Saturday, March 15, 2008

Printing Coolness

I'd like to share an application from the Ubuntu/Debian repositories that is "old-school" and usually overlooked. The command line application a2ps has saved at least 3 trees in my office. Without the need to adjust for printing settings for the one-off printing. It also can create a postscript file that I can preview or even use ps2pdf (part of the Ghostscript family) to create a pdf for anyone on a different operating system.

To get these applications on Ubuntu just use:

sudo apt-get install a2ps ps2pdf

These are command line applications and they both have exentive options. Please read the man page for all the details.

<--snip-->
a2ps todo.wkYY.txt <- prints straight
a2ps --output=todo.wkYY.ps todo.wkYY.txt <- creates .ps
ps2pdf todo.wkYY.ps todo.wkYY.pdf <- converts ps into pdf
<--/snip-->

I use this method for my text file that I use for my todo list. It's a personalized version of todo.sh. So, think before you print...save a tree. And if you do print, double down and kill only half of one.

--
CafeNinja

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Did you know, you can take two postcripts and add them together. It's just as easy as file2.ps >> file1.ps (in this order puts page 2 at the bottom of page one. With this combo and the standard "print to file" you can custom create any document or then pdf to print or study.

Cheers,
CafeNinja