A2PS
Section: Misc. Reference Manual Pages (1L)
Updated: November 29 1988
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NAME
a2ps - formats an ascii file for printing in a postscript printer;
very nice and compact format for program listings.
SYNOPSIS
a2ps
[ -b ] [ -f ] [ -i ] [ -n ] [ -n{bfinrv} ] [ -r ] [ -v ] [
file1
] [
file2
] [...]
DESCRIPTION
a2ps
formats files "file1", "file2", ... for printing in a postscript printer;
if no file is given,
a2ps
reads from the standard input.
Format used is very nice and compact: two pages on each physical page,
borders surrounding pages, headers with useful information (page number,
printing date, file name), line numbering, etc. Very useful to
archive listings of programs.
Options offered by
a2ps
are the following:
- -b
-
Force printing binary files. By default, binary files printing is
stopped before second page (see -nb option).
- -f
-
Fold lines too large to be printed inside the borders (default option).
Max size is actually 86 characters.
- -i
-
Interpret TAB, BS and FF characters (default option). TAB is replaced by
enough spaces to reach next tab stop while BS and FF have their meanings.
- -n
-
Output lines are preceded by line numbers, numbered sequentially from 1
(default option).
- -nb
-
Don't print binary files. To detect such a file we make use of a
very simple heuristic: if the first page of the file contains at
less 75% of non-printing characters, it's a binary file. First page
is always printed.
- -nf
-
Cut lines too large (don't fold).
- -ni
-
Don't interpret TAB, BS and FF characters. They will be printed
according to -v option.
- -nn
-
Don't number output lines.
- -nr
-
Sheet numbering (see -r option) must be continue for all files (don't
reset on new file).
- -nv
-
Replace non-printing characters by a space.
- -r
-
Reset sheet numbering for each new file (default option). Sheet numbering
is used to number physical pages (sheets printed) and is placed
in the bottom of each physical page. It differs from page numbering: logical
pages of file been printed.
- -v
-
Replace non-printing characters so that they are lisible and easy to identify
(default option). Control characters (ascii codes lower than 0x20) are
printed like ^X for ctrl-x; the delete character (hex 0x3f) is printed
as ^?. Non ascii characters (with the high bit set) are printed as M-
(for meta) followed by the character of the low 7 bits. TAB, BS and FF are
handled like non-printing characters if -ni option was taked.
USAGE
a2ps
sends formatted file to standard output. User could redirect this output
to a file or pipe it directly to a print command, like lpr in UNIX:
a2ps file1 > file2
a2ps file1 | lpr -l
Don't forget
-l
option in last line, if you want that
lpr
interprets your postscript program.
This filter must be used only with text files. Avoid specially output from
TeX, troff or any other text formatter.
SEE ALSO
pprps(1L) tgrind(1) lpr(1)
AUTHORS
Evan Kirshenbaum (evan@csli) for the initial version.
Miguel Santana (miguel@imag.imag.fr) for 2.0 version.
Index
- NAME
-
- SYNOPSIS
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- USAGE
-
- SEE ALSO
-
- AUTHORS
-
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