NENSCRIPT(1)
NAME
nenscript - format an ASCII file and convert to PostScript
SYNOPSIS
nenscript [ -?12BGghlNnRrsVWwZ ] [ -ffont ] [ -Ftitlefont
] [ -bheader ] [ -ifiletitle ] [ -Llines ] [ -pfilename ]
[ -Pprinter ] [ -Sclassification ] [ -Tpapertype ] [
-ttabstops ] [ -#copies ] [ file... ]
DESCRIPTION
Formats the specified ASCII files and produces PostScript
output conforming to the Adobe Structuring Conventions.
The output pages may be in landscape or portrait mode,
with one or two columns, with or without headers.
If no input files are specified, then input is accepted
from stdin.
Tabs in the input stream are expanded (by default) to
eight character positions.
Formfeed (control-L) characters in the input stream cause
a new page or column to be started. Form feed characters
must be at the start start of a line, or preceded only by
whitespace.
PostScript output is directed to a printer using lpr
unless otherwise specified using the -p option. The
printer to use is set by the PRINTER environment variable.
If this is not set, then the printer "Postscript" ("prn"
for MSDOS) will be used.
Font specifications are formed from the font name and the
font size, i.e. Courier10 specifies a 10 point Courier
font, and Courier-Bold12 specifies a bold, 12 point
Courier font. Sizes can also be given with a decimal
point, i.e. Courier7.5 specifies a 7.5 point font, this
might however result in a marginal error in the size cal-
culations, since a linear approximation of the character
width is done.
The NENSCRIPT environment variable may be used to set
default values for most configurable attributes. Values
set in this way will be overridden by any options speci-
fied on the commands line.
The current version of nenscript is 1.13.
OPTIONS
-? -h Print usage message.
-1 Specifies single column output (default).
-2 Specifies two column output.
-B Turns off page titles.
-bheader
Print the text specified by header as the title on
each page, rather than the default header which is
composed of the name of the source file, the cur-
rent time and date and the page number. If in gaudy
mode, the title is displayed in the blank area just
above the file title.
-ffont Use font for printing text. Only Courier in sizes 5
to 30 can be used for printing text. The default
font is Courier10, unless two column landscape mode
is specified in which case the default font is
Courier7.
-Ftitlefont
Use titlefont for printing titles. Any font in any
point size can be used for printing titles.The
default font is Courier-Bold10.
-G Enable gaudy mode.
-g Disable gaudy mode (default).
-ifiletitle
Use the specified string as the displayed filename.
Useful when inputting from stdin.
-Llines
Set the maximum number of lines which will be
printed per page or column. The actual number of
lines which appear may be less depending upon the
font and paper size.
-l Do not set a limit on on the maximum number of
lines per page, i.e. the number of lines is deter-
mined by the font size and the paper size
(default).
-N Precede each line with it's line number relative to
the start of the file.
-n Disable line numbering (default).
-pfilename
Direct the PostScript to filename rather than the
default printer. If '-' is specified as the file-
name, then the PostScript is sent to stdout.
-Pprinter
Overrides the PRINTER environment variable in
determining the printer to spool output to. Ignored
if -p is used.
-R Don't rotate the page, i.e. output in portrait mode
(default).
-r Rotate the page, i.e. output in landscape mode.
-Sclassification
Prints the string argument in Helvetica-Bold28 at
the top and bottom of the page in conformance to
regulations for printing classified material.
-s Disable a previous heading specified with the -S
option.
-Tpapertype
Sets the output paper type as per the argument. At
the moment, only two paper types are supported: A4
and US. The default paper size will be A4, unless
the US_VERSION define is specified at compilation
time.
-ttabsize
Sets the number of columns to which tabs are
expanded. The default is eight columns.
-V Display information identifying the version of nen-
script. Nothing will be printed regardless of the
other arguments.
-W Truncate lines which are wide for the page.
-w Wrap lines which are too wide for the page onto
successive lines (default). Continuation lines are
marked with + character before the left margin.
-Z Check the first two characters of the input for the
character string %!. If a match is found, the input
is copied directly to the output with no process-
ing.
-#copies
Print each page copies times.
ENVIRONMENT
PRINTER Specifies the name of the printer to direct
PostScript output to. If not set, the
default is a printer named "PostScript".
NENSCRIPT If defined, this string is searched for
valid options before the command line sup-
plied by the user.
BUGS
As nenscript does not have access to complete PostScript
font tables, it must use some other technique for calcu-
lating the number of characters that fit across the page.
The solution was to use a fixed table for the Courier font
in a range of sizes. If this table was extended, other
fonts and sizes could be used for printing text. Alterna-
tively, if the text processing was done on the printer,
then there would be no need to know anything about the
font sizes...
No checking is performed on font names, other than check-
ing that only Courier can be specified for the text font.
If a font is specified that is not available on the final
printer, the result is undetermined.
No checking is performed on the input file to detect acci-
dental printing of garbage files. Caveat emptor!
No mapping of the input characters is performed, so output
may vary depending upon the vagaries of downstream soft-
ware and hardware.
No support for manual feed, page prefeed, mail upon com-
pletion or any of the other rarely used options of
enscript.
No messages are displayed whilst processing.
Input line lengths are limited to 8192 characters after
expansion of tabs.