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 that is suitable for printing on the stan-
dard output.
OPTIONS
The following options are supported:
-H height Use height as the height, in inches, of the output page. The default page height is 11 inches.
-p number Print only the indicated page. To print multiple pages, specify this option as often as required.
-S Scale each page of image data to fill the output page dimensions. By default, images are presented according to the dimen-
sion information recorded in the TIFF file.
-W width Use width as the width, in inches, of the output page. The default page width is 8.5 inches.
-x resolution Use resolution as the horizontal resolution, in dots per inch, of the image data. By default, this value is taken from the
file.
-y resolution Use resolution as the vertical resolution, in lines per inch, of the image data. By default, this value is taken from the
file.
OPERANDS
The following operands are supported:
file The name of the TIFF facsimile image file to be converted to compressed PostScript.
EXTENDED DESCRIPTION
By default, each page is scaled to reflect the image dimensions and resolutions stored in the file. The -x and -y options can be used to
specify the horizontal and vertical image resolutions, 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. Alternate page dimensions can be specified in inches with the -W and -H options.
By default, fax2ps generates PostScript for all pages in the file. You can use the -p option to select one or more pages from a multipage
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 Post-
Script specification 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 straightforward 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 sometimes is more efficient to send the raster bitmap image directly, see tiff2ps(1).
If the destination printer supports PostScript Level II, it is always faster to just send the encoded bitmap generated by the tiff2ps(1)
command.
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 facsimile. 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 resultant PostScript image.
EXAMPLES
Example 1: Converting the Tiff File test.tif to Compressed PostScript
example% fax2ps test.tif
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
|Availability |SUNWTiff |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
|Interface stability |External |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
SEE ALSO
tiff2ps(1), libtiff(3)
NOTES
Updated by Breda McColgan, Sun Microsystems Inc., 2004.
SunOS 5.10 26 Mar 2004 fax2ps(1)