mjhjmtu

I want to print several man pages as several booklets. I need to tweak the output of the man -t command so the resulting PostScript file will have the brochurised page numbering, pages must be numerated on 'outer' edges, and 'inner' margin must be wider than 'outer'. How can I achieve this?

P.S. By "brochurised" ("booklet") numbering I mean such kind of numbering so if several printed pages are folded in half at once, the result will look like a book with proper sequental page numbering.

An awesome shell script written some time ago by a friend: livre.

You'll be interested in the --book and --inner options.

#!/bin/sh
#---------------
# A parametrized replacement for psnup -2 using pstops.
#
# The script computes bounding boxes using gs and deduces optimized reductions
# on two pages per sheet with given margins or scaling. Pages can be arranged
# for various kinds of folding or binding.
#---------------
# Requires: gs, bc, pstops, psbook, pdftops
#---------------

VERSION=2009-12-02

# Output parameters

PAPER=a4
WIDTH=597 # 210mm
HEIGHT=845 # 297mm
MARGIN=30
INNER=1
SCALE=
TWO=false
BIND=top
BBRANGE=-
SIG=
IN=
OUT=
DASHQ=-q
VERBOSE=false
BB_ODD=
BB_EVEN=

# Parse the command line

while [ $# -gt 0 ]; do
 case "$1" in
 --help)
 cat <<EOF
usage: livre.sh [options] input output
The input can be in PostScript or PDF, possibly gzipped.
options:
 --margin SIZE compute scaling to get SIZE-point margins (default: 30)
 --scale FACTOR use the given scaling FACTOR (overrides --margin)
 --inner FACTOR set inner margin to FACTOR times the outer one (default: 1)
 --two input is two-sided
 --top output should be bound at the top (default)
 --left output should be bound on the left
 --book output should be folded into a booklet
 --sig N select the signature for psbook (implies --book)
 --bbrange PAGES only use the specified PAGES for bounding box computation
 --bbox BBOX provide the bounding box explictly, disable its computation
 (use this twice if the input is two-sided)
 --verbose do not use quiet mode
 --version print version number and exit
EOF
 exit 0
 ;;
 --version)
 echo $VERSION
 exit 0
 ;;
 --margin)
 shift
 MARGIN="$1"
 ;;
 --scale)
 shift
 SCALE="$1"
 ;;
 --inner)
 shift
 INNER="$1"
 ;;
 --two*)
 TWO=true
 ;;
 --top|--left|--book)
 BIND=$1#--
 ;;
 --sig)
 shift
 SIG="-s$1"
 BIND=book
 ;;
 --bbrange)
 shift
 BBRANGE="$1"
 ;;
 --bbox)
 shift
 if [ -z "$BB_ODD" ]; then
 BB_ODD="$1"
 else
 TWO=true
 BB_EVEN="$1"
 fi
 ;;
 --verbose)
 DASHQ=
 VERBOSE=true
 ;;
 -*)
 echo "unknown option: $1" >&2
 exit 1
 ;;
 *)
 if [ -z "$IN" ]
 then IN="$1"
 elif [ -z "$OUT" ]
 then OUT="$1"
 else echo "unused argument: $1" >&2
 fi
 esac
 shift
done

if [ -z "$IN" ]; then
 echo "missing input file" >&2
 exit 1
fi

# Make a teporary file if needed

TMP=

make_ps ()

 case $(file -bL "$IN") in
 "PostScript document"*)
 ;;
 "PDF document"*)
 $VERBOSE && echo "converting to PS..." >&2
 TMP2=$(mktemp)
 pdftops "$IN" "$TMP2"
 test -n "$TMP" && rm "$TMP"
 TMP="$TMP2"
 IN="$TMP"
 ;;
 "gzip compressed "*)
 $VERBOSE && echo "unzipping..." >&2
 TMP2=$(mktemp)
 gunzip < "$IN" > "$TMP2"
 test -n "$TMP" && rm "$TMP"
 TMP="$TMP2"
 IN="$TMP"
 make_ps
 ;;
 *)
 echo "Unknown file type!" >&2
 exit 1
 esac


make_ps

# Extract the bounding box for all pages of a given file.

read_bbox()

 gs -sDEVICE=bbox -sPAPERSIZE=$PAPER -r300x300 -q -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE "$1" 2>&1 

# Compute the maximum scaling factor given the bounding box

max_scale()

 bc <<EOF
scale = 3
hfactor = (($HEIGHT - (2 + $INNER) * $MARGIN) / 2) / ($3 - $1)
vfactor = ($WIDTH - 2 * $MARGIN) / ($4 - $2)
if (hfactor < vfactor) print hfactor else print vfactor
EOF


# Make a pstops specification

spec_left()

 bc <<EOF
scale = 3
factor = $1
shift_x = $WIDTH / 2 + ($3 + $5) * factor / 2
vmargin = ($HEIGHT - 2 * ($4 - $2) * factor) / (2 + $INNER)
shift_y = vmargin - $2 * factor + $6 * (($4 - $2) * factor + $INNER * vmargin)
print "L@", factor, "(", shift_x, ",", shift_y, ")"
EOF


spec_right()

 bc <<EOF
scale = 3
factor = $1
shift_x = $WIDTH / 2 - ($3 + $5) * factor / 2
vmargin = ($HEIGHT - 2 * ($4 - $2) * factor) / (2 + $INNER)
shift_y = vmargin + $4 * factor + $6 * (($4 - $2) * factor + $INNER * vmargin)
print "R@", factor, "(", shift_x, ",", shift_y, ")"
EOF


# Compute the bounding boxes for even and odd pages

if [ -z "$BB_ODD" ]; then
 $VERBOSE && echo "computing the bounding box..." >&2
 if $TWO; then
 BB_ODD=$(psselect -o -p"$BBRANGE" "$IN" 2>/dev/null | read_bbox -)
 BB_EVEN=$(psselect -e -p"$BBRANGE" "$IN" 2>/dev/null | read_bbox -)
 else
 if [ "$BBRANGE" = "-" ]; then
 BB_ODD=$(read_bbox "$IN")
 else
 BB_ODD=$(psselect -p"$BBRANGE" "$IN" 2>/dev/null | read_bbox -)
 fi
 fi
fi

test -z "$BB_EVEN" && BB_EVEN="$BB_ODD"

if $VERBOSE; then
 if $TWO; then
 echo "bounding box (odd): $BB_ODD"
 echo "bounding box (even): $BB_ODD"
 else
 echo "bounding box: $BB_ODD"
 fi
fi


# Deduce the scaling factor if needed

if [ -z "$SCALE" ]; then
 if $TWO; then
 SCALE=$(bc <<EOF
scale=3
s1=$(max_scale $BB_ODD)
s2=$(max_scale $BB_EVEN)
if (s1 < s2) print s1 else print s2
EOF
)
 else
 SCALE=$(max_scale $BB_ODD)
 fi
fi

$VERBOSE && echo "scale: $SCALE" >&2

# Process the file according to the chosen style

command()

 $VERBOSE && echo "-- $*"
 $*


case $BIND in
top)
 command pstops $DASHQ -p$PAPER "2:
0$(spec_left $SCALE $BB_ODD 0)+1$(spec_left $SCALE $BB_EVEN 1)" "$IN" "$OUT"
 ;;
left)
 command pstops $DASHQ -p$PAPER "4:
0$(spec_left $SCALE $BB_ODD 0)+1$(spec_left $SCALE $BB_EVEN 1),
2$(spec_right $SCALE $BB_ODD 1)+3$(spec_right $SCALE $BB_EVEN 0)" "$IN" "$OUT"
 ;;
book)
 psbook $DASHQ $SIG $IN | command pstops $DASHQ -p$PAPER "4:
0$(spec_left $SCALE $BB_EVEN 0)+1$(spec_left $SCALE $BB_ODD 1),
2$(spec_right $SCALE $BB_EVEN 1)+3$(spec_right $SCALE $BB_ODD 0)" /dev/stdin "$OUT"
esac

test -n "$TMP" && rm "$TMP" || true

It may not be the perfect answer for your question. What I did is. man -t man > foo.ps . This created a Postscript file. Which I opened in Okular (Default PDF/PS Viewer with KDE). Okular rendered foo.ps just perfectly, with page numbering. So now I can print the doc.