		    a2ps README


Please send problems and feedback to Akim Demaille
(demaille@inf.enst.fr)

Please send happiness messages to both Akim & Miguel
(demaille@inf.enst.fr, Miguel.Santana@st.com)

Contents:
=========
	 1. Presentation
	 2. Installation
	 3. Upgrading from a2ps 4.8.*
	 4. Upgrading from a2ps 4.9.*
	 5. Distribution content
	 6. More ?


1. Presentation
===============

a2ps is an text to PostScript converter.  As the copyright indicates,
this distribution can be freely redistributed
_provided_you_never_change this_copyright_.

This program includes support for:
- various encodings,
- various medias,
- various printer interfaces,
- various output styles,
- various programming languages,
- various helping applications,
- and various spoken languages.

This version is very different from the versions up to 4.6.*.  In
particular, there are *no man pages*, and those of previous versions
are _not_ relevant.  The documentation, consisting of info files, is
in the doc/ directory.  You may want to print doc/a2ps.dvi, or fetch
the PostScript version available on the web pages.

This version is also very different from 4.8.*.  In particular, the
style sheets are not hard coded.



2. Installation
===============

Some notes on the distribution:

    Most of the work for the installation is done by ./configure.

    ======================================================
    Reading INSTALL is mandatory to understand the process.
    ======================================================

    Some choices are to make, and to give to ./configure
	--disable-nls
		if you do not want to use Native Language Support
		(i.e. the ability to speak another tongue than English)
	--with-gnu-gettext
		if you want to use the GNU gettext library for
		NLS, instead of available NLS services

    The following choices *are not irreversible*.  They just
    correspond to settings in the file etc/a2ps_cfg:
	--with-medium=MEDIUM
		define the default medium used by a2ps (A4, Letter etc.)
	--with-encoding=ENCODING
		define the default encoding (ascii, latin1..., latin6,
		hp, mac, ibmpc, pcg, cp1250).

    Note (for novices). If you are not root, you should give
    ./configure the option --prefix=$HOME to be able to install.

 || =======================================================
 || Setting correctly the top of etc/a2ps_cfg is MANDATORY
 || =======================================================
 ||
 || Before `make install', check the default values in the file
 || etc/a2ps_cfg.  It is absolutely essential that you check that
 || the value of the following lines are correct:
 ||	1. DefaultPrinter:
 ||	2. UnkwownPrinter:
 ||	3. DefaultPPD:
 ||	3. Options: --encoding=
 ||	4. Options: --medium=
 || Note that a2ps_cfg is a precursor of a2ps.cfg (which is built
 || at `make' time).  Hence always modify a2ps_cfg.
 || =======================================================
 || Setting correctly the top of etc/a2ps_cfg is MANDATORY
 || =======================================================

    Remember that << make install >> is mandatory for a2ps to work
    correctly.  Once the << make install >> done, you may remove the
    current directory (the one which has been extracted from the .gz).

    This program has been successfully ported to Solaris, SunOS, Linux, 
    HP-UX, AIX 3.2, AIX 4.2, MS-DOS (Win95) with various compilers.
    It is even used as a filter for print services.




3. Upgrading from a2ps 4.8.*
============================

   Because the organization of the library files is different,
   it is strongly suggested to get rid of your old library files
   (usually rm -rf .../share/a2ps is enough).

   There _will_be_ problems if you don't remove them, because a2ps
   4.9 may use a2ps 4.8 files.




4. Upgrading from a2ps 4.9.*
============================

   There can be strange things happening with `make check'.  This
   is due to a painful behavior of some shared library handlers:
   they use an old a2ps library with the new a2ps executable.

   Doing `make install' _before_ make check solves the problem.




5. Distribution content
=======================

Some interesting files/directories you might want to look at are:

	README		This message
	INSTALL		Information on the installation process
	ABOUT_NLS	A presentation of GNU's Native Language Support
			project
	TODO		Some things to be done
	afm/		Files that describe the width of the chars of a font
	doc/		The whole documentation
	encoding/	Description of the encodings.
	etc/a2ps_cfg	The default configuration (after configure/make)
	po/		Files for the translation
	sheets/		Style sheets for pretty printing support
	contrib/emacs/	Useful emacs files for a2ps
	contric/sample/	A sample on using liba2ps
	ogonkify/	The full distribution of the fantastic
			ogonkify package, that fixes a font designed for
			Latin1 so that others latin encodings are supported.
	


6. More ?
=========

	a2ps has a home page where the latest version may be found.
		http://www.inf.enst.fr/~demaille/a2ps/
	There, you may also find an html version of the documentaion,
	and a postscript (A4, 2 up) version.

	There is also a mailing list, to which you can subscribe by
	sending an email to a2ps-request@inf.enst.fr, with
	"subscribe" as subject.

	*NOTE* The mailing list is not a place to drop your bug reports
	or the problems you have.  It is a place to discuss about a2ps,
	to make the announcements, wishes etc.  Before sending a mail
	there, remember many people will read your mail.

	Bug reports should be sent to a2ps-bugs@inf.enst.fr

PS(um): if you're happy with this program, or just if you installed
it, please let_us_know! We would be so happy :).


