24 July 1989 A2PS(1L) NAME a2ps - formats an ascii file for printing on a postscript printer SYNOPSIS a2ps [ -#num ] [ [ -? ] [ -b ] [ -f ] [ -fnum ] [ [ -h ] [ -i ] [ -n ] [ -n{bfhinprsvw} ] [ -p ] [ -r ] [ -tnum ] [ -v ] [ -w ] [ _f_i_l_e ] ... DESCRIPTION _a_2_p_s formats each named file for printing in a postscript printer; if no file is given, _a_2_p_s reads from the standard input. The format used is nice and compact: normally two pages on each physical page, borders sur- rounding pages, headers with useful information (page number, printing date, file name), line numbering, etc. Very useful to archive listings of programs. Options offered by _a_2_p_s are the following: -#num To get multiple copies of output, where _n_u_m is the number of copies desired of each file named. By default, you get only one copy. -? Print usage information. -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 depends on format and font size used. -fnum Changes font size to this value. Default values for font size are 6.8 in landscape mode and 9.0 in portrait mode. Try other sizes if you think that these values are too small (or big). -h Print usage information. -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). -nh Don't print page headers. -ni Don't interpret TAB, BS and FF characters. They will be printed according to -v option. 1 A2PS(1L) 24 July 1989 -nn Don't number output lines. -np Don't print pages in portrait mode (see -p option) but in landscape mode. -nr Sheet numbering (see -r option) must be continue for all files (don't reset on new file). -ns Don't print page surrounding borders. -nv Replace non-printing characters by a space. -nw Don't use wide format (see -w option). -p Print files in portrait mode, one page per physical sheet. The default option is to use landscape mode and print two pages on a physical sheet. This option may not be used with the -w option. -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. -tnum Set TAB size to _n_u_m (default 8). This option is ignored if -ni is specified (see below). -v Replace non-printing characters so that they are visible and easy to identify (default option). Control characters (ascii codes lower than 0x20) are printed like ^X for ctrl-x; the delete char- acter (hex 0x3f) is printed as ^?. Non ascii characters (with the high bit set) are printed as M- (for meta) followed by the charac- ter of the low 7 bits. TAB, BS and FF are handled like non- printing characters if -ni option was taked. + .TP 0.6i -w Use wide format pages. This will result in only one page per physical sheet but in landscape mode. This option may not be used with the -p option. USAGE _A_2_p_s sends formatted file to standard output. The user could redirect this output to a file, pipe it directly to a print command (like lpr), or pipe it to another filter for further processing. a2ps file1 > file2 a2ps file1 | lpr -l -Pps a2ps -p file1 | psnup -n4 | lpr -l -Pps Don't forget -l option in _l_p_r , if you want that _l_p_r interprets your postscript program. This filter must be used only with text files. Avoid specially output from TeX, troff or any other such text formatters. 2 24 July 1989 A2PS(1L) SEE ALSO tgrind(1) lpr(1) pprps(1L) AUTHORS Evan Kirshenbaum (evan@csli) for the initial version. Miguel Santana (miguel@imag.imag.fr) for versions 1.0, 2.0 et 3.0. Daniel Barrett (barrett@cs.umass.edu) did a quick port to the Amiga. 3