txt2pdf developed by © SANFACE Software Version 2.5 13th December 1999 What is txt2pdf? txt2pdf is a very flexible and powerful PERL5 program. It's a converter from text files to PDF format files. View the power of txt2pdf on the net! Create your Peter Pan PDF on the fly! with Alex Catalogue Read the PDFzone.com article on the project! Why do you need txt2pdf?

txt2pdf rate at LinuxBerg is 5 Penguins! txt2pdf rate at Tucows Macintosh and BeOS is 5 Cows! txt2pdf is pick at CNET Download.com This means it's inside the CNET Downloads' selections of the best available Linux software! Macintosh Products Guide A few important projects based on txt2pdf

• Most of your documents are text files
• Usually, your reports from legacy applications, DBs, ERP applications, datawarehouse are textual
• txt2pdf is a PERL5 tool, so you can use it in every operating systems supported by PERL5 (View the list of OS tested )
• txt2pdf is a native converter, you don't need to pass through PostScript format
• txt2pdf is specific for text to PDF conversion, so
  • you can mark yellow, red, green, blue or bold, italic, bolditalic (with PERL regular expression) words in the produced PDF files
  • you can produce a 2-columns PDF
  • you can add page number in every page
  • you can add text at the beginning and at the end of every file
  • you can add a border to every page
  • every word like http://... ftp://... mailto:... https://... file:... ldap:... news:... will become an URL
  • you can create a link to a specific page within a PDF document http://...pdfdocument#pdfmark
    Read this good documentation
  • every word like mime:... will become a link that launch the correct application and opens the file
  • you can use a few parse commands (e.g. [!blue]...[!/blue])
• the fee for every installation is only $25
• SANFACE Software is going to give you a free licence for every good idea or for every good modify

txt2pdf is shareware
The txt2pdf source code is our company core business.
We trust you.
You can test text2pdf and modify it.
We'll send you a free registered copy for a good idea or txt2pdf modify.

You can't use a modify version of txt2pdf for production purpose.
You can't resell txt2pdf or a modify version of it without SANFACE Software authorization.
You can't copy part of it to include in your source without SANFACE Software authorization.

The txt2pdf 2.5 source code tar.gz The txt2pdf 2.5 source code zipped The txt2pdf 1.3 source code tar.gz The txt2pdf 1.3 source code zipped

You can get the txt2pdf source code from www.pdfstore.com, too

txt2pdf 2.5 is shareware. The registration fee is $25 (US) every installation.
Buy five licences packet, one is free!

Description	Payment Options
One licence
Five licences	SECURE MasterCard, VISA,American Express, Check, Fax, Voice

The upgrade from txt2pdf 1.3 to txt2pdf 2.5 is only $10 (US) every installation (for every licence registered before 25th April 1999).
txt2pdf 1.3 is shareware. The registration fee is only $10 (US) every installation.
Buy six licences packet, one is free!

One licence
Six licences	SECURE MasterCard, VISA,American Express, Check, Fax, Voice

If you want to register 10 o more licences contact SANFACE Software.
Remember: SANFACE Software is going to give you a free licence for every good idea or for every good modify.

Year 2000 Compliance

txt2pdf is a PERL script.
We use inside our code the correct method like suggested by the nice article Year 2000 Compliance

See the example:

    $then = time() + ( 60 * 60 * 24 * 365 * 5 );  # 5 years from now
    $that_year = localtime($then) -> year;

    printf("It shall be 19%d\n", $that_year);		# WRONG! 19103
    printf("It shall be %d\n", 1900 + $that_year);	# right:  2003

1. Create your personal txt2pdf.cfg file.
   You can change the value of lf_extra, tmpdir, author, creator, keywords, subject, title, paper, landscape, font, cols, lines, tab, pointSize, vertSpace, yellow, red, green, blue, bold, italic, bo_it, columns2, npage, border, allowinparse, beginfile and endfile variables.
   With lf_extra you can set how many extra characters are written for \n.
   NOTE: change to 1 for PCs (where \n => <CR><LF>) (Default 0)
   With tmpdir you can set the directory for the temporary files. You can use relative and absolute path. Default is ./
   It's better if you use the specific temporary directory of your system

         e.g. /tmp/                          on UNIX systems
              /temp/                         on Windows systems
              /desktop folder/temp           on MacOS
              /sys$scratch/ or SYS$SCRATCH   on OpenVMS
   

   With author, creator, keywords, subject, title you can set the relative fields of PDF Info dictionary that provides information about the document.

   Author	The name of the person who created the document
   Creator	If the document was converted into a PDF document from another form, this is the name of the application that created the original document
   Keywords	Keywords associated with the document
   Subject	The subject of the document
   Title	The document's title

   If the value of author, creator, keywords, subject is not known there are omitted. If the value of title is null, the file name is introduced.
   The default paper value is letter. You can use also A3 (or a3), A4 (or a3), A5 (or a5), widthxheight
   Default is portrait, if you want to swap to landscape you have to set landscape variable to 1 (Default 0).
   With cols you can set max chars per output line (default 80)
   With lines you can set max lines per output page (default (pageHeight-72)/vertSpace, pageHeight depends from paper select)
   With tab you can set the number of white space char for every tab (default 8)
   The default font value is Courier. You can use also Helvetica or Times
   With pointSize you can set the font point size (default 10)
   vertSpace is the distance between two lines (default 12)
   With yellow, red, green, blue you can set a file where you can list words you want to be colored yellow, red, green, blue in PDF output file.
   With bold, italic and bo_it you can set a file where you can list words you want to be marked bold, italic or bolditalic in PDF output file.
   Setting columns2 : 1 you can configure the conversion to 2-columns PDF files.
   Setting npage : 1 you can add page number in every page
   Setting border : 1 you can add a border in every page
   Setting allowinparse : 1 you can allow the parse
   With beginfile and endfile you can set a file where you can add the text you want to be added at the beginning or at the end of every file.

2. How to configure yellow, red, green, blue and bold, italic, bo_it files.
   In these files you can insert a word list with PERL regular expression rules.
   e.g. if you introduce in red.cfg the word end, every word in the input file what contains end will become red in PDF output file. If you introduce ^end$, only the end word will become red.

3. Inside beginfile and endfile files you can use the a few markers that you can enable with the option allowinparse.
   This is the list

   • [!yellow]...[!/yellow]
   • [!red]...[!/red]
   • [!green]...[!/green]
   • [!blue]...[!/blue]
   • [!bold]...[!/bold]
   • [!italic]...[!/italic]
   • [!bo_it]...[!/bo_it]
   You can insert one inside another e.g. [!red] [!italic] Red italic begin file [!/italic] [!/red]
   Remember:
   • every word must be separated by one or more blank
   • the marks are linear marks, not multilinear

4. Try to start txt2pdf. Enter in Tests directory and digit:
   ../txt2pdf -c test.cfg test.txt
   test.pdf is the PDF output file

where options include:
    -help                        print out this message
    -configure file              default txt2pdf.cfg
    -landscape
    -2                           format in 2 columns
    -paper format                default letter, valid formats: A3 (or a3),
                                 A4 (or a4), A5 (or a5), widthxheight
    -npage                       add page number
    -recursive directory         scan recursively the directory
    -match     files             match different files ex. *.pdf, a?.*
                                 (require -recursive option)
    -border                      border line
    -allowinparse                parser
    -verbose                     verbose

list:
    with list you can use metacharacters and relative and absolute path name

• -configure filename: with this option you can configure an alternate configuration file (the default configuration file is txt2pdf.cfg, located in txt2pdf directory). This option is very useful if you use txt2pdf in a automatic task (e.g. cron).
  e.g.
  txt2pdf -c c.cfg *.c
  txt2pdf -c perl.cfg *.pl *.pm
• -match files -recursive directory: with these option you can convert all the files in the directory and in every its subdirectories
  e.g
  txt2pdf -m "a*.txt" -r .
  to convert every file beginning with a and with txt extension to PDF inside the . directory and in every its subdirectories
• Every file of the list is converted in a PDF file. If the file has an extension the extension is changed with .pdf extension, if the file doesn't have an extension the .pdf extension is added.

• If the line in the input file is longer than the cols number, the words after are put in the next line. The word on cols number isn't divided and it is put in the next line.
• ASCII 8 chars are converted using ISO Latin1 Encoding
• CreationDate (The date the document was created) in Info dictionary is automatically set
• The automatic convertion of words like http://... ftp://... mailto:... https://... file:... ldap:... news:... to URLs or like mime:... will to a link that launch the correct application and opens the file
• POD documentation inside
• txt2pdf is able to handle ascii or latin1 documents formatted for typewriter-like devices. These texts (as e.g. produced by "groff -Tlatin1") contain bold characters represented by the sequence 'CHARACTER BACKSPACE CHARACTER' and italics using the sequence '_ BACKSPACE CHARACTER'. Reverse ('ESC-7') and half reverse ('ESC-8') line feeds are unusual but could appear in rare cases. They should be removed prior to processing with txt2pdf.

Contributed programs

!txt2pdf is a RiscOS frontend for txt2pdf [from Joern-Erik LEO Burkert] Requires: JFShared-Library by Justin Fletcher, !Perl for RiscOS and txt2pdf You can find it in the contributed/Acorn-Risc directory or directly at LEO's RisOS-page See a screenshot of the program

What's new in this version

• you can create a link to a specific page within a PDF document http://...pdfdocument#pdfmark
  Read this good documentation
• POD documentation [a suggestion of Jerome Lauret]
• OpenVMS contributed directory
• Amiga and Acorn-risc suggestion [from Joern-Erik LEO Burkert]
• !txt2pdf a RiscOS frontend for txt2pdf [from Joern-Erik LEO Burkert]
  Requires: JFShared-Library by Justin Fletcher, !Perl for RiscOS and txt2pdf
  You can find it in the contributed/Acorn-Risc directory or directly at LEO's RisOS-page

Links around the world to txt2pdf

• LinuxBerg
• TuCows Macintosh and BeOS
• CNET Download.com
• Macintosh Products Guide
• SoftSeek
• FileWatcher.org
• The PDFzone
• PDF Store
• Ghostscript, Ghostview and GSview
• Linux Links
• FirstLinux
• Linux Software
• Linux Directory
• Linux Start
• Wooven Goods for Linux
• FreshMeat
• Linux Applications
• Dave Central
• LILAC - Linux with Laptop Computers
• Linux Weekly News
• VersionTraker
• www.RegSoft.com
• developer.com
• Applelinks
• Macity
• File Mine
• LUC DEVROYE'S POSTSCRIPT PAGE