New package: PAPS-0.6

[alexander@…]

PAPS is a command line tool that converts UTF-8 encoded text files to PostScript. This would be a nice addition to the Printing section of the book, since neither A2PS nor Enscript support UTF-8 as the input encoding.

Dependencies: Pango (required), Doxygen (easy to avoid).

The build instructions are just ./configure --prefix=/usr && make && make install if one has Doxygen installed. A way to avoid this dependency is:

./configure --prefix=/usr   
make DOXYGEN=true   
make DOXYGEN=true -k install   

This does result in a fully functional installation, but without documentation.

One can then install TrueType fonts and test PAPS with this command: src/test_libpaps >test.ps (then view test.ps with your favourite PostScript viewer). Note that you must have TrueType fonts for all of the languages mentioned in that test file.

Then one can invoke the converter with a command similar to the following: paps --family monospace UTF-8-demo.txt > UTF-8-demo.ps Once PAPS is in the BLFS book, I will remove the statement about "inability to print plain-text UTF-8 files from the command line" from the UTF-8 LFS book.

[bdubbs@…]

Do you have a suggested download location for the truetype fonts for the test?

If X is not a required dependency, we probably need installation instructions for the fonts too.

-- Bruce

[alexander@…]

The following combination of fonts is probably sufficient for the purpose of rendering the test page (i.e. I have all of them and several others, and the test page renders OK): DejaVu fonts (​http://dejavu.sourceforge.net) for European languages FreeFont (already in the book) for everything except CJK (but with bad quality) Arphic fonts for Chinese (​http://cle.linux.org.tw/fonts/Arphic) Kochi fonts for Japanese (​http://sourceforge.jp/projects/efont) And that still doesn't give full Unicode coverage (but sufficient for the test) Note: that's a big download not needed for most Europeans. Any other set of TrueType fonts that covers the needed character ranges will do. If some fonts are missing, the test file will contain empty squares instead of missing characters. Font installation instructions are just "copy ttf files to a directory mentioned in /etc/fonts/local.conf".

[bdubbs@…]

Where is the file UTF-8-demo.txt? It is not in the paps-0.6.6.tar.gz file from ​http://freshmeat.net/projects/paps/?branch_id=61377&release_id=226470

[alexander@…]

​http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ucs/examples/UTF-8-demo.txt

You can also invoke this command as a test:

src/test_libpaps >result.ps

and then view the result.

[alexander@…]

This warning may appear when testing UTF-8-demo.txt:

(paps:14093): Pango-WARNING **: Error loading GPOS table 4097

Although complex things from UTF-8-demo.txt are rendered incorrectly, PAPS is still good enough for general use. Maybe a "no testsuite" statement is OK.

[bdubbs@…]

Added to book at revision 6088.