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FIGLET(6)							     FIGLET(6)

NAME
       FIGlet - display large characters made up of ordinary screen characters

SYNOPSIS
       figlet [ -cklnoprstvxDELNRSWX ] [ -d fontdirectory ]
	      [ -f fontfile ] [ -m layoutmode ]
	      [ -w outputwidth ] [ -C controlfile ]
	      [ -I infocode ] [ message ]

DESCRIPTION
       FIGlet  prints  its  input  using large characters (called ``FIGcharac‐
       ters'')made up of  ordinary  screen  characters	(called	 ``sub-charac‐
       ters'').	  FIGlet output is generally reminiscent of the sort of ``sig‐
       natures'' many people like to put at the end of e-mail and UseNet  mes‐
       sages.	It  is also reminiscent of the output of some banner programs,
       although it is oriented normally, not sideways.

       FIGlet can print in a variety of fonts, both left-to-right  and	right-
       to-left, with adjacent FIGcharacters kerned and ``smushed'' together in
       various ways.  FIGlet fonts are stored in separate files, which can  be
       identified  by  the  suffix  ``.flf''.	Most FIGlet font files will be
       stored in FIGlet's default font directory.

       FIGlet can also use ``control files'', which tell  it  to  map  certain
       input  characters  to  certain other characters, similar to the Unix tr
       command.	 Control files can be identified by the suffix ``.flc''.  Most
       FIGlet control files will be stored in FIGlet's default font directory.

       You  can	 store FIGlet fonts and control files in compressed form.  See
       COMPRESSED FONTS.

USAGE
       Just start up FIGlet (type ``figlet'') and then type whatever you want.
       Alternatively,  pipe  a	file  or the output of another command through
       FIGlet, or put input on the command line after the options.  See	 EXAM‐
       PLES for other things to do.

OPTIONS
       FIGlet reads command line options from left to right, and only the last
       option that affects a parameter has any effect.	 Almost	 every	option
       has  an	inverse,  so that, for example, if FIGlet is customized with a
       shell alias, all the options are usually still available.

       Commonly-used options are -f, -c, -k, -t, -p and -v.

       -f fontfile
	      Select the font.	The .flf suffix may be left off	 of  fontfile,
	      in which case FIGlet automatically appends it.  FIGlet looks for
	      the file first in the default font directory  and	 then  in  the
	      current directory, or, if fontfile was given as a full pathname,
	      in the given directory.  If the  -f  option  is  not  specified,
	      FIGlet  uses  the	 font that was specified when it was compiled.
	      To find out which font this is, use the -I3 option.

       -d fontdirectory
	      Change the default font directory.  FIGlet looks for fonts first
	      in  the default directory and then in the current directory.  If
	      the -d option is not specified, FIGlet uses the  directory  that
	      was specified when it was compiled.  To find out which directory
	      this is, use the -I2 option.

       -c
       -l
       -r
       -x     These options handle the justification  of  FIGlet  output.   -c
	      centers  the  output  horizontally.   -l makes the output flush-
	      left.  -r makes it flush-right.  -x (default) sets the  justifi‐
	      cation  according to whether left-to-right or right-to-left text
	      is selected.   Left-to-right  text  will	be  flush-left,	 while
	      right-to-left  text  will be flush-right.	 (Left-to-right versus
	      right-to-left text is controlled by -L, -R and -X.)

       -t
       -w outputwidth
	      These options control  the  outputwidth,	or  the	 screen	 width
	      FIGlet assumes when formatting its output.  FIGlet uses the out‐
	      putwidth to determine when to break lines and how to center  the
	      output.  Normally, FIGlet assumes 80 columns so that people with
	      wide terminals won't annoy the people they e-mail FIGlet	output
	      to.  -t sets the outputwidth to the terminal width.  If the ter‐
	      minal width cannot be determined, the  previous  outputwidth  is
	      retained.	  -w  sets  the	 outputwidth to the given integer.  An
	      outputwidth of 1 is a special value that tells FIGlet  to	 print
	      each  non-space  FIGcharacter,  in  its  entirety, on a separate
	      line, no matter how wide it is.

       -p
       -n     These options control how	 FIGlet	 handles  newlines.   -p  puts
	      FIGlet  into  ``paragraph mode'', which eliminates some unneces‐
	      sary line breaks when piping a multi-line file  through  FIGlet.
	      In  paragraph mode, FIGlet treats line breaks within a paragraph
	      as if they were merely blanks between words.  (Specifically,  -p
	      causes  FIGlet to convert any newline which is not preceded by a
	      newline and not followed by a space character into a blank.)  -n
	      (default)	 puts  FIGlet  back  to normal, in which every newline
	      FIGlet reads causes it to produce a line break.

       -D
       -E     -D switches to the German (ISO  646-DE)  character  set.	 Turns
	      `[',  `\'	 and `]' into umlauted A, O and U, respectively.  `{',
	      `|' and `}' turn into the	 respective  lower  case  versions  of
	      these.   `~' turns into s-z.  -E turns off -D processing.	 These
	      options are deprecated,  which  means  they  probably  will  not
	      appear in the next version of FIGlet.

       -C controlfile
       -N     These options deal with FIGlet controlfiles.  A controlfile is a
	      file containing a list of commands  that	FIGlet	executes  each
	      time it reads a character.  These commands can map certain input
	      characters to other characters, similar to the Unix  tr  command
	      or  the  FIGlet  -D  option.   FIGlet  maintains	a list of con‐
	      trolfiles, which is empty when FIGlet starts up.	 -C  adds  the
	      given  controlfile to the list.  -N clears the controlfile list,
	      cancelling the effect of any previous -C.	 FIGlet	 executes  the
	      commands	in  all	 controlfiles  in the list.  See the file fig‐
	      font.txt, provided with FIGlet, for details on how  to  write  a
	      controlfile.

       -s
       -S
       -k
       -W

       -o     These  options  control how FIGlet spaces the FIGcharacters that
	      it outputs.   -s	(default)  and	-S  cause  ``smushing''.   The
	      FIGcharacters  are  displayed as close together as possible, and
	      overlapping sub-characters are removed.  Exactly which sub-char‐
	      acters  count  as	 ``overlapping'' depends on the font's layout‐
	      mode, which is defined by the font's author.  -k causes  ``kern‐
	      ing''.   As many blanks as possible are removed between FIGchar‐
	      acters, so that  they  touch,  but  the  FIGcharacters  are  not
	      smushed.	 -W  makes  FIGlet  display all FIGcharacters at their
	      full width, which may be fixed or	 variable,  depending  on  the
	      font.

	      The  difference  between	-s  and -S is that -s will not smush a
	      font whose author specified kerning or full width as the default
	      layoutmode, whereas -S will attempt to do so.

	      If there is no information in the font about how to smush, or if
	      the -o option is specified, then the FIGcharacters  are  ``over‐
	      lapped''.	 This means that after kerning, the first subcharacter
	      of each FIGcharacter  is	removed.   (This  is  not  done	 if  a
	      FIGcharacter contains only one subcharacter.)

       -m layoutmode
	      Specifies	 an  explicit layoutmode between 1 and 63.  Smushmodes
	      are explained  in	 figfont.txt,  which  also  provides  complete
	      information  on  the  format  of a FIGlet font.  For the sake of
	      backward compatibility with versions of FIGlet before  2.2,  -m0
	      is  equivalent  to  -k,  -m-1  is	 equivalent to -W, and -m-2 is
	      equivalent to -s.	 The -m switch is normally used only  by  font
	      designers testing the various layoutmodes with a new font.

       -v
       -I infocode
	      These options print various information about FIGlet, then exit.
	      If several of these options are given on the command line,  only
	      the  last	 is  executed,	and  only after all other command-line
	      options have been dealt with.

	      -v prints version	 and  copyright	 information,  as  well	 as  a
	      ``Usage:	...''	line.  -I prints the information corresponding
	      to the given infocode in a consistent, reliable  (i.e.,  guaran‐
	      teed to be the same in future releases) format.  -I is primarily
	      intended to be used by programs that use FIGlet.	 infocode  can
	      be any of the following.

	      -1 Normal operation (default).
		     This  infocode  indicates that FIGlet should operate nor‐
		     mally, not giving any  informational  printout,  printing
		     its input in the selected font.

	      0 Version and copyright.
		     This is identical to -v.

	      1 Version (integer).
		     This  will	 print the version of your copy of FIGlet as a
		     decimal integer.  The main version number	is  multiplied
		     by	 10000,	 the  sub-version number is multiplied by 100,
		     and the sub-sub-version number is multiplied by 1.	 These
		     are  added	 together, and the result is printed out.  For
		     example, FIGlet 2.2 will print ``20200'' , version	 2.2.2
		     will  print  ``20202''.   Similarly,  version 3.7.2 would
		     print ``30702''.  These  numbers  are  guaranteed	to  be
		     ascending,	 with  later  versions	having higher numbers.
		     Note that the first major release of FIGlet, version 2.0,
		     did not have the -I option.

	      2 Default font directory.
		     This  will	 print	the  default  font  directory.	 It is
		     affected by the -d option.

	      3 Font.
		     This will print the name of the font  FIGlet  would  use.
		     It is affected by the -f option.  This is not a filename;
		     the ``.flf'' suffix is not printed.

	      4 Output width.
		     This will print the  value	 FIGlet	 would	use  for  out‐
		     putwidth,	the  number of columns wide FIGlet assumes the
		     screen is.	 It is affected by the -w and -t options.

	      If infocode is any other positive value, FIGlet will simply exit
	      without printing anything.

       -L
       -R
       -X     These  options  control  whether	FIGlet prints left-to-right or
	      right-to-left.  -L selects left-to-right printing.   -R  selects
	      right-to-left printing.  -X (default) makes FIGlet use whichever
	      is specified in the font file.

	      Once the options are read, if there are any remaining  words  on
	      the command line, they are used instead of standard input as the
	      source of text.  This feature allows shell scripts  to  generate
	      large letters without having to dummy up standard input files.

	      An empty argument, obtained by two sequential quotes, results in
	      a line break.

EXAMPLES
       To use FIGlet with its default settings, simply type

	      example% figlet

       and then type whatever you like.

       To change the font, use the -f option, for example,

	      example% figlet -f script

       Use the -c option if you would prefer centered output:

	      example% figlet -c

       We have found that the most common use of FIGlet	 is  making  up	 large
       text to be placed in e-mail messages.  For this reason, FIGlet defaults
       to 80 column output.  If you are using a wider terminal, and would like
       FIGlet to use the full width of your terminal, use the -t option:

	      example% figlet -t

       If  you	don't  want FIGlet to smush FIGcharacters into each other, use
       the -k option:

	      example% figlet -k

       If figlet gets its input from a file, it is often a good	 idea  to  use
       -p:

	      example% figlet -p < myfile

       Of course, the above can be combined:

	      example% figlet -ptk -f shadow < anotherfile
	      example% figlet -cf slant

       Finally,	 if  you  want	to have FIGlet take the input from the command
       line instead of a file:

	      example% figlet Hello world

   Other Things to Try
       On many systems nice effects can be obtained from the lean font by pip‐
       ing it through tr.  Some you might want to try are the following:

	      example% figlet -f lean | tr ' _/' ' ()'
	      example% figlet -f lean | tr ' _/' './\\'
	      example% figlet -f lean | tr ' _/' ' //'
	      example% figlet -f lean | tr ' _/' '/  '

       Similar	things	can  be done with the block font and many of the other
       FIGlet fonts.

COMPRESSED FONTS
       You can compress the fonts and controlfiles  using  the	zip  archiving
       program.	  Place	 only  one  font  or  controlfile in each archive, and
       rename the archive file (which will have a name ending in .zip) back to
       .flf  or	 .flc as the case may be.  If you don't rename the file appro‐
       priately, FIGlet won't be able to find it.

       FIGlet does not care what the filename within the .zip archive is,  and
       will process only the first file.

       The  .zip  format  was chosen because tools to create and manipulate it
       are widely available for free on many platforms.

THE STANDARD FONTS
       Here are a few notes about some of the fonts provided with FIGlet.  You
       can get many other font from the Web site
       http://www.figlet.org/	 This  location should also contain the latest
       version of FIGlet and other related utilities.

       The font standard is the basic FIGlet font, used when no other font  is
       specified.   (This  default  can	 be changed when FIGlet is compiled on
       your system.)  The controlfiles 8859-2, 8859-3, 8859-4, and 8859-9  are
       provided	 for  interpreting  those  character  sets,  also known as ISO
       Latin-2 through Latin-5 respectively.  The character  set  8859-1  (ISO
       Latin-1) is FIGlet's default and requires no special controlfile.

       Closely related are the fonts slant, shadow, small, smslant (both small
       and slanted), smshadow, (both small  and	 shadowed),  and  big.	 These
       fonts  support  only Latin-1, except that big supports Greek FIGcharac‐
       ters as well; the controlfiles frango (for Greek text written in	 Latin
       characters,   so-called	``frangovlakhika''),  and  8859-7  (for	 mixed
       Latin/Greek text) are provided.

       The ivrit font is a right-to-left font including both Latin and	Hebrew
       FIGcharacters;  the  Latin  characters  are those of the standard font.
       The available controlfiles are ilhebrew, which maps the letters you get
       by typing on a U.S. keyboard as if it were a Hebrew keyboard; ushebrew,
       which makes a reasonable mapping from Latin letters to Hebrew ones; and
       8859-8,	which  supports	 mixed	Latin/Hebrew  text.   Warning:	FIGlet
       doesn't support bidirectional text, so everything will come out	right-
       to-left, even Latin letters.

       The fonts terminal, digital, and bubble output the input character with
       some decoration around it (or no decoration, in the case of  terminal).
       The  characters	coded  128 to 159, which have varying interpretations,
       are output as-is.  You can use the appropriate controlfiles to  process
       Latin-2, Latin-3, or Latin-4 (but not Latin-5) text, provided your out‐
       put device has screen or printer fonts that are appropriate  for	 these
       character sets.

       Two  script fonts are available: script, which is larger than standard,
       and smscript, which is smaller.

       The font lean is made up solely of `/' and `_' sub-characters; block is
       a straight (non-leaning) version of it.

       The  font mini is very small, and especially suitable for e-mail signa‐
       tures.

       The font banner looks like the output of the banner program;  it	 is  a
       capitals	 and  small capitals font that doesn't support the ISO Latin-1
       extensions to plain ASCII.  It  does,  however,	support	 the  Japanese
       katakana	 syllabary;  the  controlfile  uskata  maps the upper-case and
       lower-case Latin letters into the 48 basic katakana characters, and the
       controlfile  jis0201  handles  JIS  0201X  (JIS-Roman)  mixed Latin and
       katakana text.  Furthermore, the banner	font  also  supports  Cyrillic
       (Russian)  FIGcharacters;  the  controlfile 8859-5 supports mixed Latin
       and Cyrillic text, the controlfile koi8r supports  the  popular	KOI8-R
       mapping	of  mixed text, and the controlfile moscow supports a sensible
       mapping from Latin to Cyrillic, compatible with the  moscow  font  (not
       supplied).

       The fonts mnemonic and safemnem support the mnemonic character set doc‐
       umented in RFC 1345.  They implement a large subset  of	Unicode	 (over
       1800  characters)  very	crudely, using ASCII-based mnemonic sequences,
       and are good for getting a quick look at UTF-8 unicode files, using the
       controlfile utf8.

FILES
       file.flf		   FIGlet font file
       file.flc		   FIGlet control file

DIAGNOSTICS
       FIGlet's	 diagnostics  are  intended  to be self-explanatory.  Possible
       messages are

	      Usage: ...
	      Out of memory
	      Unable to open font file
	      Not a FIGlet 2 font file
	      Unable to open control file
	      Not a FIGlet 2 control file
	      "-t" is disabled, since ioctl is not fully implemented.

       This last message is printed when the -t option is given, but the oper‐
       ating  system  in  use  does not include the system call FIGlet uses to
       determine the terminal width.

       FIGlet also prints an explanatory message if the -F option is given  on
       the  command  line.  The earlier version of FIGlet, version 2.0, listed
       the available fonts when the -F option was given.  This option has been
       removed	from  FIGlet 2.1.  It has been replaced by the figlist script,
       which is part of the standard FIGlet package.

ORIGIN
       ``FIGlet'' stands for ``Frank, Ian and Glenn's LETters''.  Inspired  by
       Frank's .sig, Glenn wrote (most of) it, and Ian helped.

       Most  of the standard FIGlet fonts were inspired by signatures on vari‐
       ous UseNet articles.  Since typically hundreds of people use  the  same
       style of letters in their signatures, it was often not deemed necessary
       to give credit to any one font designer.

BUGS
       Very little error checking is done on font and  control	files.	 While
       FIGlet  tries  to  be forgiving of errors, and should (hopefully) never
       actually crash, using an improperly-formatted  file  with  FIGlet  will
       produce unpredictable output.

       FIGlet  does not handle format characters in a very intelligent way.  A
       tab character is converted to a blank, and vertical-tab, form-feed  and
       carriage-return are each converted to a newline.	 On many systems, tabs
       can be handled better by piping	files  through	expand	before	piping
       through FIGlet.

       FIGlet  output  is  quite  ugly if it is displayed in a proportionally-
       spaced font.  I suppose this is to be expected.

       Please report any errors you find in this man page or  the  program  to
       <info@figlet.org>

MAILING LIST
       You  can	 get many fonts which are not in the basic FIGlet package from
       the Web site http://www.figlet.org/   It should also contain the latest
       version	of  FIGlet and other utilities related to FIGlet.  We run 3 e-
       mail lists dedicated to FIGlet software and font announcements, as well
       as general discussion about FIGlet:
	   figlet@figlet.org	      General discussion
	   figletfonts@figlet.org     Font announcements
	   figletsoftware@figlet.org  Software announcements
	   (The last two lists are moderated)

       To subscribe or unsubscribe from the FIGlet mailing lists, please visit
       the corresponding URL:
	   http://www.figlet.org/mailman/listinfo/figlet
	   http://www.figlet.org/mailman/listinfo/figletfonts
	   http://www.figlet.org/mailman/listinfo/figletsoftware

AUTHORS
       Glenn Chappell <c486scm@semovm.semo.edu> did most of the work.  You can
       e-mail  him  but	 he  is not an e-mail fanatic; people who e-mail Glenn
       will probably get answers, but if you e-mail his best friend:

       Ian Chai <ianchai@usa.net>,  who	 is  an	 e-mail	 fanatic,  you'll  get
       answers,	 endless conversation about the mysteries of life, invitations
       to join some 473 mailing lists and a free toaster.   (Well,  ok,	 maybe
       not the free toaster.)

       Frank  inspired this whole project with his .sig, but don't e-mail him;
       he's decidedly an un-e-mail-fanatic.

       Gilbert "The Mad Programmer" Healton <ghealton@nmia.com> added  the  -A
       option for version 2.1.1.  This option specified input from the command
       line; it is still allowed, but has no effect.

       John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org> added the -o, -s, -k, -S, and  -W  options,
       and the support for Unicode mapping tables, ISO 2022/HZ/Shift-JIS/UTF-8
       input, and compressed fonts and control files.  He  also	 revised  this
       documentation,  with  a	lot of input from Paul Burton <solution@earth‐
       link.net>.

       Christiaan Keet <keet@plig.net> revised the official FIGlet  documenta‐
       tion  and  set up the new FIGlet website at http://www.figlet.org/ (and
       the corresponding ftp://ftp.figlet.org/pub/figlet/)

v2.2.2				 05 July 2005			     FIGLET(6)
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