Converting Text Files into a Printing Language (Unix Power Tools, 3rd Edition)

45.15. Converting Text Files into a Printing Language

Section 45.7 introduced one tool that can convert plain text into PostScript for printing. In general, if your printer isn't an old text-only printer and you want to be able to print text files, you'll need some sort of filter (or filters) to convert the text into something useful.

If your printer supports PostScript, tools like a2ps and enscript (Section 45.7) can do what you need. If your printer supports PCL or another printer language, you may want to add ghostscript to the mix. ghostscript can read PostScript and PDF and output correct representations to a variety of printers. Incidentally, ghostscript can also do a host of other useful things, like create PDFs from PostScript and the like.

Here's an example of using enscript, ghostscript, and lpr to print the background.txt file to my printer (an HP LaserJet 6L):

% enscript -2Gr background.txt -o background.ps
% gs -q -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=ljet4 -sOutputFile=background.lj4 background.ps -c quit
% lpr background.lj4
% rm background.lj4 background.ps

-2Gr tells enscript that I want two-up pages with fancy headers, and -o sends the output to background.ps (remember that enscript generates PostScript). -q tells gs to run quietly. -dNOPAUSE disables ghostscript's usual behaviour of pausing and prompting at the end of each page. -sDEVICE=ljet4 says to create output for a ljet4 device. -sOutputFile=background.lj4 redirects the output of ghostscript to background.lj4, and -c quit says to quit once background.ps is done. Then we use lpr to spool the now-ready output file, delete the temporary files, and we're all done.

Seems like sort of a pain, but it does show all of the steps needed to get that output to go to the printer properly. Section 45.17 shows how to arrange for most of that to be done for you by the spooler automatically.

-- DJPH