URL: <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?67791>
Summary: Dashed rule above organizational affiliation in
typset mm docs
Group: GNU roff
Submitter: afh
Submitted: Tue 09 Dec 2025 09:58:42 PM UTC
Category: Macro package mm
Severity: 3 - Normal
Item Group: Rendering/Cosmetics
Status: None
Privacy: Public
Assigned to: None
Open/Closed: Open
Discussion Lock: Unlocked
Planned Release: None
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Follow-up Comments:
-------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue 09 Dec 2025 09:58:42 PM UTC By: afh <afh>
The following issue was
[https://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2025-12/msg00017.html originally
reported to the groff mailing list] and this bug report then submitted as
suggested in [https://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2025-12/msg00036.html
one of the replies]:
When preparing a document for the pdf device (and possibly other typesetting
devices) using the mm macros the rule (line) above the organisational
affiliation can appear dashed when using the T (default) and H font family.
With other font families (e.g. A, C, BM) the line appears solid.
According to [https://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2025-12/msg00018.html
another reply on the mailing list] the _"reason […] a dashed line with the T
and H fonts [is used,] is because these two families are part of the base-14
fonts which do not need to be embedded in the pdf. [And it is] the duty of the
pdf viewer to supply its own version of those fonts"_ which may render the em
character differently that groff's native fonts.
Looking at m.tmac the line is drawn using the `\[em]` character and I wonder
whether the line would better be drawn using the default line character when
in troff mode to ensure it is always a solid regardless of the active font
family.
Please find attached a patch, a minimal working example (mwe), and two PDF
documents demonstrating the mwe output before and after the patch was
applied.
----
P.S.
The issue and mwe were prepared and tested on macOS Tahoe 26.1 using groff
1.23.0 as well as groff built from the latest changeset; at time
2542eb3f2ef12be6696e0e305937f82f87549df5 from Fri Dec 5 07:02:13 2025 -0600.
Additionally the following environment variables were set:
GROFF_ENCODING=utf-8
GROFF_TYPESETTER=pdf
_______________________________________________________
File Attachments:
Patch, minimal working example, two documents demonstrating the issue before
and after the patch was applied.
Name: mm-cov-print-firm-rule.patch Size: 502B
<https://file.savannah.gnu.org/file/mm-cov-print-firm-rule.patch?file_id=57936>
Name: mwe-mm-firm-rule-before.pdf Size: 2.3KiB
<https://file.savannah.gnu.org/file/mwe-mm-firm-rule-before.pdf?file_id=57937>
Name: mwe-mm-firm-rule.mm Size: 98B
<https://file.savannah.gnu.org/file/mwe-mm-firm-rule.mm?file_id=57938>
Name: mwe-mm-firm-rule-after.pdf Size: 2.7KiB
<https://file.savannah.gnu.org/file/mwe-mm-firm-rule-after.pdf?file_id=57939>
AGPL NOTICE
These attachments are served by Savane. You can download the corresponding
source code of Savane at
https://savannah.gnu.org/source/savane-598c8b2cb7a148d45198be451a0effb4c5529af4.tar.gz
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