NAME

vnpstext - PostScript filter for Vietnamese text printing

SYNTAX

vnpstext [-i <prologfile>] [input_8-bit_VISCII_file(s) ...]

DESCRIPTION

The command operates much like the command: it reads a text file from standard input, and outputs the text in a format suitable for sending directly to a PostScript printer. A typical invocation is:

% vnpstext 8-bit-vietnamese-file | lpr -PPostScript

expects the Vietnamese font (by default, Courier-VN) to have been downloaded to the PostScript printer. This will be discussed further below.

Without any arguments, will use the font Courier-VN at 10-point size. You may change this by specifying an appropriate prolog file. As of this date (5/92), the prolog files available with vnpstext are cour10.pro (default), cour12.pro, cour17.pro, cour10b.pro, cour12b.pro, cour17b.pro, which use Vietnamese Courier fonts at 10-, 12-, and 17-point sizes in normal and bold faces, respectively.

The location of the prolog file can either be the current directory, or in /usr/local/share/vn-fonts. The latter setting may be overridden by the environment variable PSLIBDIR.

OPTIONS

-i <prologfile>: use the specified prolog file instead of generating the default (cour10.pro).

The prolog file is searched relative to the directory specified by PSLIBDIR, or the current working directory if PSLIBDIR is not set in the environment. If the prolog file name starts with the '/' character, it is assumed to be an absolute path name and PSLIBDIR is ignored.

USAGE NOTES

expects the font you use to have been downloaded to the printer. To do this, send it the appropriate font installation file. As of this date (5/92), the following are available with initcour.ps and initcourb.ps, which will download the Vietnamese Courier and Courier-Bold fonts to the printer. The font sizes are continuously scalable and is specified in the prolog file.

The downloaded font will persist until the next time the printer is power cycled. Also, note that the PS engine requires that a password be supplied for this kind of operation to take place; the password is normally "0" unless it is changed by the user. This assumption is made in the init*.ps files. If the printer password is something other than "0", modify these files accordingly before sending it to the printer.

EXAMPLES

To print out a mail message that contains 7-bit VIQR data, you might use:

% vn7to8 -m input_file | vnpstext | lpr -PPostScript

The -m option to tells it to start out assuming English mode.

Or if the message contain Viet-Net style Vietnamese but is not necessarily VIQR-compliant in that it does not explicitly specify the Vietnamese language state with the sequence ":

% vn7to8 -v input_file | vnpstext | lpr -PPostScript

Two sample shell scripts are provided to facilitate Vietnamese printing: and which performs the necessary conversions to print 7-bit VIQR and 8-bit VISCII data, respectively. See the contents of those shell scripts for usage details.

RESTRICTIONS

-: The line length is limited to 1024 characters.
-: Lines are not wrapped. If a line is too long to fit across a page width, it is truncated (by the printer).

FILES

/usr/local/share/vn-fonts:: default prolog search directory
initcour.ps:: Vietnamese Courier font file to download to the printer.
initcourb.ps:: Vietnamese Courier-Bold font file to download to the printer.
cour*.pro:: Various prolog files which specify non-default values for font face and size.

AUTHOR

The TriChlor Group, TriChlor@haydn.Stanford.EDU.
Thanks also to Nam Chan Phamdo (nam@src.umd.edu) for pointing out the lines-per-page bug (which has been fixed!)