PAPS(1) | General Commands Manual | PAPS(1) |
NAME¶
paps - text to PostScript converter using Pango
SYNOPSIS¶
paps [options] files...
DESCRIPTION¶
paps reads an input file and writes a PostScript language or user specified format rendering of the file to standard output. paps accepts international text in any locale and provides internationalized text layout including text shaping and bidirectional text rendering.
If no filename argument is provided, paps reads the standard input. If the standard input is a terminal, input is terminated by an EOF signal, usually Control-d.
OPTIONS¶
paps follows the usual GNU command line syntax, with long options starting with two dashes (`-'). A summary of options is included below.
- -h, --help
- Show summary of options.
- --landscape
- Landscape output. Default is portrait.
- --columns=cl
- Format output into cl columns. Default is 1.
Please notice this option isn't related to the terminal length as in a "80 columns terminal". - --font=desc
- Use font based on description desc. Default is "Monospace 12". The format of the string representation is:
- "[family-list] [style-options] [size]"
- where family-list is a comma separated list of families optionally terminated by a comma, style-options is a whitespace separated list of words where each word describes one of style, variant, weight, or stretch, and size is a decimal number for size in points, e.g. "Courier,Monospace Bold Italic 10".
- -o, --output=file
- Output file. Default is stdout. Output format is set based on file's extension when --format is not provided.
- --rtl
- Do right-to-left (RTL) text layout and align text to the right. Text direction is detected automatically. Use this option for explicit RTL layout and right alignment.
- --justify
- Justify the layout. Stretch complete lines to fill the entire width.
- --wrap=wm
- Use line wrapping mode wm. Default is word-char.
-
word
-
char
-
word-char
- --show-wrap
- Mark wrapped lines with special characters.
- --paper=ps
- Choose paper size. Accepted paper sizes are 'legal', 'letter', 'A3' and 'A4'. Default is A4.
- --gravity=gr
- Set base glyph orientation. Default is auto.
-
south
-
east
-
north
-
west
-
auto
- --gravity-hint=gh
- Set how horizontal scripts behave in a vertical context. Default is natural.
-
natural
-
strong
-
line
- --format=fmt
- Choose output format. Default is ps.
-
ps
-
pdf
-
svg
- Postscript points
- Each postscript point equals to 1/72 of an inch. 36 points are 1/2 of an inch.
- --bottom-margin=bm
- Set bottom margin. Default is 36 postscript points.
- --top-margin=tm
- Set top margin. Default is 36 postscript points.
- --left-margin=lm
- Set left margin. Default is 36 postscript points.
- --right-margin=rm
- Set right margin. Default is 36 postscript points.
- --gutter-width=gw
- Set gutter width. Default is 40 postscript points.
- --header
- Draw page header with document name, date and page number for each page. Header is not printed by default.
- --header-left=fmt
- Sets the formatting for the left side of the header. See FORMAT for an explanation of the header and footer formatting. Default is the current localized date.
- --header-center=fmt
- Sets the formatting for the center of the header. See FORMAT for an explanation of the header and footer formatting. Default is the filename.
- --header-right=fmt
- Sets the formatting for the center of the header. See FORMAT for an explanation of the header and footer formatting. Default is the Page number.
- Draw page footer with document name, date and page number for each page. Footer is not printed by default.
- Sets the formatting for the left side of the footer. See FORMAT for an explanation of the footer and footer formatting. The default formatting is an empty string.
- Sets the formatting for the center of the footer. See FORMAT for an explanation of the footer and footer formatting. The default formatting is an empty string.
- Sets the formatting for the center of the footer. See FORMAT for an explanation of the footer and footer formatting. The default formatting is an empty string.
- --title="text"
- Use text as the title string for page header. By default the input filename or "stdin" is used.
- --header-font=desc
- Set the header font description. Default is Monospace Bold 12.
- --header-date-format=fmt
- Set the header date format. Default is %c (see strftime(3)).
- --header-rule-thickness=val
- Set the thickness of the header separation rule. Default is 0 (i.e. as thin as possible). Note that this depends on --separation-lines.
- --markup
- Interpret input as pango markup. Pango Text Attribute Markup Language allows marking parts of the text with tags defining additional attributes such as font face, size, weight, colors or text decoration such as underline or strikethrough.
- --encoding=enc
- Assume encoding of the input text is enc. By default the encoding of the current locale is used (e.g. UTF-8).
- --lpi=lines
- Set number of lines per inch. This determines the line spacing.
- --cpi=chars
- Set number of characters per inch. This is an alternative method of specifying the font size.
- --g-fatal-warnings
- Make all glib warnings fatal.
EXIT STATUS¶
The following exit values are returned:
0
1
HEADER AND FOOTER FORMATTING¶
The header and footers may be formatted by a mini language based on the python f-strings. Text outside of squiggly brackets are entered literally in the output. Text inside squiggly brackets contain one of the following predefined list of variables:
-
now
-
mtime
-
page_idx
-
num_pages
-
filename
-
path
EXAMPLES¶
Example 1 Printing UTF-8 text file
The following command can be used to print a file in any of the UTF-8 based locales if the file is in UTF-8 or compatible codeset.
$ paps en_US_UTF-8.txt
By default paps will print PostScript rendering to standard output. Send the output to a printer using lp
$ paps en_US_UTF-8.txt | lp
or to a file using redirection or the -o option
$ paps en_US_UTF-8.txt > out.ps $ paps -o out.ps en_US_UTF-8.txt
Example 2 Specify encoding
To print a file in specific encoding regardless of the current locale setting use the --encoding option. An example for Japanese EUC encoded input file:
$ paps --encoding eucjp ja_JP_eucjp.txt > out.ps
paps will still use current locale setting to prioritize the available fonts for current language.
Example 3 Specify locale
Override the LC_ALL environment variable to run paps in a different locale.
$ LC_ALL=ja_JP.eucjp paps ja_JP_eucjp.txt > out.ps
Here paps will assume the input is in Japanese EUC encoding and will use Japanese eucjp locale to render the output. If --header is added, the date is printed in Japanese.
Example 4 Change the header and footer
Override the header and the footer to show only the page in the middle of the footer.
$ paps --separation-lines -o /tmp/foo.pdf --header --header-left='' \
--header-center='{path}' --header-right='' --footer \
--footer-left='Printed {now:%c}' \
--footer-right='Page {page_idx}/{num_pages}' \
`pwd`/paps.ccx
Here paps will assume the input is in Japanese EUC encoding and will use Japanese eucjp locale to render the output. If --header is added, the date is printed in Japanese.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES¶
paps uses locale environment variables to determine its behavior. The following categories are used:
LC_CTYPE
LC_TIME
Font selection is also affected by current locale. Example 3 describes how to run paps in a different locale.
SEE ALSO¶
fc-match(1), setlocale(3C)
AUTHOR¶
paps was written by Dov Grobgeld <dov.grobgeld@gmail.com>.
This manual page was written by Lior Kaplan <kaplan@debian.org>, for the Debian project (but may be used by others).
December 20, 2022 |