent@gnurd.portland.or.us>.
197
198me.man and msafer.man have been renamed to groff_me.man
199resp. groff_msafer.man for consistency.
200
201Default strings for macros in doc-common resp. tmac.an no longer
202contain the word `UNIX'.
203
204groff should now be Y2k safe (fixes contributed by Paul Eggert
205<eggert@twinsun.com>).
206
207Following the GNU standards, groff will now use the prefix
208`/usr/local/' as the default instead of replacing an existent groff
209binary.
210
211groff, troff, nroff, and pic now support the -U flag to activate unsafe
212behaviour (without -msafer); the -S flag for using the -msafer macros
213is now the default.
214
215Grohtml
216-------
217
218This is a new output device for producing HTML output contributed by
219Gaius Mulley <gaius@glam.ac.uk>.  It is still very alpha but has been
220included into the distribution so that a lot of people have a chance
221to test it.  Bug reports are highly welcome.
222
223Grolj4
224------
225
226Duplex printing support has been contributed by Jeffrey Copeland
227<jeff@opennt.com>.
228
229Soelim
230------
231
232Added -I option for defining include paths (patch contributed by Peter
233Miller <peterm@jna.com.au>).
234
235Gxditview
236---------
237
238Fallback resources added (patch contributed by Larry Jones
239<larry.jones@sdrc.com>).
240
241Will now support 8 gray levels.
242
243mm
244--
245
246New version 1.32 (contributed by Joergen Haegg <jh@axis.com>).
247
248VERSION 1.11
249============
250
251Complete documentation for pic is now in the file doc/pic.ms.  It was
252contributed by Eric S. Raymond, <esr@thyrsus.com>, who is emphatically
253*not* volunteering to take over groff as he is way overworked with
254half a dozen other projects.
255
256VERSION 1.10
257============
258
259The directory where data files are installed has been changed from
260/usr/local/lib/groff to /usr/local/share/groff to comply with the
261latest GNU coding standards.
262
263By default groff programs with Unix equivalents are installed with a
264"g" prefix unless there is an existing (non-groff) troff installation.
265
266A new approach is used to make system macro packages available to
267groff.  Instead of simply including /usr/lib/tmac in the list of
268directories searched by groff, the installation process creates for
269each system macro package a wrapper macro package in the groff macro
270directory that references the system macro package.  The groff macro
271packages are now installed with a leading "g" prefix if there is a
272system version of the same macro package, and otherwise without the
273"g" prefix, with the exception that the groff version of -me which is
274always installed as -me.
275
276There is a new device, lj4, for the HP LaserJet 4 (and PCL5
277compatibles).
278
279Groff
280-----
281
282groff has a -S option that prevents the use of unsafe features in pic
283and troff.  This uses a new -S option of pic and the -msafer macros
284for troff.
285
286Troff
287-----
288
289The `blm' request specifies a macro to be invoked when a blank line is
290encountered.
291
292Pic
293---
294
295A -S (safer) option disables the sh command.
296
297Grops
298-----
299
300The -m option enables manual feed.
301
302VERSION 1.09
303============
304
305\(rn will now produce a character that has the traditional metrics,
306and will form corners with \(ul and \(br.  This means that it will not
307align properly with \(sr.  Instead there's a new character
308\[radicalex] which aligns with \(sr; this is used by eqn for doing
309square roots.
310
311Troff
312-----
313
314The `pso' request allows you to read from the standard output of a
315command.
316
317Grops
318-----
319
320The PSPIC macro has options to allow the horizontal alignment of the
321graphic to be specified.
322
323VERSION 1.08
324============
325
326Troff
327-----
328
329The escape sequence \V[xxx] will interpolate the value of the
330environment variable xxx.
331
332Tbl
333---
334
335The decimalpoint option can be used to specify the character to be
336recognized as the decimal point character in place of the default
337period.
338
339VERSION 1.07
340============
341
342Groff
343-----
344
345The environment variable GROFF_COMMAND_PREFIX can be used to control
346whether groff looks for `gtroff' or `troff' (similarily for the
347preprocessors.)
348
349Troff
350-----
351
352Multilingual hyphenation is supported by new `hpf' and `hla' requests,
353and by a `\n[.hla]' number register.  The -H option has been removed.
354Files of hyphenation patterns can have comments.
355
356When a font cannot be found, troff gives a warning (of type `font',
357enabled by default) instead of an error.
358
359There's a new request `trnt' that's like `tr' except that it doesn't
360apply to text transparently throughput into a diversion with \!.
361
362Tbl
363---
364
365There is a `nokeep' option which tells tbl not to use diversions to
366try to keep the table on one page.
367
368Eqn
369---
370
371Setting the parameter `nroff' to a non-zero value causes `ndefine' to
372behave like `define' and `tdefine' to be ignored.  This is done by
373eqnrc when the current device is ascii or latin1.  There's a `neqn'
374script that just does `eqn -Tascii'.
375
376Grotty
377------
378
379grotty uses whatever page length was specified using the `pl' request
380rather than using the paperlength command in the DESC file.  The
381paperwidth command in the DESC file is also ignored.
382
383VERSION 1.06
384============
385
386The programs in groff that have Unix counterparts can now be installed
387without a leading `g' prefix.  See the `g' variable in the Makefile.
388
389The g?nroff script simulates the nroff command using groff.
390
391New special characters \(+h, \(+f, \(+p, \(Fn, \(Bq, \(bq, \(aq, \(lz,
392\(an.  See groff_char(7).
393
394^L is now a legal input character.
395
396Groff
397-----
398
399The Xps pseudo-device has disappeared.  Instead there is a new -X
400option that tells groff to use gxditview instead of the usual
401postprocessor. (So instead of -TXps, use -XTps or just -X if your
402default device is ps.)
403
404The postprocessor to be used for a particular device is now specified
405by a `postpro' command in the DESC file rather than being compiled
406into groff.  Similarly the command to be used for printing (with the
407-l option) is now specified by a `print' command in the DESC file.
408
409The groff command no longer specifies eqnchar as an input file for
410eqn.  Instead eqn automatically loads a file `eqnrc'.  The groff
411command no longer passes the -D option to eqn.  Instead eqnrc sets the
412draw_lines parameter.
413
414The groff command no longer tells troff to load a device-specific
415macro file.  This is handled instead by the `troffrc' file, which is
416always loaded by troff.
417
418The shell script version of groff has been removed.
419
420Troff
421-----
422
423The `rchar' request removes a character definition established with `char'.
424
425Compatibility mode is disabled and the escape character is set to `\'
426while a character definition is being processed.
427
428The `\#' escape sequence is like `\"' except that the terminating
429newline is ignored.
430
431The `shc' request tells troff which character to insert (instead of
432the default \(hy) when a word is hyphenated at a line break.
433
434A font name of 0 (zero) in the DESC file will cause no font to be
435mounted on the corresponding font position.  This is useful for
436arranging that special fonts are mounted on positions on which users
437are not likely explicitly to mount fonts.  All groff devices now avoid
438initially mounting fonts on positions 5-9.
439
440The `do' request allows a single request or macro to be interpreted
441with compatibility mode disabled.
442
443troff automatically loads a file `troffrc' before any other input file.
444This can be prevented with the -R option.  This file is responsible
445for loading the device-specific macros.
446
447Pic
448---
449
450The -x option has been removed and a -n option has been added.  By
451default, pic now assumes that the postprocessor supports groff
452extensions.  The -n option tells pic to generate output that works
453with ditroff drivers.  The -z option now applies only to TeX mode.
454
455The -p option has been removed. Instead if the -n option is not
456specified, pic generates output that uses \X'ps: ...' if the \n(0p
457register is non-zero and tmac.ps sets this register to 1.
458
459In places where you could 1st or 5th you can now say `i'th or `i+1'th
460(the quotes are required).
461
462Eqn
463---
464
465Eqn now automatically reads a file `eqnrc' from the macro directory.
466This performs the same role that the eqnchar files used to.  This can
467be prevented by the -R option.
468
469Setting the draw_lines parameter to a non-zero value causes lines to
470be drawn using \D rather than \l.  The -D option is now obsolete.
471
472`uparrow', `downarrow' and `updownarrow' can be used with `left' and
473`right'.
474
475The amount of extra space added before and after lines containing
476equations can be controlled using the `body_height' and `body_depth'
477parameters.
478
479Grops
480-----
481
482Font description files have been regenerated from newer AFM files.
483You can get access to the additional characters present in the text
484fonts in newer PostScript printers by using -mpsnew.
485
486The default value of the -b option is specified by a `broken' command
487in the DESC file.
488
489With the -g option, grops will generate PostScript code that guesses
490the page height.  This allows documents to be printed on both letter
491(8.5x11) and A4 paper without change.
492
493Grodvi
494------
495
496ISO Latin-1 characters are available with -Tdvi.  Format groff_char(7)
497with groff -Tdvi for more information.
498
499Grotty
500------
501
502The -mtty-char macros contain additional character definitions for
503use with grotty.
504
505Macros
506------
507
508In previous releases the groff -me macros treated the $r and $R number
509registers in a way that was incompatible with the BSD -me macros.  The
510reason for this was that the approach used by the BSD -me macros does
511not work with low resolution devices such as -TX75 and -TX100.
512However, this caused problems with existing -me documents.  In this
513release, the vertical spacing is controlled by the $v and $V registers
514which have the same meaning as $r and $R in earlier groff releases.
515In addition, if the $r or $R register is set to a value that would be
516correct for for the BSD -me macros and a low resolution device is not
517being used, then an appropriate value for the $v or $V register will
518be derived from the $r or $R register.
519
520The groff -me macros work with -C and (I think) with Unix troff.
521
522For backward compatibility with BSD -me, the \*{ and \*} strings are
523also available as \*[ and \*].  Of course, \*[ will only be usable
524with -C.
525
526The \*T string has been deleted.  Use \*(Tm instead.
527
528Xditview
529--------
530
531The `n', Space and Return keys are bound to the Next Page action.  The
532`p', BackSpace and Delete keys are bound to the Previous Page action.
533The `q' key is bound to the Quit action.
534
535The `r' key is bound to a rerasterize action that reruns groff, and
536redisplays the current page.
537
538VERSION 1.05
539============
540
541Pic
542---
543
544There is a alternative assignment operator `:=' which interacts
545differently with blocks.
546
547There is a new command `command', which allows the values of variables
548to be passed through to troff or TeX.
549
550The `print' command now accepts multiple arguments.
551
552String comparison expressions (using `==' or `!=') are allowed in more
553contexts.
554
555Grotty
556------
557
558Horizontal and vertical lines drawn with \D'l ...' will be rendered
559using -, | and + characters.  This is intended to give reasonable
560results with boxed tables.  It won't work well with pic.
561
562Macros
563------
564
565The -mdoc macros have been upgraded to the version in the second
566Berkeley networking release.  This version is not completely
567compatible with earlier versions; the old version is still available
568as -mdoc.old.  The grog script has been enhanced so that it can
569usually determine whether a document requires the old or new versions.
570
571With -TX75, -TX100 and -TXps, the PSPIC macro will produce a box
572around where the picture would appear with -Tps.
573
574VERSION 1.04
575============
576
577An implementation of the -mm macros is included.
578
579The directory in which temporary files are created can be controlled
580by setting the GROFF_TMPDIR or TMPDIR environment variables.
581
582Pic
583---
584
585Some MS-DOS support (see pic/make-dos-dist).
586
587Grops
588-----
589
590There are two new \X commands (\X'ps: invis' and \X'ps: endinvis')
591which make it possible to have substitute characters that are
592displayed when previewing with -TXps but ignored when printing with
593grops.
594
595Xditview
596--------
597
598Support for scalable fonts.
599
600VERSION 1.03
601============
602
603No changes other than bug fixes.
604
605VERSION 1.02
606============
607
608There is an implementation of refer and associated programs.  groff -R
609preprocesses with grefer; no mechanism is provided for passing
610arguments to grefer because most grefer options have equivalent
611commands which can be included in the file.  grog also supports refer.
612
613There is an alternative perl implementation of the grog script.
614
615The code field in lines in the charset section of font description
616files is now allowed to contain an arbitrary integer (previously it
617was required to lie between 0 and 255).  Currently grops and grodvi
618use only the low order 8 bits of the value.  Grodvi will use the
619complete value; however, this is unlikely to be useful with
620traditional TeX tools (.tfm files only allow 8 bit character codes.)
621
622Left and right double quotes can be obtained with \(lq and \(rq
623respectively.
624
625There is a new program called pfbtops which translates PostScript
626fonts in pfb format to ASCII.
627
628A slightly modified version of the Berkeley tmac.doc is included.
629
630Troff
631-----
632
633In long escape names the closing ] is now required to be at the same
634input level as the opening [.
635
636The \A'S' escape sequence returns 1 or 0 according as S is or is not
637suitable for use as a name.
638
639\~ produces an unbreakable space that can be stretched when the line
640is adjusted.
641
642The `mso' request is like the `so' request except that it searches for
643the file in the same directories in which tmac.X is searched for when
644the -mX option is given.
645
646The escape sequence `\R' is similar to the `nr' request.
647
648Eqn
649---
650
651A new `special' primitive allows you to add new types of unary
652constructs by writing a troff macro.
653
654Pic
655---
656
657The implementation no longer uses gperf.
658
659Grops
660-----
661
662The compile-time -DBROKEN_SPOOLER option has been replaced by a
663BROKEN_SPOOLER_FLAGS option.  This allows more precise control over
664how grops should workaround broken spoolers and previewers.  There is
665a new -b option that can change this at run-time.
666
667Grops now generates PostScript that complies with version 3.0 of the
668Document Structuring Convention.
669
670The resource management component of grops (the part that deals with
671imported documents and downloadable fonts) has been rewritten and now
672supports version 3.0 of the Document Structuring Conventions.  The
673%%DocumentFonts comment is no longer supported; you must use the
674%%Document{Needed,Supplied}{Fonts,Resources} comments instead
675(or as well.)
676
677tmac.psatk contains some macros that support the mechanism used by the
678Andrew Toolkit for including PostScript graphics in troff documents.
679
680Xditview
681--------
682
683Parts of xditview have been rewritten so that it can be used with the
684output of gtroff -Tps.  groff -TXps will run gtroff -Tps with
685gxditview.
686
687There is a new menu entry `Print' which brings up a dialog box for
688specifying a command with which the file being previewed should be
689printed.
690
691Xditview now uses imake.
692
693VERSION 1.01
694============
695
696The groff command now understands the gtroff `-a' and `-i' options.
697
698With the `m' and `n' scale indicators, the scale factor is rounded
699horizontally before being applied.  This makes (almost) no difference
700for devices with `hor' equal to 1, but it makes groff with -Tascii or
701-Tlatin1 behave more like nroff in its treatment of these scale
702indicators.  Accordingly tmac.tty now calls the `nroff' request so
703that the `n' condition will be true.
704
705The device-specific macros (tmac.ps, tmac.dvi, tmac.tty and tmac.X)
706have been made to work at least somewhat with -C.  In particular the
707special characters defined by these macros now work with -C.
708
709groff -Tdvi -p will now pass pic the -x flag; this will enable filling
710of arrowheads and boxes, provided that your dvi driver supports the
711latest version of the tpic specials.
712
713Eqn
714---
715
716There is a new `-N' option that tells eqn not to allow newlines in
717delimiters.  This allows eqn to recover better from missing closing
718delimiters.  The groff command will pass on a `-N' option to eqn.
719
720Grops
721-----
722
723You can now use psfig with grops.  See the file ps/psfig.diff.  I do
724not recommend using psfig for new documents.
725
726The command \X'ps: file F' is similar to \X'ps: exec ...' except that
727the PostScript code is read from the file F instead of being contained
728within the \X command.  This was added to support psfig.
729
730Grodvi
731------
732
733There are font files HB and HI corresponding to cmsssbx10 and cmssi10.
734
735Macros
736------
737
738The groff -me macros now work with the -C option.  As a result, they
739may also work with Unix nroff/troff.
740
741In -me, the $r and $R number registers now contain the line spacing as
742a percentage of the pointsize expressed in units (normally about 120).
743The previous definition was useless with low resolution devices such
744as X75 and X100.
745
746VERSION 1.00
747============
748
749A -ms-like macro-package is now included.
750
751The name for the Icelandic lowercase eth character has been changed
752from \(-d to \(Sd.
753
754Troff
755-----
756
757There is a new request `nroff', which makes the `n' built-in condition
758true and the `t' built-in condition false; also a new request `troff'
759which undoes the effect of the `nroff' request.  This is intended only
760for backward compatibility: it is usually better to test \n(.H or
761\n(.V or to use the `c' built-in condition.
762
763The \R escape sequence has been deleted.  Use \E instead.
764
765There are `break' and `continue' requests for use with the `while'
766request.
767
768There is a request `hym' that can ensure that when the current
769adjustment mode is not `b' a line will not be hyphenated if it is no
770more than a given amount short, and a request `hys' that can ensure
771that when the current adjustment mode is `b' a line will not be
772hyphenated if it can be justified by adding no more than a given
773amount of extra space to each word space.
774
775There is a request `rj' similar to `ce' that right justifies lines.
776
777A warning of type `space' will be given when a call is made to an
778undefined request or macro with a name longer than two characters, and
779the first two characters of the name make a name that is defined.
780This is intended to find places where a space has been omitted been a
781request or macro and its argument.  This type of warning is enabled by
782default.
783
784Pic
785---
786
787A comma is permitted between the arguments to the `reset' command.
788
789For use with TeX, there is a new `-c' option that makes gpic treat
790lines beginning with `.' in a way that is more compatible with tpic
791(but ugly).
792
793Eqn
794---
795
796It is no longer necessary to add `space 0' at the beginning of
797complicated equations inside pictures.
798
799`prime' is now treated as an ordinary character, as in Unix eqn.  The
800previous behaviour of `prime' as an operator can now be obtained using
801`opprime'.
802
803Xditview
804--------
805
806There are two new devices X75-12 and X100-12 which are the same as X75
807and X100 except that they are optimized for documents that use mostly
80812 point text.
809
810VERSION 0.6
811===========
812
813The installation process has been refined to make it easy for you to
814share groff with someone who has the same type of machine as you but
815does not have a C++ compiler.  See the end of the INSTALL file for
816details.
817
818There is a man page for the tfmtodit program which explains how to use
819your own fonts with groff -Tdvi.
820
821There is a man page for afmtodit which explains how to use your own
822PostScript fonts with groff -Tps.
823
824The \N escape sequence is now fully supported.  It can now be used to
825access any character in a font by its output code, even if it doesn't
826have a groff name.  This is made possible by a convention in the font
827files that a character name of `---' refers to an unnamed character.
828The drivers now all support the `N' command required for this.  The font
829description files have been updated to include unnamed characters.
830
831The `x' command in font description files has been removed: instead
832any unknown commands are automatically made available to the drivers.
833If you constructed your own font files with an earlier version of
834tfmtodit or afmtodit, you must construct them again using the current
835version.
836
837Characters between 0200 and 0237 octal are no longer legal input
838characters.  Note that these are not used in ISO 8859.
839
840A command called `grog' has been added, similar to the `doctype'
841command described in Kernighan and Pike.
842
843Groff
844-----
845
846The groff command has some new options: -V prints the pipeline
847instead of executing it; -P passes an argument to the postprocessor,
848-L passes an argument to the spooler.
849
850There is a C++ implementation of the groff command.  This handles some
851things slightly better than the shell script.  In particular, it can
852correctly handle arguments containing characters that have a special
853meaning to the shell; it can give an error message when child
854processes other than the last in the pipeline terminate abnormally;
855its exit status can take account of the exit statuses of all its child
856processes; it is a little more efficient; when geqn is used, it
857searches for the eqnchar file in the same way that font metric files
858are searched for, rather than expecting to find it in one particular
859directory.
860
861Gtroff
862------
863
864There is font translation feature: For example, you can tell gtroff to
865use font `HR' whenever font `H' is requested with the line
866  .ftr H HR
867This would be useful for a document that uses `H' to refer to
868Helvetica.
869
870There are some new number registers: `.kern' contains the current kern
871mode, `.lg' the current ligature mode, `.x' the major version number,
872`.y' the minor version number, `.ce' the number of lines to be
873centered in the current environment, `.trunc' the amount of vertical
874space truncated by the most recently sprung vertical position trap,
875`.ne' the amount of vertical space needed in the last `ne' request
876that caused a vertical position trap to be sprung.
877
878The `cf' request now behaves sensibly in a diversion.  If used in a
879diversion, it will now arrange for the file to be copied to the output
880when the diversion is reread.
881
882There is a new request `trf' (transparent file) similar to `cf', but
883more like `\!'.
884
885There is a new escape sequence `\Y[xxx]', roughly equivalent to
886`\X'\*[xxx]'', except that the contents of string or macro xxx are not
887interpreted, and xxx may contain newlines.  This requires an output
888format extension; the drivers have been modified to understand this.
889Grops has also been modified to cope with newlines in the arguments to
890\X commands; grops has a new \X command mdef, which is like def except
891that it has a first argument giving the number of definitions.
892
893There is a new warning category `escape' which warns about unknown
894escape sequences.
895
896The `fp' request now takes an optional third argument giving the external
897name of the font.
898
899The `\_' character is now automatically translated to `\(ul' as in troff.
900
901The environment variable `GROFF_HYPHEN' gives the name of the file
902containing the hyphenation patterns.
903
904There is a `\C'xxx'' escape sequence equivalent to `\[xxx]'.
905
906Characters ", ', ), ], *, \(dg are now initially transparent for the purposes
907of end of sentence recognition.
908
909There is an anti-recursion feature in the `char' request, so you can
910say `.char \(bu \s+2\(bu\s-2'.
911
912The limit on the number of font positions has been removed.
913Accordingly `\n[.fp]' never returns 0.
914
915The restriction on the number of numbered environments has been removed.
916
917There is a new escape sequence `\E' that makes it possible to
918guarantee that an escape sequence won't get interpreted in copy-mode.
919The `\R' escape sequence is accordingly now deprecated.
920
921Gpic
922----
923
924Arguments of the form `X anything X' (in the `copy thru', `sh', `for',
925`if' and `define' constructs) can now be of the form `{ anything }'.
926
927If the `linethick' variable is negative (as it now is initially),
928lines will be drawn with a thickness proportional to the current point
929size.
930
931The `rand' function now takes no arguments and returns a number between
9320 and 1.  The old syntax is still supported.
933
934`^' can be used in expressions to indicate exponentiation.
935
936In the `for' construct the argument to the by clause can be prefixed
937by `*' to indicate that the increment is multiplicative.
938
939A bare expression may be used as an attribute.  If the current
940direction is `dir', then an attribute `expr' is equivalent to
941`dir expr'
942
943There is a `sprintf' construct that allows numbers to be formatted and used
944wherever a quoted string can be used.
945
946The height of a text object without an explicit height attribute is
947the number of text strings associated with the object times the value
948of the `textht' variable.
949
950The maximum height and width of a picture is controlled by the
951`maxpswid' and `maxpsht' variables.
952
953Gtbl
954----
955
956Gtbl can now handle gracefully the situation where the `ce' request
957has been applied to a table.
958
959Geqn
960----
961
962The `ifdef' primitive has been generalized.
963
964A tilde accent can be put underneath a box using `utilde'.  This
965defined using a general `uaccent' primitive.
966
967Grops
968-----
969
970There is a new PostScript font downloading scheme which handles font
971downloading for imported illustrations.  Previously, the name of the
972file containing the font was given in the `x download' line in the
973groff font metric file.  Now, there is a `download' file which says
974for each PostScript font name which file contains that font.  Grops
975can also now handle inter-font dependencies, where one downloadable
976font depends on some other (possibly downloadable) font.
977
978The `T' font has been removed.  The characters it used to provide are
979now provided by `char' definitions in tmac.ps. TSymbol.ps has also
980been removed, and the tweaks it provided are now provided by `char'
981definitions.
982