POD2TEXT(1) User Contributed Perl Documentation POD2TEXT(1)
NAME
pod2text - Convert POD data to formatted ASCII text
SYNOPSIS
pod2text [-aclost] [--code] [-i indent] [-q quotes] [-w width] [input [output ...]]
pod2text -h
DESCRIPTION
pod2text is a front-end for Pod::Text and its subclasses. It uses them to generate formatted ASCII
text from POD source. It can optionally use either termcap sequences or ANSI color escape sequences
to format the text.
input is the file to read for POD source (the POD can be embedded in code). If input isn't given, it
defaults to STDIN. output, if given, is the file to which to write the formatted output. If output
isn't given, the formatted output is written to STDOUT. Several POD files can be processed in the
same pod2text invocation (saving module load and compile times) by providing multiple pairs of input
and output files on the command line.
OPTIONS
-a, --alt
Use an alternate output format that, among other things, uses a different heading style and marks
"=item" entries with a colon in the left margin.
--code
Include any non-POD text from the input file in the output as well. Useful for viewing code
documented with POD blocks with the POD rendered and the code left intact.
-c, --color
Format the output with ANSI color escape sequences. Using this option requires that
Term::ANSIColor be installed on your system.
-i indent, --indent=indent
Set the number of spaces to indent regular text, and the default indentation for "=over" blocks.
Defaults to 4 spaces if this option isn't given.
-h, --help
Print out usage information and exit.
-l, --loose
Print a blank line after a "=head1" heading. Normally, no blank line is printed after "=head1",
although one is still printed after "=head2", because this is the expected formatting for manual
pages; if you're formatting arbitrary text documents, using this option is recommended.
-m width, --left-margin=width, --margin=width
The width of the left margin in spaces. Defaults to 0. This is the margin for all text,
including headings, not the amount by which regular text is indented; for the latter, see -i
option.
-o, --overstrike
Format the output with overstruck printing. Bold text is rendered as character, backspace,
character. Italics and file names are rendered as underscore, backspace, character. Many
pagers, such as less, know how to convert this to bold or underlined text.
-q quotes, --quotes=quotes
Sets the quote marks used to surround C<> text to quotes. If quotes is a single character, it is
used as both the left and right quote; if quotes is two characters, the first character is used
as the left quote and the second as the right quoted; and if quotes is four characters, the first
two are used as the left quote and the second two as the right quote.
quotes may also be set to the special value "none", in which case no quote marks are added around
C<> text.
-s, --sentence
Assume each sentence ends with two spaces and try to preserve that spacing. Without this option,
all consecutive whitespace in non-verbatim paragraphs is compressed into a single space.
-t, --termcap
Try to determine the width of the screen and the bold and underline sequences for the terminal
from termcap, and use that information in formatting the output. Output will be wrapped at two
columns less than the width of your terminal device. Using this option requires that your system
have a termcap file somewhere where Term::Cap can find it and requires that your system support
termios. With this option, the output of pod2text will contain terminal control sequences for
your current terminal type.
-w, --width=width, -width
The column at which to wrap text on the right-hand side. Defaults to 76, unless -t is given, in
which case it's two columns less than the width of your terminal device.
DIAGNOSTICS
If pod2text fails with errors, see Pod::Text and Pod::Simple for information about what those errors
might mean. Internally, it can also produce the following diagnostics:
-c (--color) requires Term::ANSIColor be installed
(F) -c or --color were given, but Term::ANSIColor could not be loaded.
Unknown option: %s
(F) An unknown command line option was given.
In addition, other Getopt::Long error messages may result from invalid command-line options.
ENVIRONMENT
COLUMNS
If -t is given, pod2text will take the current width of your screen from this environment
variable, if available. It overrides terminal width information in TERMCAP.
TERMCAP
If -t is given, pod2text will use the contents of this environment variable if available to
determine the correct formatting sequences for your current terminal device.
SEE ALSO
Pod::Text, Pod::Text::Color, Pod::Text::Overstrike, Pod::Text::Termcap, Pod::Simple
The current version of this script is always available from its web site at
<http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/podlators/. It is also part of the Perl core distribution as
of 5.6.0.
AUTHOR
Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu>.
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
Copyright 1999, 2000, 2001, 2004, 2006 by Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu>.
This program is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl
itself.
perl v5.8.8 2007-09-23 POD2TEXT(1)
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