fax2ps(1) LibTIFF fax2ps(1)
NAME
fax2ps - convert a TIFF facsimile to compressed PostScripttm
SYNOPSIS
fax2ps [ options ] [ file <?> ]
DESCRIPTION
fax2ps reads one or more TIFF facsimile image files and prints a
compressed form of PostScript on the standard output that is suitable for
printing.
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 (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. 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. 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
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 .BR 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 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 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.
NOTES
If the destination printer supports PostScript Level II then it is always
faster to just send the encoded bitmap generated by the tiff2ps 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)
AUTHOR
LibTIFF contributors
COPYRIGHT
1988-2022, LibTIFF contributors
4.5 December 23, 2022 fax2ps(1)
tiff 4.5.0 - Generated Sat Dec 24 12:41:11 CST 2022