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

Wrap lines at word boundaries

: char

Wrap lines at character boundaries

: word-char

Wrap lines at word boundaries, but fall back to character boundaries if there is not enough space for a full word

--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

Glyphs stand upright

: east

Glyphs are rotated 90 degrees clockwise

: north

Glyphs are upside-down

: west

Glyphs are rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise

: auto

Gravity is resolved from the context

--gravity-hint=gh: Set how horizontal scripts behave in a vertical context. Default is natural.

: natural

Scripts will take their natural gravity based on the base gravity and the script

: strong

Always use the base gravity, regardless of the script

: line

For scripts not in their natural direction (e.g. Latin in East gravity), choose per-script gravity such that every script respects the line progression. This means, Latin and Arabic will take opposite gravities and both flow top-to-bottom for example.

--format=fmt: Choose output format. Default is ps.

: ps

PostScript

: pdf

Portable Document Format

: svg

Scalable Vector Graphics

--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:

Successful completion.

An error occurred.

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

to assume the encoding of the input. This can be overridden by --encoding.

LC_TIME

to format the date for header.

Font selection is also affected by current locale. Example 3 describes how to run paps in a different locale.

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).