(a2ps.info)Description

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1.1 Description
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a2ps formats files for printing on a PostScript printer.

   The format used is nice and compact: normally two pages on each
physical page, borders surrounding pages, headers with useful
information (page number, printing date, file name or supplied header),
line numbering, pretty-printing, symbol substitution etc.  This is very
useful for making archive listings of programs or just to check your
code in the bus.  Actually a2ps is kind of bootstrapped: its sources are
frequently printed with a2ps ':)'.

   While at the origin its names was derived from "ASCII to PostScript",
today we like to think of it as "Any to PostScript".  Indeed, a2ps
supports "delegations", i.e., you can safely use a2ps to print DVI,
PostScript, LaTeX, JPEG etc., even compressed.

   A short list of features of a2ps might look like this:
   - Customizable through various configuration files (Note:
     Configuration Files)

   - Powerful escapes to define the headers, table of contents etc.  the
     way you want (Note: Escapes);

   - Variables to push even further the customizability in a comfortable
     manner (Note: Your Variables);

   - Open approach of encodings (Note: Encodings);

   - Excellent support of the Latin 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 encodings, thanks
     to 'Ogonkify' (Note: Overview.), written by Juliusz
     Chroboczek.

   - Fully customizable output style: fonts, background and foreground
     colors, line numbering style etc.  (Note: Designing PostScript
     Prologues).

   - Possibility to delegate the processing of some files to other
     filters (Note: Your Delegations).

   - Many contributions, e.g., pretty-print diffs, print reference cards
     of programs, sanitize broken PostScript files, print Duplex on
     Simplex printers etc.  (Note: Contributions).

   - And finally, the ability to pretty-print sources written in quite a
     few various languages (Note: Pretty Printing).