Provided by: remind-tools_05.01.01-1_amd64 
NAME
rem2ps - draw a PostScript calendar from Remind output
SYNOPSIS
rem2ps [options]
DESCRIPTION
rem2ps reads the standard input, which should be the results of running Remind with the -p
or -pp option. It emits PostScript code (which draws a calendar) to the standard output.
Although rem2ps will be maintained, no new features will be added to it. Instead, all new
development will continue on rem2pdf.
See the section "REM2PS INPUT FORMAT" for details about the -p data. This may be useful
if you wish to create other Remind back-ends.
Note that rem2ps does not handle UTF-8 input. If you need to render characters outside
the ASCII character set, see rem2pdf instead.
OPTIONS
-v Be more verbose. This causes rem2ps to print progress messages to the standard
error stream. Normally, it is silent.
-p file
Include the contents of file in the PostScript prologue. This allows you to define
procedures, variables etc. which can be used by the PS and PSFILE reminders. You
should not include any document structuring comments in your prologue.
-l Produce the calendar in landscape mode rather than the default portrait mode.
-x When printing the calendar, place the day numbers in the top-left of each day's
box. If this option is omitted, the day numbers appear in the top-right.
-c[n] If n is omitted, disables the small calendars for next and previous months which
are normally generated. If n is supplied, it can range from 0 to 3, with the
following meanings:
0 Disable small calendars
1 Place the small calendars at the bottom-right if there is room; otherwise,
place them at the top-left.
2 Place the small calendars at the top-left if there is room; otherwise, place
them at the bottom-right.
3 Place the previous month's small calendar at the top-left and the next
month's at the bottom-right if there is room; otherwise, follow n=1. A
moment's thought reveals that an option which splits the calendars if there
is room and otherwise follows n=2 yields the same results as n=3.
-i Use ISO 8859-1 standard encoding for the PostScript fonts. If you do not use this
option, the default encoding is used. If you use this option, you probably also
need to convert Remind's output (typically UTF-8) to ISO-8859-1 using iconv(1).
-e Make the calendar fill the entire page. By default, the calendar is slightly
smaller than the page. This allows days with many reminders to "expand" as needed.
However, if you don't have days which expand, you can use this option to make all
of the boxes slightly bigger. One caveat: If you do use the -e option and one day
has many reminders, the calendar may expand off the page, losing some information.
Experiment!
-m media
Set the page size. If you use the -m option, you must specify the media type,
which can be one of the following. (Sizes are approximate.)
Letter 8.5 x 11 in.
Legal 8.5 x 14 in.
Ledger 11 x 17 in.
Statement
5.5 x 8.5 in.
Executive
7.5 x 10 in.
A3 29.7 x 42 cm.
A4 21 x 29.7 cm.
A5 14.8 x 21 cm.
B4 25.7 x 36.4 cm.
B5 18.3 x 25.7 cm.
Folio 8.5 x 13 in.
Quarto 8.5 x 10.8 in.
10x14 10 x 14 in.
XxYin X by Y inches, where X and Y can be floating-point numbers.
XxYcm X by Y centimetres, where X and Y can be floating-point numbers.
Type "rem2ps -m help" for a list of available media. Note that the media type (and
all rem2ps options) are case-sensitive. If you don't use the -m option, the media
defaults to a compiled-in default - this is usually Letter for North America and A4
for Europe. The "-m help" option will display the compiled-in default.
-f[tshed] font
Set the font for the calendar title, the small calendars, the day-of-week headings,
the calendar entries, and the day numbers, respectively. Font must be the name of
a valid PostScript font. The default fonts are equivalent to specifying:
-ftshe Helvetica -fd Helvetica-BoldOblique
In other words, the heading, entry and small-calendar fonts are set to Helvetica,
and the font for the day numbers is set to Helvetica-BoldOblique.
-s[thed] size
Set the size (in points) of the text for the the calendar title, day-of-week
headings, the calendar entries, and the day numbers, respectively. Size must be a
decimal number. The default sizes are equivalent to specifying:
-sthd 14 -se 8
In other words, the heading and day numbers are 14-point fonts, and the calendar
entries are printed in 8-point text.
-b size
Set the size of the blank white border in each calendar box to size points. The
default border size is 6 points, or 1/12 in.
-t size
Set the thickness of the black calendar grid lines. The default is 1, for a line
thickness of one point (1/72 in.)
-o[lrtb] size
Set the left, right, top, and/or bottom margins to size points. For this option
only, size must be an integer. It represents the margin size in units of 1/72 in.
The default margin sizes are 36, for half-inch margins. If you wish to punch holes
in the calendar page to insert it into a binder, you may wish to increase the left
margin to one inch. In that case, you should also decrease the heading font size
to 12 points for good output:
# This gives good results for putting into a binder
rem2ps -ol 72 -sh 12
USAGE
To use rem2ps, you should pipe the output of Remind with the -p option to rem2ps, and then
send the result to a printer. This is most easily illustrated with examples:
remind -p12 /dev/null 1 jan 1994 | rem2ps | lpr -Plaser
That example creates a blank calendar for the entire year of 1994, and sends it the the
printer named "laser."
remind -p ~/.reminders | rem2ps -l -sd 18 > cal.ps
This reminder creates a calendar for the current month, filling in entries from the
reminder file "~/.reminders." The calendar is produced in landscape mode, with a font
size of 18 for the day numbers. The result is put in the PostScript file "cal.ps."
VARIABLES AVAILABLE TO USER-SUPPLIED POSTSCRIPT CODE
The following variables are available to PS and PSFILE-type reminders. (This material is
duplicated in the Remind manual page.)
LineWidth
The width of the black grid lines making up the calendar.
Border The border between the center of the grid lines and the space used to print
calendar entries. This border is normally blank space.
BoxWidth and BoxHeight
The width and height of the calendar box, from center-to-center of the black grid
lines.
InBoxHeight
The height from the center of the bottom black grid line to the top of the regular
calendar entry area. The space from here to the top of the box is used only to
draw the day number.
/DayFont, /TitleFont, /EntryFont, /SmallFont and /HeadFont
The fonts used to draw the day numbers, the month and year title, the calendar
entries, the small calendars, and the day-of-week headings, respectively.
DaySize, TitleSize, EntrySize and HeadSize
The sizes of the above fonts. (The size of the small calendar font is not defined
here.) For example, if you wanted to print the Hebrew date next to the regular day
number in the calendar, use:
REM PS Border BoxHeight Border sub DaySize sub moveto \
/DayFont findfont DaySize scalefont setfont \
([hebday(today())] [hebmon(today())]) show
Note how /DayFont and DaySize are used.
Note that if you supply PostScript code, it is possible to produce invalid PostScript
files. Always test your PostScript thoroughly with a PostScript viewer before sending it
to the printer. You should not use any document structuring comments in your PostScript
code.
In addition, prior to drawing a calendar page, rem2ps emits the following PostScript code:
save (mon) (yr) PreCal restore
where mon and yr are the month and year of the calendar page. The default PreCal
procedure simply pops the arguments and does nothing. However, you can define a PreCal
function in your prologue file to do whatever you want - it can draw a background for the
entire calendar, for instance.
In the context of the PreCal procedure, the following conditions hold:
o The PostScript origin is at the bottom left-hand corner of the page, and PostScript
units of 1/72 inch are in effect.
o The variables MinX, MinY, MaxX and MaxY define the bounding box within which the
calendar will be drawn.
o The font and font-size variables, as well as Border and LineWidth described
previously, are valid.
For an example, create a file called "myprolog" whose contents are:
/PreCal {
/yr exch def
/mon exch def
/xsiz1 MaxX MinX sub def
/ysiz1 MaxY MinY sub def
/xsiz xsiz1 MinX sub MinX sub def
/ysiz ysiz1 MinY sub MinY sub def
xsiz
ysiz
lt
{/len xsiz 1.41 mul def
MinX MinX add ysiz1 xsiz1 sub 2 div MinY add MinY add moveto}
{/len ysiz 1.41 mul def
xsiz1 ysiz1 sub 2 div MinX add MinX add MinY MinY add moveto}
ifelse
/Helvetica-Bold findfont 1 scalefont setfont
mon stringwidth pop
( ) stringwidth pop add
yr stringwidth pop add
len exch div /len exch def
/Helvetica-Bold findfont len scalefont setfont
0.95 setgray
45 rotate
mon show
( ) show
yr show
} bind def
Use that file with the rem2ps -p option to create calendars with the year and month in
large gray letters in the background of the calendar.
REM2PS INPUT FORMAT (-P OPTION)
The -p option is an older, simpler interchange format used by Remind to communicate with
back-ends. New back-ends are encouraged to support the new -pp format preferably, though
they are encouraged to support the older -p format as well if the older format contains
enough information for them to work properly.
Remind -p sends the following lines to standard output. The information is designed to be
easily parsed by back-end programs:
# rem2ps begin
This line signifies the start of calendar data. Back-ends can search for it to
verify they are being fed correct information.
month_name year num_days first_day monday_first
On this line, month_name is the name of the month whose calendar information is
about to follow. num_days is the number of days in this month. first_day is the
weekday of the first day of the month (0 = Sunday, 1 = Monday, 6 = Saturday.) And
monday_first is 1 if the -m flag was supplied to Remind, or 0 if it was not. All
this information is supplied so back-ends don't need any date calculation
facilities.
Note that all spaces in month_name will be replaced with underscores. Back-ends
should undo this replacement.
sun mon tue wed thu fri sat
This line consists of space-separated names of days in whatever language Remind was
compiled for. This information can be used by back-ends to annotate calendars, and
means they don't have to be created for a specific language.
Note that all spaces in day names will be replaced with underscores. Back-ends
should undo this replacement.
next_mon next_days
The name of the next month and the number of days in it.
prev_mon prev_days
The name of the previous month and the number of days in it. The next_mon and
prev_mon lines could be used to generate small inset calendars for the next and
previous months.
The remaining data consists of calendar entries, in the following format:
yyyy/mm/dd special tag dur time body
Here, yyyy is the year, mm is the month (01-12) and dd is the day of the month. Note that
the date components are always separated by "/" even if the date separator in Remind has
been set to "-". The consistent use of "/" is designed to ease parsing.
special is a string used for "out-of-band" communication with back-ends. If the reminder
is a normal reminder, special is "*". The rem2ps back-end understands the specials
PostScript and PSFile. Other back-ends may understand other specials. A back end should
silently ignore a reminder with a special it doesn't understand.
tag is whatever tag the user provided with the TAG clause, or "*" if no tag was provided.
If there is more than one TAG clause, the tags appear in a comma-separated list. For
example, the command REM TAG foo TAG bar TAG quux would result in foo,bar,quux in the tag
field.
dur is the DURATION value in minutes, or "*" if no duration was provided.
time is the time of the reminder in minutes past midnight, or "*" if the reminder was not
a timed reminder.
body is the body of the reminder.
Future versions of Remind may add additional keys to the JSON object. Back-ends must
ignore keys they don't recognize.
After a month's worth of reminders have been emitted, Remind emits the line:
# rem2ps end
However, back-ends should keep reading until EOF in case more data for subsequent months
is forthcoming.
If you supply the -l option to remind, then reminders may be preceded by a line that looks
like this:
# fileinfo lineno filename
The word fileinfo is literal; lineno and filename specify the line number and file name of
the file containing the reminder. Back-ends that don't care about this information should
ignore lines starting with "#" (except, of course, for the # rem2ps lines.)
REM2PS PARTIAL JSON INPUT FORMAT (-PP OPTION)
Remind -pp sends the following lines to standard output. They are designed to be easily
parsed, but contain much more information than the old-style remind -p output. The extra
information contains a representation of the parsed "REM" statement, which could allow
converters to better preserve semantics of a reminder. For example, this format passes
enough information to allow a back-end to (in many cases) determine a reminder's
recurrence rather than just treating each reminder as a one-off event.
The lines emitted by remind -pp are as follows:
# rem2ps2 begin
This line signifies the start of calendar data. Back-ends can search for it to
verify they are being fed correct information. Note the "2" after "rem2ps", which
distinguishes this format from the older -p format.
month_name year num_days first_day monday_first
Same as the -p format
sun mon tue wed thu fri sat
Same as the -p format
next_mon next_days
Same as the -p format
prev_mon prev_days
Same as the -p format
CALENDAR ENTRIES
The remaining data consists of calendar entries expressed as a JSON object on a single
line. Each such line will begin with "{" and will be a well-formed JSON object. The keys
that may be present in the JSON object are as follows:
date YYYY-MM-DD
The date key will always be present; it is the trigger date of the reminder
expressed as a string in the format YYYY-MM-DD
filename f
The filename in which the reminder was found.
lineno n
The line number within the file on which the reminder was found.
nonconst_expr 1
If the reminder contained a non-constant expression that had to be evaluated to
determine the trigger date, this key will be present with the value 1. If this key
is present, then it is unsafe for a back-end to rely on recurrence semantics or
even the semantics of any part of the parsed reminder, as they may have been
computed in a way that cannot be expressed in JSON.
if_depth n
If the reminder is inside one or more IF or ELSE statements, this key will be
present and the value will be the number of nested IFs from the top-level to the
reminder. Back-ends should be wary of interpreting recurrence semantics of
reminders within an IF or ELSE block.
passthru special
If the reminder was a SPECIAL reminder, the passthru key will be present and the
value will be the type of SPECIAL (such as SHADE, COLOR, MOON, etc.)
tags data
If any TAG clauses are present, the tags key will be present and consist of a
comma-separated list of tags.
time t If an AT clause was present, this key will contain the time of the AT clause in
minutes after midnight.
tdelta n
If a time delta (+n after an AT clause) was present, this key contains the delta
value in minutes.
trep n If a time repeat (*n after an AT clause) was present, this key contains the repeat
value in minutes.
eventduration n
If a DURATION clause was present, this key contains the event duration in minutes.
duration n
If a DURATION clause was present, this key contains today's duration in minutes.
See the remind(1) man page, "MULTI-DAY EVENTS", for a discussion of duration vs.
event duration.
eventstart dt
If an AT clause was present, this key contains the event start time in the format
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM.
back n If the reminder contained a "back" clause (-n or --n), this key contains the back
value. If the "back" value was -n, the value will be positive; if it was --n, the
value will be negative.
delta n
If the reminder contained a "delta" clause (+n or ++n), this key contains the delta
value. If the "delta" value was +n, the value will be positive; if it was ++n, the
value will be negative.
rep n If the reminder contained a "repeat" clause (*n), this key contains the repeat
value.
skip type
If the reminder contained a SKIP, BEFORE or AFTER keyword, then this key will
contain that keyword.
localomit array
If the reminder contains a local OMIT keyword, this key will be present. Its value
will be an array of English day names that are OMITted.
wd array
If the reminder contains one or more weekdays, this key will be present. Its value
will be an array of English day names that are present.
d n If a day-of-month is present in the reminder specification, this key will be
present and its value will be the day number.
m n If a month is present in the reminder specification, this key will be present and
its value will be the month number.
y n If a year is present in the reminder specification, this key will be present and
its value will be the year.
until YYYY-MM-DD
If the reminder contains an UNTIL or THROUGH clause, this key will be present. Its
value will be a string of the form YYYY-MM-DD.
once 1 If the reminder contains a ONCE keyword, this key will be present with a value of
1.
scanfrom YYYY-MM-DD
If the reminder contains a SCANFROM keyword, this key will be present and its value
will be a string of the form YYYY-MM-DD.
from YYYY-MM-DD
If the reminder contains a FROM keyword, this key will be present and its value
will be a string of the form YYYY-MM-DD.
priority n
The priority of the reminder. Always present; if no PRIORITY keyword is specified,
then a reminder has a default priority of 5000.
r n For a SHADE or COLOR special, the red color component.
g n For a SHADE or COLOR special, the green color component.
b n For a SHADE or COLOR special, the blue color component.
body body
The body of the reminder to issue. Always present.
calendar_body body
The text appropriate to include in a calendar. Only present if the original body
contains %"...%" sequences and the "q" modifier was used with Remind's "-pp..."
flag.
plain_body body
The "plain" body of the reminder with any %"...%" sequences removed. If your back-
end is designed to draw a calendar, then it should use the calendar_body if
present. If not, then it should use the plain_body if present, and if not, then it
should fall back on the body.
rawbody raw
The "raw" body of the reminder, before any expression-pasting or substitution-
sequence processing. If the raw body would be the same as the processed body, then
this key is not present.
After a month's worth of reminders have been emitted, Remind emits the line:
# rem2ps2 end
However, back-ends should keep reading until EOF in case more data for subsequent months
is forthcoming.
REM2PS PURE JSON INPUT FORMAT (-PPP OPTION)
Remind -ppp emits pure JSON output. The format is as follows:
Remind outputs a JSON array. Each element of the array is a month descriptor.
Each month descriptor is a JSON object with the following elements:
monthname name
The name of the month.
year yyyy
The year.
daysinmonnth n
The number of days in the current month.
firstwkday n
The weekday of the first day of the month (0 = Sunday, 1 = Monday, 6 = Saturday).
mondayfirst n
An indicator of whether or not the calendar week should start with Sunday (n=0) or
Monday (n=1).
daynames [days]
A seven-element array of day names; each element is a string representing the names
of the days from Sunday through Saturday.
prevmonthname name
The name of the previous month.
daysinprevmonth n
The number of days in the previous month.
prevmonthyear yyyy
The year of the previous month. (The same as year unless the current month is
January.)
nextmonthname name
The name of the following month.
daysinnextmonth n
The number of days in the following month.
nextmonthyear yyyy
The year of the following month. (The same as year unless the current month is
December.)
entries [array]
The entries key consists of an array of calendar entries; each entry is a JSON
object that has the same format as described in the CALENDAR ENTRIES section in the
-PP FORMAT section, with the following difference: In -PP mode, if a reminder has
%" markers, only the text between the markers is included in the body element. In
-PPP mode, the entire text including the %" markers is included and it's up to the
back-end to extract the portion between the markers if that is desired.
AUTHOR
rem2ps was written by Dianne Skoll <dianne@skoll.ca>
BUGS
All rem2ps options are case-sensitive, unlike Remind. Any time you supply a font name or
size, line thickness, or border width, it is treated as a string and sent straight to the
PostScript interpreter. Thus, if you supply invalid fonts or sizes, rem2ps will not
complain, but the resulting PostScript output will probably not work.
You should ensure that the values you supply for margin widths are sensible. If they are
too big for the media size, rem2ps will not complain, but again, the PostScript output
will probably not work.
HOME PAGE
https://dianne.skoll.ca/projects/remind/
SEE ALSO
remind, rem2pdf, rem2html, tkremind.