Inserting an image inline with .char

Last-Updated: 2024-12-16

Sources

• 2024-12/msg00085
  
• Unix Text Processing
  
• resources/velo
  
• resources/char
  

Mapping an image as a glyph

The .char request is used to define a new glyph and give it a name. With a diversion, this new glyph can be an image.

Example

In this example, provided by Peter Schaffter (2024-12/msg00085),

• we define the width and height of the image − in this case, I used pdfinfo(1)
• then we define the diversion including the image,
• and finally we define the glyph with char and we can use it.

.nr img-w 25p
.nr img-h 15p
.di img-div
.nf
\X'pdf: pdfpic velo.pdf'
.di
.char \[img] \*[img-div]
.ds cycle \v'-\n[img-h]u'\[img]\h'\n[img-w]u'
That's a nice bike \*[cycle] you've got there!

Some things to be aware of:

• You should always be in no-fill mode in a diversion (see section Diversions on page 333 in Unix Text Processing),
• for now only PDF images can be used but raster images will be available with groff version 1.23.

The result is available at the top of the page (resources/char) with it's included image (resources/velo).