RE: [Groff] Huge fonts & colours

[Ted Harding]

On 25-Feb-01 M.K. Laha wrote:
> I need to do some posters and I wish to do them in groff.
> Using groff, is it possible to:
> 
>   a. Print characters in font sizes greater than 36?

The syntax \smn only works "intuitively" for m<4 (i.e. "size"<40).
To get an arbitrary point size use \s[mn...], e.g. \s[720]A for a
REALLY big (10-inch) letter "A". \s0 always works as expected,
though.

Beware, however, that in the ms macros there is a trap in the
paragraph macros which sets the line spacing to "size" units
(points/1000) instead of "size" points, if "size">=40:

  .de par*vs
  .\" If it's too big to be in points, treat it as units.
  .ie (p;\\$1)>=40p .vs (u;\\$1)
  .el .vs (p;\\$1)
  ..

You may need to re-write this little chunk, e.g.

  .de par*vs
  .vs (p;\\$1)
  ..

>   b. Print selected portions of lines or paragraphs in colour
>      (on a colour injet)?

Provided you create the primary output of groff in PostScript
and subsequently convert to the format of your printer, you can
use the \X'ps: exec ...' command to set the colours for text:

  \X'ps: exec 1 0 0 setrgbcolor'This is RED
  \X'ps: exec 0 1 0 setrgbcolor'This is GREEN
  \X'ps: exec 0 0 1 setrgbcolor'This is BLUE
  \X'ps: exec 0 0 0 setrgbcolor'This is BLACK

with other vaues for the three parameters to get other colours
(in particular 0 1 1 gives Cyan, 1 0 1 gives Magenta, 1 1 0 gives
Yellow).

You can also use the four-parameter "setcmykcolor" for the CMYK
colour model, in the same sort of way, provided your PostScript
interpreter understands it (even Level 1 understands setrgbcolor).

I hope this does what you want.
Ted.


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Date: 25-Feb-01                                       Time: 11:21:18
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