REFONT(1)

NAME
refont - changes the notation used for fonts

SYNOPSIS
refont [flags] files...

DESCRIPTION
Refont reads a text file which contains font selection codes embedded within it, and it writes the same text with a different notation for fonts.

For example, the Elvis documentation uses Epson-compatible escape sequences to select different fonts. You could use the command "refont -b intro.doc >intro.b" to make a file that uses overtyping to implement boldface or underlined text.

OPTIONS

-b  Emit text which uses the "backspace" notation for fonts. Each underlined character will be preceded by an underscore character and a backspace character. Bold characters are sent twice, with a backspace in between. The UNIX more utility understands this notation.

-c  Emit text which uses the "carriage-return" notation for fonts. An entire line of text is written, followed by a carriage return instead of a newline. Then a space is sent for each normal character, an underscore is sent for each underlined or italic character, and each boldface character is sent a second time. Many mainframe line printers accept this notation.

-d  Emit text which uses nroff-style "dot" commands for fonts. This doesn't work very well.

-e  Emit text using Epson-compatible escape sequences for fonts. This is useful as a "least common denominator" for font notations, because this is the only supported notation to use control-character sequences and also distinguish between italics and underlining.

-f  Emit text which uses nroff's "\fX" notation for fonts. Underlined text is denoted by "\fU", boldface by "\fB", italics by "\fI", and normal text by "\fR". This is somewhat useful in conjunction with Elvis' "charattr" option.

-x  Emit text which has had all font information stripped out.

-I  When reading text, -I tells refont to accept any of the above notations for fonts. Without -I it will ignore the "dot" command and "\fX" notations; they will be treated as normal text. In other words, without -I the only things that could be recognized as font changes are control-character sequences.

-F  This causes refont to insert formfeed characters between input files.

BUGS
Support for the nroff-style "dot" commands is not very good.

With -b/-c, both underlining and italics are implemented by overtyping the underscore character with a text character. Since they are represented the same way, the distinction between underlining and italics is lost.

AUTHOR
Steve Kirkendall
kirkenda@cs.pdx.edu
...uunet!tektronix!psueea!eecs!kirkenda