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3.1.6 Input Options

Option: -a[Page range] ¶

Option: --pages[=Page range] ¶

With no argument, print all the page, otherwise select the pages to print. Page range is a list of interval, such as ‘-a1’: print only the first page, ‘-a-3,4,6,10-’: print the first 3 pages, page 4 and 6, and all the page after 10 (included). Giving ‘toc’ prints the table of content whatever its page number is.

The pages referred to are the input pages, not the output pages, that is, in ‘-2’, printing with ‘-a1’ will print the first virtual page, i.e., you will get half the page filled.

Note that page selection does work with the delegations (see Your Delegations).

Option: -c ¶

Option: --truncate-lines=boolean ¶

Cut lines too large to be printed inside the borders. The maximum line size depends on format and font size used and whether line numbering is enabled.

Option: -i ¶

Option: --interpret=boolean ¶

interpret tab and ff chars. This means that ‘^L’ jumps to a new (virtual) pages, ‘tab’ advances to the next tabulation.

Option: --end-of-line=type ¶

Specify what sequence of characters denotes the end of line. type can be:

n

unix

‘\n’.

r

mac

‘\r’.

nr

‘\n\r’. As far as we know, this type of end-of-line is not used.

pc

rn

‘\r\n’. This is the type of end-of-line on MS-DOS.

any

auto

Any of the previous cases. This last case prevents the bad surprises with files from PC (trailing ‘^M’).

Option: -X key ¶

Option: --encoding=key ¶

Use the input encoding identified by key. See Some Encodings, and the result of ‘a2ps --list=encodings’ to know what encodings are supported. Typical values are ‘ASCII’, ‘latin1’... ‘latin6’, ‘ison’ etc.

Option: --stdin=filename ¶

Give the name filename to the files read through the standard input.

Option: -t name ¶

Option: --title=name ¶

Give the name name to the document. Escapes can be used (see Escapes).

This is used for instance in the name given to the document from within the PostScript code (so that Ghostview and others can display a file with its real title, instead of just the PostScript file name).

It is not the name of the output. It is just a logical title.

Option: --prologue=prologue ¶

Use prologue as the PostScript prologue for a2ps. prologue must be in a file named prologue.pro, which must be in a directory of your library path (see Library Files). Available prologues are:

‘bold’

This style is meant to replace the old option -b of a2ps 4.3. It is a copy of the black and white prologue, but in which all the fonts are in Bold.

‘bw’

Style is plain: pure black and white, with standard fonts.

‘color’

Colors are used to highlight the keywords.

‘diff’

This style is meant to be used with the udiff, wdiff style sheets, to underline the differences. New things are in bold on a diff background, while removed sequences are in italic.

‘diffcolor’

Colors are used to highlight the keywords (for diffs).

‘fixed’

This style uses exclusively fixed size fonts. You should use this style if you want the tabulations to be properly printed.

There are no means to use a fixed size Symbol font, therefore you should not use the heavy highlighting style.

‘gray’

Gray background is used for comments and labels.

‘gray2’

Black background is used for comments and labels.

‘matrix’

The layout is the same as ‘bw’, but alternating gray and white lines. There are two macros defining the behavior: ‘pro.matrix.cycle’ defines the length of the cycle (number of white and gray lines). It defaults to 6. ‘pro.matrix.gray’ defines the number of gray lines. Default is 3.

‘ul’

This style uses bold faces and underlines, but never italics. This is particularly meant for printing formatted man pages.

Option: --print-anyway=boolean ¶

force binary printing. By default, the whole print job is stopped as soon as a binary file is detected. To detect such a file we make use of a very simple heuristic: if the first sheet of the file contains more than 40% of non-printing characters, it’s a binary file. a2ps also asks file(1) what it thinks of the type of the file. If file(1) answers ‘data’, the file will also be considered as binary, hence not printed.

Option: -Z ¶

Option: --delegate=boolean ¶

Enable delegation of some files to delegated applications. If delegating is on, then a2ps will not process the file by itself, but will call an application which handles the file in another way. If delegation is off, then a2ps will process every file itself.

Typically most people don’t want to pretty-print a PostScript source file, but want to print what describes that file. Then set the delegations on.

See Your Delegations for information on delegating, and option ‘--list=delegations’ for the applications your a2ps knows.

Option: --toc[=format] ¶

Generate a Table of Contents, which format is an escape (see Escapes) processed as a PreScript file (see PreScript). If no format is given (i.e., you wrote ‘--toc’), use the default table of contents shape (#{toc}). If the given format is empty (i.e., you wrote ‘--toc=’), don’t issue the table of contents.

Note that it is most useful to define a variable (see Your Variables), for instance, in a configuration file:

Variable: toc.mine \
\\Keyword{Table of Content}\n\
#-1!f\
|$2# \\keyword{$-.20n} sheets $3s< to $3s> ($2s#) \
pages $3p<-$3p> $4l# lines\n||\
\\Keyword{End of toc}\n

and to give that variable as argument to ‘--toc’: ‘a2ps *.c --toc=#{toc.mine}’.

Note too that you can generate only the table of content using ‘--pages’:

a2ps *.c --toc -atoc