grolbp(1) General Commands Manual grolbp(1)
Name
grolbp - groff output driver for Canon CaPSL printers
Synopsis
grolbp [-l] [-c num-copies] [-F font-directory] [-o orientation]
[-p paper-format] [-w width] [file ...]
grolbp [--copies=num-copies] [--fontdir=font-directory] [--landscape]
[--linewidth=width] [--orientation=orientation]
[--papersize=paper-format] [file ...]
grolbp -h
grolbp --help
grolbp -v
grolbp --version
Description
This GNU roff output driver translates the output of troff(1) into a
CaPSL and VDM format suitable for Canon LBP-4 and LBP-8 printers.
Normally, grolbp is invoked by groff(1) when the latter is given the
"-T lbp" option. (In this installation, ps is the default output
device.) Use groff's -P option to pass any options shown above to
grolbp. If no file arguments are given, or if file is "-", grolbp
reads the standard input stream. It writes to the standard output
stream.
Typefaces
The driver supports the Dutch, Swiss, and Swiss-Narrow scalable
typefaces, each in the regular, bold, italic, and bold-italic styles.
Additionally, the bitmapped, monospaced Courier and Elite typefaces are
available in regular, bold, and italic styles; Courier at 8 and 12
points, Elite at 8 and 10 points. The following chart summarizes the
groff font names used to access them.
+--------------+---------+--------+----------+--------------+
| Typeface | Roman | Bold | Italic | Bold-Italic |
+--------------+---------+--------+----------+--------------+
|Dutch | TR | TB | TI | TBI |
+--------------+---------+--------+----------+--------------+
|Swiss | HR | HB | HI | HBI |
+--------------+---------+--------+----------+--------------+
|Swiss Narrow | HNR | HNB | HNI | HNBI |
+--------------+---------+--------+----------+--------------+
|Courier | CR | CB | CI | |
+--------------+---------+--------+----------+--------------+
|Elite | ER | EB | EI | |
+--------------+---------+--------+----------+--------------+
Paper format, orientation, and device description file
grolbp supports paper formats "A4", "letter", "legal", and "executive".
These are matched case-insensitively. The -p, --papersize option
overrides any setting in the device description file DESC. If neither
specifies a paper format, A4 is assumed.
In its DESC file, grolbp (case-insensitively) recognizes an orientation
directive accepting one mandatory argument, portrait or landscape. The
first valid orientation directive encountered controls. The -l, -o,
and --orientation command-line options override any setting in DESC.
If none of the foregoing specify the orientation, portrait is assumed.
Font description files
In addition to the font description file directives documented in
groff_font(5), grolbp recognizes lbpname, which maps the groff font
name to the font name used internally by the printer. Its syntax is as
follows.
lbpname printer-font-name
lbpname's argument is case-sensitive. The printer's font names are
encoded as follows.
For bitmapped fonts, printer-font_name has the form
N<base-font-name><font-style>. base-font-name is the font name as it
appears in the printer's font listings without the first letter, up to
(but not including) the font size. font-style can be one of the
letters R, I, or B, indicating the roman, italic, and bold styles,
respectively. For instance, if the printer's "font listing A" shows
"Nelite12I.ISO_USA", the corresponding entry in the groff font
description file is "lbpname NeliteI". You may need to modify grolbp
to add support for new bitmapped fonts, since the available font names
and font sizes of bitmapped fonts (as documented above) are hard-coded
into the program.
For scalable fonts, printer-font-name is identical to the font name as
it appears in the printer's "font listing A". For instance, to select
the "Swiss" font in bold-italic style, which appears in the font
listing as "Swiss-BoldOblique", "lbpname Swiss-BoldOblique" is the
required directive, and this is what we find in the groff font
description file HBI for the lbp device.
Drawing commands
For compatibility with grolj4(1), an additional drawing command is
available.
\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).
Options
-h and --help display a usage message, while -v and --version show
version information; all exit afterward.
-c num-copies
--copies=num-copies
Produce num-copies copies of each page.
-F font-directory
--fontdir=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 lbp.
-l
--landscape
Format the document in landscape orientation.
-o orientation
--orientation=orientation
Format the document in the given orientation, which must be
"portrait" or "landscape".
-p paper-format
--papersize=paper-format
Set the paper format to paper-format, which must be a valid
paper format as described above.
-w width
--linewidth=width
Set the default line thickness to width thousandths of an em;
the default is 40 (0.04 em).
Exit status
grolbp 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 seek the selected output device's
directory of device and font description files. See troff(1)
and groff_font(5).
Files
/opt/local/share/groff/1.24.1/font/devlbp/DESC
describes the lbp output device.
/opt/local/share/groff/1.24.1/font/devlbp/F
describes the font known as F on device lbp.
/opt/local/share/groff/1.24.1/tmac/lbp.tmac
defines macros for use with the lbp output device. It is
automatically loaded by troffrc when the lbp output device is
selected.
See also
groff(1), troff(1), groff_out(5), groff_font(5), groff_char(7)
groff 1.24.1 2026-05-15 grolbp(1)
groff 1.24.1 - Generated Mon May 18 09:33:16 CDT 2026