fax2ps(1)
FAX2PS(1) USER COMMANDS FAX2PS(1)
NAME
fax2ps - convert a TIFF facsimile to compressed POSTSCRIPT
SYNOPSIS
fax2ps [ options ] [ file... ]
DESCRIPTION
fax2ps reads one or more TIFF facsimile image files and
prints a compressed form of POSTSCRIPT on the standard out-
put that is suitable for printing.
By default, each page is scaled to reflect the image dimen-
sions and resolutions stored in the file. The -x and -y
options can be used to specify the horizontal and vertical
image resolutions (lines/inch), respectively. If the -S
option is specified, each page is scaled to fill an output
page. The default output page is 8.5 by 11 inches. Alter-
nate page dimensions can be specified in inches with the -W
and -H options.
By default fax2ps generates POSTSCRIPT for all pages in the
file. The -p option can be used to select one or more pages
from a multi-page document.
fax2ps generates a compressed form of POSTSCRIPT that is
optimized for sending pages of text to a POSTSCRIPT printer
attached to a host through a low-speed link (such as a
serial line). Each output page is filled with white and
then only the black areas are drawn. The POSTSCRIPT specif-
ication of the black drawing operations is optimized by
using a special font that encodes the move-draw operations
required to fill the black regions on the page. This
compression scheme typically results in a substantially
reduced POSTSCRIPT description, relative to the straightfor-
ward imaging of the page with a POSTSCRIPT image operator.
This algorithm can, however, be ineffective for continuous-
tone and white-on-black images. For these images, it some-
times is more efficient to send the raster bitmap image
directly; see tiff2ps(1).
OPTIONS
-p number Print only the indicated page. Multiple pages may
be printed by specifying this option more than
once.
-x resolution
Use resolution as the horizontal resolution, in
dots/inch, of the image data. By default this
value is taken from the file.
-y resolution
Use resolution as the vertical resolution, in
Last change: March 16, 1995 1
FAX2PS(1) USER COMMANDS FAX2PS(1)
lines/inch, of the image data. By default this
value is taken from the file.
-S Scale each page of image data to fill the output
page dimensions. By default images are presented
according to the dimension information recorded in
the TIFF file.
-W width Use width as the width, in inches, of the output
page.
-H height Use height as the height, in inches, of the output
page.
DIAGNOSTICS
Some messages about malformed TIFF images come from the TIFF
library.
Various messages about badly formatted facsimile images may
be generated due to transmission errors in received fac-
simile. fax2ps attempts to recover from such data errors by
resynchronizing decoding at the end of the current scanline.
This can result in long horizontal black lines in the resul-
tant POSTSCRIPT image.
NOTES
If the destination printer supports POSTSCRIPT Level II then
it is always faster to just send the encoded bitmap gen-
erated by the tiff2ps(1) program.
BUGS
fax2ps should probably figure out when it is doing a poor
job of compressing the output and just generate POSTSCRIPT
to image the bitmap raster instead.
SEE ALSO
tiff2ps(1), libtiff(3)
Last change: March 16, 1995 2
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