html2ps - convert HTML to PostScript

Author

       Jan Karrman (jan@it.uu.se)

4th Berkeley Distribution                           7 May 2010                                        html2ps(1)

Availability

http://user.it.uu.se/~jan/html2ps.html

Bugs

       (This is incomplete.)

       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.

Description

       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).

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.

Files

       $HOME/.html2psrc
              User configuration file, see html2psrc(5).

Name

       html2ps - convert HTML to PostScript

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.

-bURL--baseURL
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.

-Cstring--tocstring
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--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.

-eencoding--encodingencoding
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.

-ffile[:file[:...]]--rcfilefile[: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.

-inum--scaleimagenum
Scale in-line images with a factor num The default is 1.

-kfile--cookiefile
Enable cookie support, using a netscape formatted cookie file (requires libwww-perl).

-llang--languagelang
Specifies the language of the document (overrides an eventual LANG attribute of the BODY element).
The language should be given according to RFC1766 (ftp://ftp.nordu.net/rfc/rfc1766.txt) and ISO
639 (http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/IG/ert/iso639.htm).

-L--landscape
Generate code for printing in landscape mode. The default is portrait mode.

-mnum--scalemathnum
Scale mathematical formulas with a factor num The default is 1.

-Mnum--mainchapternum
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.

-Nnum--startnonum
Specifies the starting page number, the default is 1.

-ofile--outputfile
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:

<OBJECT data="figure.ps" type="application/postscript">
<OBJECT data="figure.gif" type="image/gif">
<PRE>[Maybe some ASCII art for text browsers]</PRE>
</OBJECT>
</OBJECT>

-rpath--rootdirpath
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.

-snum--scaledocnum
Scale the entire document with a factor num The default is 1.

-Sstring--stylestring
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.

-Wstring--webstring
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).

-xnum--duplexnum
Generate postscript code for single or double sided printing. No default, valid values are:

0 Single sided.
1 Double sided.
2 Double sided, opposite page reversed (tumble mode).

Synopsis

html2ps  [  -2cdDFghHLnORtTuUv  ] [ -bURL ] [ -Cstring ] [ -eencoding ] [ -ffile[:file[:...]]  ] [ -inum ] [ -kfile ] [ -llang ] [ -mnum ] [ -Mnum ] [ -Nnum ] [ -ofile ] [ -rpath ] [ -snum  ]  [  -Sstring ] [ -Wstring ] [ -xnum ] [ URL|file ]

Version

       This manpage describes html2ps version 1.0 beta7.