The program
html2ps
converts HTML to PostScript. The HTML code can be retrieved from one or more
URL:s or local files, specified as parameters on the command line.
If no parameter is given, html2ps reads from standard input.
Note: To avoid unnecessary network traffic,
one can rebuild an already generated PostScript file with new
options. This is done by running html2ps with the new options, and with
the old PostScript file as input (not applicable for all options).
OPTIONS
All options have a short (case sensitive), and a long (case insensitive) form.
-2 --twoup
Two column (2-up) output. The default is one column per page.
-b URL --base URL
Use
URL
as a base to expand relative references for in-line
images. This is useful if you have downloaded a document to a local file.
The
URL
should then be the
URL
of the original document.
-c --check
Check the syntax of the HTML file (using an external syntax
checker). The default is to not make a syntax check.
-C string --toc string
Generate a table of contents (ToC). The value should be a string
consisting of one of the letters 'f', 'h', or 't', optionally combined
with the letter 'b':
b
The ToC will be printed first. This requires that Ghostscript is
installed.
f
The ToC will be generated from the links in the converted document.
h
The ToC will be generated from headings and
titles in the converted documents. Note that if the document author
for some strange reason has chosen to use some other means to represent
the headings than the HTML elements H1,...,H6, you are out of luck!
t
The ToC will be generated from links having the attribute
rev=TOC in the converted document.
-d --debug
Generate debugging information. You should always use this
option when reporting problems with html2ps.
-D --dsc
Generate DSC compliant PostScript. This requires Ghostscript and
can take quite some time to do. Note that a PostScript file generated
with this option cannot be used as input to html2ps for reformatting
later.
-e encoding --encoding encoding
The document encoding. Currently recognized values are ISO-8859-1,
EUC-JP, SHIFT-JIS, and ISO-2022-JP (other EUC-xx encodings may also
work). The default is ISO-8859-1.
-f file[:file[:...]] --rcfile file[:file[:...]]
A colon separated list of configuration file names to use
instead of the default personal configuration file $HOME/.html2psrc.
Definitions made in one file override definitions in previous files
(the last file in the list has highest precedence). An empty file
name (as in ':file', 'file1::file3', or 'file:') will expand to the
default personal file. The environment variable HTML2PSPATH is used
to specify the directories where to search for these files. (Note:
this is only supposed to be used on the command line, not
in a configuration file.)
-F --frame
Draw a frame around the text on each page. The default is
to not draw a frame.
-g --grayscale
Convert colour images to grayscale images. Note that the
PostScript file will be smaller when the images are converted to
grayscale. The default is to generate colour images.
-h --help
Show usage information.
-H --hyphenate
Hyphenate the text. This requires TeX
hyphenation pattern files.
-i num --scaleimage num
Scale in-line images with a factor
num
The default is 1.
-k file --cookie file
Enable cookie support, using a netscape formatted cookie
file
(requires libwww-perl).
Generate code for printing in landscape mode. The default
is portrait mode.
-m num --scalemath num
Scale mathematical formulas with a factor
num
The default is 1.
-M num --mainchapter num
Specifies the start number for automatic numbering of headings
(by setting the seq-number parameter), the default is 1.
-n --number
Insert page numbers. The default is to not number the pages.
-N num --startno num
Specifies the starting page number, the default is 1.
-o file --output file
Write the PostScript code to
file.
The default is
to write to standard output.
-O --original
Use PostScript original images if they exist. For example, if a
document contains an image figure.gif, and an encapsulated PostScript
file named figure.ps exists in the same directory, that file will be
use instead. This only work for documents read as local files. Note:
if the PostScript file is large or contains bitmap images, this must
be combined with the -D option. In HTML 4.0 this can be achieved in a
much better way with:
<PRE>[Maybe some ASCII art for text browsers]</PRE>
</OBJECT>
</OBJECT>
-r path --rootdir path
When a document is read from a local file, this value specifies
a base directory for resolving relative links starting with "/".
Typically, this should be the directory where your web server's home
page resides.
-R --xref
Insert cross references at every link to
within the set of converted documents.
-s num --scaledoc num
Scale the entire document with a factor
num
The default is 1.
-S string --style string
This option complements/overrides definitions made in the
configuration files. The
string
must follow the configuration
file syntax. (Note: this is only supposed to be used on the
command line, not in a configuration file.)
-t --titlepage
Generate a title page. The default is to not generate one.
-T --text
Text mode, ignore images. The default is to include the images.
-u --underline
Underline text that constitutes a hypertext link. The default
is to not underline.
-U --colour
Produce colour output for text and background, when specified.
The default is black text on white background (mnemonic: coloUr ;-).
-v --version
Print information about the current version of html2ps.
-W string --web string
Process a web of documents by recursively retrieve and convert
documents that are referenced with hyperlinks. When dealing with remote
documents it will of course be necessary to impose restrictions, to
avoid downloading the entire web... The value should be a string
consisting of one of the letters 'a', 'b', 'l', 'r', or 's', optionally
combined with a combination of the letters 'p', 'L', and a positive
integer:
a
Follow all links.
b
Follow only links to within the same directory, or below, as the
start document.
l
Follow only links specified with
"<LINK rel=NEXT>" in the document.
p
Prompt for each remote document. This mode will automatically be
entered after the first 50 documents.
r
Follow only relative links.
s
Follow only links to within the same server as the start document.
L
With this option, the order in which the documents are processed will
be: first all top level documents, then the documents linked to from
these etc. For example, if the document A has links to B and C, and
B has a link to D, the order will be A-B-C-D.
By default, each document will be followed by the first document
it links to etc; so the default order for the example is
A-B-D-C.
#
A positive integer giving the number of recursive levels. The
default is 4 (when the option is present).
-x num --duplex num
Generate postscript code for single or double sided printing.
No default, valid values are:
The CELLSPACING attribute of the TABLE element is not implemented
as described in the specification; instead the value of the CELLPADDING
attribute is increased by half the value of CELLSPACING.
Rendering HTML tables well is a non-trivial task. For "real" tables,
that is representation of tabular data, html2ps usually generates
reasonably good output. When tables are used for layout purposes,
the result varies from good to useless. This is because a table cell
is never broken across pages. So if a table contains a cell with a
lot of content, the entire table may have to be scaled down in size
in order to make this cell fit on a single page. Sometimes this may
even result in unreadable output.
Page breaks are occasionally done in bad places: for example directly
after a (long) heading, and before the last line in a paragraph.
ENVIRONMENT
HTML2PSPATH
This variable specifies the directories to search for
configuration files. It should be a colon separated list of directory
names. Use a dot '.' to denote the current directory. An empty directory
name (as in ':dir', 'dir1::dir3', or 'dir:') will expand to the directory
where the global configuration file is. The default value is '.:', that
is: search the current directory first, and then the global one.
