Software that converts .txt to .pdf: Options to intall.

robgeek · 08-15-2014, 09:52 PM

Hello!

Guys, could you, please, tell me a simple command line program that converts .txt files to .pdf? Could be more than one format(.txt) do pdf, but mainly .txt to pdf. He needs to be freeware too. I tried this one, but i have to pay for it after 30 days!
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ersion-290058/
I'm talking about text2pdf.

I'm using Sublime Text 2 and, i don't know, but i believe he doesn't have this option. I don't want to install LibreOffice just to do that. I just want to convert .txt to .pdf.

Thank you!

I'm using Debian Wheezy last version.

mrclisdue · 08-15-2014, 10:34 PM

Ghostscript (which I imagine would be part of your install)

Code:

gs -q -sPAPERSIZE=letter -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=<newfilename>.pdf <inputfilenameshere>

cheers,

robgeek · 08-16-2014, 01:18 AM

I tried what you said, but look the output of my test.txt file. He has the same content of this topic, the same text.

Quote:

rob@robgeek:~$ gs -q -sPAPERSIZE=letter -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=Test.pdf test.txt
Error: /undefined in Hello!
Operand stack:

Execution stack:
%interp_exit .runexec2 --nostringval-- --nostringval-- --nostringval-- 2 %stopped_push --nostringval-- --nostringval-- --nostringval-- false 1 %stopped_push 1910 1 3 %oparray_pop 1909 1 3 %oparray_pop 1893 1 3 %oparray_pop 1787 1 3 %oparray_pop --nostringval-- %errorexec_pop .runexec2 --nostringval-- --nostringval-- --nostringval-- 2 %stopped_push --nostringval--
Dictionary stack:
--dict:1162/1684(ro)(G)-- --dict:0/20(G)-- --dict:77/200(L)--
Current allocation mode is local
Current file position is 7
GPL Ghostscript 9.05: Unrecoverable error, exit code 1

jdkaye · 08-16-2014, 04:29 AM

Maybe you'll find something here: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...to+pdf%3Alinux
jdk

Guttorm · 08-16-2014, 08:35 AM

You can use txt2html to convert it to html first, then wkhtmltopdf for the html to pdf. Both of those have lots of options you can use in a script. And I think you can just apt-get them.

robgeek · 08-16-2014, 07:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guttorm

You can use txt2html to convert it to html first, then wkhtmltopdf for the html to pdf. Both of those have lots of options you can use in a script. And I think you can just apt-get them.

I tried what you said and i got a problem with special characters we use in my idiom, so i tried convert .txt to .ps and then convert .ps to .pdf with the following commands:

Quote:

rob@robgeek:~$ enscript -p questions.ps questions.txt
[ 1 page * 1 copy ] left in questions.ps
6 lines were wrapped
rob@robgeek:~$ ps2pdf questions.ps questions.pdf

It worked fine but the problem is in my idiom we use special characters, like ' ` ~ ^ in vogals, and when i convert .txt to .pdf the output is like the following exmaples.

Quote:

iônico -> iÃ ́nico
não -> nÃ£o
cátions -> cÃ¡tions
possível -> possÃ-vel

How can i solve this problem?

mrclisdue · 08-17-2014, 04:11 AM

*edit* I'm basically an idiot and wrote my reply before reading what had already been attempted by OP, which is pretty well everything I suggest, so +1 redundant on my part.

Secondly, your issue with special characters sounds like an encoding issue: perhaps the original text file needs to be converted to utf-8.

Code:

$ iconv -f original_charset -t utf-8 originalfile > newfile

To determine the original charset:

Code:

$ file -bi myfile.txt

*******/edit

Apologies for not responding earlier; I'd *forgotten* that I had strayed outside of the slackware forums and haven't checked back here....

Also, my bad, as the ghostscript command I provided only works with certain filetypes, text *not* being one of them (though I believe html is.)

So you can try the gs command with your newly-created html file, or use enscript to convert your original file to ps, then use gs to convert to pdf.

Thusly:

Code:

$ enscript -o <outputfilename> <inputfilename>

Then issue the ghostcript command and hopefully it works.

cheers,

robgeek · 08-18-2014, 11:03 AM

mrclisdue, no problem and thank you for trying to help me. Thank you all, guys.

So, mrclisdue, i entered with the commands that you suggested and look the output:
I pasted a text from br.reuters.com/news/ in my test.txt to test your commands.

Quote:

rob@robgeek:~$ txt2html --infile test.txt --outfile test.html
rob@robgeek:~$ gs -q -sPAPERSIZE=letter -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=test.pdf test.html
Error: /syntaxerror in -file-
Operand stack:

Execution stack:
%interp_exit .runexec2 --nostringval-- --nostringval-- --nostringval-- 2 %stopped_push --nostringval-- --nostringval-- --nostringval-- false 1 %stopped_push 1910 1 3 %oparray_pop 1909 1 3 %oparray_pop 1893 1 3 %oparray_pop 1787 1 3 %oparray_pop --nostringval-- %errorexec_pop .runexec2 --nostringval-- --nostringval-- --nostringval-- 2 %stopped_push
Dictionary stack:
--dict:1162/1684(ro)(G)-- --dict:0/20(G)-- --dict:77/200(L)--
Current allocation mode is local
Current file position is 1
GPL Ghostscript 9.05: Unrecoverable error, exit code 1

Here the images of my test.txt, test.html and test.pdf files.
test.txt: http://postimg.org/image/ut2xk7fo1/

test.html: http://postimg.org/image/fhptaobwd/

test.pdf: A blank document.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here the images of my test.txt, test.ps and test.pdf files.

Quote:

rob@robgeek:~$ enscript -o test.ps test.txt
[ 1 page * 1 copy ] left in test.ps
4 lines were wrapped
1 non-printable character
rob@robgeek:~$ gs -q -sPAPERSIZE=letter -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=test.pdf test.ps

test.txt: The same from above.

test.ps: http://postimg.org/image/8dgrxlzlr/

test.pdf: http://postimg.org/image/xi6rx6wkv/

mrclisdue · 08-18-2014, 10:40 PM

As per the post you replied to, I *believe* you may need to convert your original txt file to utf-8 before conversion to ps, using iconv, or is that not the issue?

cheers,

fixer1234 · 08-19-2014, 02:22 AM

If you are just trying to turn a txt file to pdf simply and there is not a specific reason to use a command line, print it to a pdf file. It's a built-in utility.

robgeek · 08-19-2014, 12:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrclisdue

As per the post you replied to, I *believe* you may need to convert your original txt file to utf-8 before conversion to ps, using iconv, or is that not the issue?

cheers,

But when i enter with the following command in terminal, look the output.

Quote:

rob@robgeek:~$ file -i test.txt
test.txt: text/plain; charset=utf-8

mrclisdue · 08-21-2014, 04:54 PM

It turns out that enscript *doesn't* support UTF-8, as per this link:

http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs.../enscript.html

As per the same link, the solution is to install paps. If it isn't in your repo, you can download the source and install.

Then:

Code:

$ paps <inputfilename> > outputfile.ps

Then run the gs command.

I just tried it and it works!

cheers,

robgeek · 08-22-2014, 12:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrclisdue

It turns out that enscript *doesn't* support UTF-8, as per this link:

http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs.../enscript.html

As per the same link, the solution is to install paps. If it isn't in your repo, you can download the source and install.

Then:

Code:

$ paps <inputfilename> > outputfile.ps

Then run the gs command.

I just tried it and it works!

cheers,

With paps worked fine, thank you! I'll try to find an alternative app that converts .txt -> html that upports utf-8. Thus all "technics i tried will have been resolved.