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.

--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 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

--bottom-margin=bm

Set bottom margin in postscript points (1/72 inch). Default is 36.

--top-margin=tm

Set top margin. Default is 36.

--left-margin=lm

Set left margin. Default is 36.

--right-margin=rm

Set right margin. Default is 36.

--header

Draw page header with document name, date and page number for each page. Header is not printed by default.

--title="text"

Use text as the title string for page header. By default the input filename or "stdin" is used.

--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

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.

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).