source: branches/properties/doc/a2ps.README

This is version 4.3 of a2ps, a program to format an ascii file for
printing on a postscript printer. As the copyright indicates, this
distribution can be freely redistributed.

Initial version was a shell program written by evan@csli (Evan
Kirshenbaum). It was very slow and contained many bugs. A new
version was written in C for improve speed execution and portability.
Many new features and improvements have been added since this first
version. Many contributions (changes, fixes, ideas) were done by a2ps
users in order to improve it. Current version is 4.3 and is quite
different from early versions.

Some notes on the distribution:

    Installation is done by modifying and executing Makefile included
    in this distribution. You must give a value to the following variable:
    - compiler  compiler name, actually one of BSD, SYSV.
                Turbo C and Microsoft C are considered Ansi C compilers
                (don't define the variable compiler in this case).

    You could also give your own values to following variables:
    a) Default physical page dimension. Dimensions must be real constants,
       specifying inch values.
       - HEIGHT  sheet height
       - WIDTH   sheet width
       Default values correspond to A4 format (11.64 x 8.27). In USA, you use
       use in general 11.0 x 8.5.
    b) Total lateral (left+right) or vertical (top+bottom) margins. It must
       be also a real constant, specifying inches (by default 1.2).
       - MARGIN
    c) Directory separator (by default '/')
       - DIR_SEP char
    d) A boolean to choice if you want to automatically emit a print command.
       You have to "define" to any value the LPR_PRINT preprocessing variable
       in this case.       
    e) Name of print command and options to pass to this command. They
       must be strings.
       - LPR_COMMAND
       - LPR_OPT
    f) Options to pass to the lpr command to print one or two-sided pages.
       - TWOSIDED
       - ONESIDED
       Be careful with quotes to set these values, they must be strings.
       If these variables are not defined, a2ps will consider that only
       one-sided pages can be printed, ignoring s1 and s2 options.
    g) A boolean to choice if you want to print by default two-sided pages.
       - TWOSIDED_DFLT


    a2ps has been successfully ported to Unix 4.3BSD, Unix SystemV and
    MSDOS.


The a2ps distribution consists of the following files:

        README          This message
        Makefile
        a2ps.c          a2ps source
        a2ps.1          a troff manual (man file)

Decide where you want to keep these files and move it there.
Edit "Makefile" and change the definition of compiler name.
To make a2ps do:

    make a2ps

To install it, do:

    make install

Format the manual entry using

    nroff -man a2ps.1


Please send problems and feedback to:

    M.Santana@frgu.bull.fr

    Miguel SANTANA
    Unite mixte Bull-Imag
    2, Av. Vignate
    Z.I. Mayencin
    38610 Gieres
    France