FAXCOVER(1) General Commands Manual FAXCOVER(1)
NAME
faxcover - generate a POSTSCRIPT cover page for an outgoing facsimile
SYNOPSIS
faxcover [ options ] -f from-name -n fax-number
DESCRIPTION
faxcover generates a POSTSCRIPT(R) cover page document on the standard output. The cover page fills the entire area of a default page and
is created according to the information supplied on the command line and a cover sheet template file.
faxcover is normally invoked by the sendfax(1) program to generate a cover page for each outgoing facsimile.
faxcover works by creating a POSTSCRIPT dictionary that contains definitions for the variable information that is to be placed on the fac-
simile cover page. Specifically, a dictionary with the following symbols are defined:
Symbol Description Symbol Description
to destination person from sending person
to-company destination company from-company sender's company
to-location destination geographic location from-location sender geographic location
to-voice-number person's voice phone number from-voice-number sender's voice phone number
to-fax-number destination fax phone number from-fax-number sender's fax phone number
from-mail-address sender's e-mail address
comments unbroken comment string commentsX X'th line of comments
regarding Re: subject CommentX similar to commentsX
pageWidth page width in millimeters page-count # pages other than cover page
pageLength page length in millimeters todays-date current date and time
If the comments string is longer than maxlencomments characters, it is broken, on word boundaries or instances of ``
'', into multiple
POSTSCRIPT strings commentsX where X is the line number; e.g. comments2 for the second line of comments. Long substrings without white-
space which exceed maxlencomments are also broken. By default faxcover will generate 20 commentsX strings, emitting null string values for
empty lines. This number can be changed with the -m option; see below. maxlencomments is changed with the -z option; see below.
Note that use of commentsX with non-fixed-width fonts can lead to spatial problems where characters run off the edge of the generated cover
page. In such cases, use of BreakIntoLines (see below) may be a more suitable approach.
CommentX is similar to commentsX except that its values are created only by breaking comments on instances of ``
'' and not otherwise.
maxlines does not affect CommentX
faxcover also emits a POSTSCRIPT procedure for breaking comment strings into multiple lines using the POSTSCRIPT font metric information.
This procedure is named BreakIntoLines and has the following usage convention:
%<line-width> <line-height> <x> <y> <string> BreakIntoLines -
eg
/rule (_____________________________________________) def
/lw rule stringwidth pop def /lh 30 def
/y 191.4 def /x 0 def
y -30 0 { x exch moveto rule show } for
lw lh x y comments BreakIntoLines
where the width of the rule controls the length of each line of comments (note that it is made slightly shorter here for the purpose of
presentation), x and y are initialized to coordinate locations on the page where the comment string should be imaged, and the number 30 is
the inter-line spacing appropriate for the font used to image the comment lines.
If information is unavailable for an item, the associated POSTSCRIPT symbol is defined to be a null string.
Following the definition prologue, a cover sheet template file is copied. This file is expected to be a POSTSCRIPT program that uses the
generated strings to create a cover page. The template must include a showpage operator to cause the page to be imaged. The above symbols
will be defined in the current dictionary. A trailing end operator is supplied by faxcover, so any manipulation of the dictionary stack
should leave the current dictionary on the top of the stack on completion.
OPTIONS
-c comments Use comments for the comment string. You may use '
' to break it into several lines on generated the cover page.
-C file Use file as the template file. The default template file is named faxcover.ps. The template file can also be specified by
setting the FAXCOVER environment variable. If the template filename is not an absolute pathname, then faxcover looks first for
this file in the home directory of the sender. If no such file is present, then it looks in the library directory where the
HylaFAX client application data are installed. If no template file is located, faxcover will terminate without generating a
cover page.
-D format Use format as the formatting specification passed to strftime(3) when generating the time and date placed on the cover page.
-f name Use name for the sender's identity.
-l location Use location for the geographic location of the destination company.
-L location Use location for the geographic location of the sender's company.
-m maxlines indicates the maximum number of commentsX lines to generate.
-M address Use address for the sender's e-mail address.
-n number Use number for the destination fax machine number.
-N number Use number for the sender's fax machine number.
-p count Use count for the count of pages to follow the cover page.
-r regarding
Use regarding for the ``Re:'' field.
-s size Set the page size to use for the transmitted facsimile. Facsimile are normally imaged with a system-default page size (usually
letter-size pages, 8.5" by 11", for sites in North America). Alternate page sizes are specified symbolically using either the
name or abbreviation of an entry in the pagesizes(5) database; e.g. a3 (ISO A3), a4 (ISO A4), a5 (ISO A5), a6 (ISO A6), b4
(ISO B4), na-let (North American Letter), us-leg (American Legal), us-led (American Ledger), us-exe (American Executive), jp-
let (Japanese Letter), and jp-leg (Japanese Legal). Comparisons are case-insensitive and any match of a substring of the full
page-size name is sufficient; e.g. ``legal'' would match ``American Legal''.
Note that it may not be permissible to image into the full page area; the guaranteed reproducible area for a page is typically
inset. Also, note that while arbitrary page sizes can be specified through the page size database, only a limited set of page
dimensions are supported by the Group 3 facsimile protocol. Thus if an odd-size facsimile is submitted for transmission it may
not be possible to determine if it can be sent until the fax server establishes communication with the remote facsimile
machine.
-t name Use name for the receiver's identity.
-v number Use number for the receiver's voice phone number.
-V number Use number for the sender's voice phone number.
-x company Use company for the destination company name.
-X company Use company for the sender's company name.
-z maxlencomments
indicates the maximum length in number of characters allowed in a commentsX string.
DIAGNOSTICS
Complaints about not being able to locate a template file.
FILES
~/.faxdb personal fax number database
~/.hylarc per-user configuration file
/etc/hylafax/hyla.conf system-wide configuration file
/etc/hylafax/faxcover.ps default cover page template
/etc/hylafax/pagesizes page size database
BUGS
faxcover should be able to determine the appropriate length of commentsX strings by using font metric information.
SEE ALSO
hylafax-client(1), sendfax(1) edit-faxcover(1)
January 06, 2001 FAXCOVER(1)