In gedit, printing a file gives an option of printing to file where the file can be saved as a pdf. How can I do the same thing from the command line?
1
-
1Cross-site link: same question on Unix.SE text processing - How to convert TXT to PDF? - Unix & Linux Stack Exchange– user202729Feb 18, 2022 at 0:17
Add a comment
|
10 Answers
Here's a solution that doesn't involve OpenOffice:
sudo apt-get install enscriptenscript my_text_file.txt -o - | ps2pdf - output.pdf
There are more options to enscript, e.g. -B to omit the page header. See man enscript for all of the options.
answered Feb 19, 2011 at 13:09
-
1Good alternative Stefano especially for anyone not using open/libreoffice as unoconv is dependent on either of these being installed.– AllanFeb 19, 2011 at 13:22
-
+1 for the nice answer, the one I was about to give, I just decided to give one I think will add something to what is already here.– SabaconFeb 19, 2011 at 13:43
-
-
1Thanks! It works for most texts, however enscript only works with old encoding, it doesn't work with UTF-8 for instance so you can't convert a text if it includes the euro symbol (€) for instance... Feb 22, 2017 at 14:46
without installing any of the above mentioned software, one can simply do the following with already installed cupsfilter:
cupsfilter foo.txt > foo.pdf
(for options etc. please refer to cupsfilter man pages :-) )
-
5The only answer here that handled my UTF8 text files without problems :) plus easier to do with virtually no dependencies Feb 22, 2017 at 15:25
-
Unfortunately this solution generates unsearchable PDF How to copy/paste text from PDF generated by cups-pdf? - Unix & Linux Stack Exchange Feb 18, 2022 at 0:24
THE SIMPLE ENSCRIPT WAY
sudo apt-get install cups-pdf enscript
Then run enscript on your file with the -P switch and the printer description PDF in this case.
enscript -B -PPDF test.txt
A printer with description PDF was created when you installed cups-pdf, when you use enscript with that printer your document will be sent to the PDF printer and will be printed to file, created as .pdf in your /home/PDF directory, the command above will print the text file test.txt as a pdf in the PDF directory.
USING UNOCONV
sudo apt-get install unoconv
You can use unoconv in standalone mode, this means that in absence of an OpenOffice listener, it will start its own:
In the directory where your file is located run:
unoconv -f pdf test.txt
this will create a nice looking pdf of test.txt. in the current directory
-
-
Actually, this generates postscript instead of pdf. Need another ps2pdf pass. Feb 18, 2022 at 0:50
Pandoc is a must have swiss knife tool when it comes to conversion between various markup languages. To get you started first install pandoc converter:
sudo apt-get install pandoc
General and most frequently used syntax for pandoc is:
pandoc -f <from format> -t <to format> <source file>
Please note that you need texlive-latex-base package to be installed first, before you can convert to PDF format. Otherwise you will get a following error:
pandoc: pdflatex not found. pdflatex is needed for pdf output.
To install it:
sudo apt-get install texlive-latex-base
Now you can easily convert any file to pdf.
pandoc -t txt -t pdf source.txt
replace txt with your text format(odt - html - ....)
-
2Compared to the other answers, pandoc plus texlive produces bad output (not respecting newlines), and is overkill and confusing to boot. Lots more packages are needed, pulling in texlive, texlive-fonts-recommended, ruby, etc. E.g. I get
pandoc: Unknown writer: pdfuntil I install texlive-latex-base. This is on trusty. See github.com/jgm/pandoc/issues/1155 Then I got an error about a missing font, then one about url.sty, etc.– nealmcbMar 14, 2015 at 3:54 -
Did you mean for the first
-tinpandoc -t txt -t pdf source.txtto be-f? Dec 16, 2020 at 1:09
There is a command line program that can convert between all of the formats supported open/libre office called unoconv so if you need to batch convert with a script it will come in handy.
sudo apt-get install unoconv
paps is a better alternative than enscript
paps file.txt | ps2pdf - output.pdf
-
10Welcome to Ask Ubuntu hwc! While your post does answer the question, it's always better to include more information. For example, why is
papsa better alternative? And ifpapsis not installed by default, what is the command to install it? You can always edit your answer by clicking oneditright underneath the body of the answer. Thanks!– Alaa AliSep 1, 2013 at 6:15
I had some issues with german Umlaute (ÄÖÜ) with the above mentioned solutions. Or, in the case of paps, the resulting PDF does not have a text layer.
The best solution for me was to use wkthmltopdf. It seems to be not documented, but you can easily convert text files into PDF files by using this syntax:
wktmltopdf <textfile> <pdffile>
wkhtmltopdf can handle UTF-8 files (unlike enscript). All problematic chars like ÄÖÜß etc. will be displayed correctly.
-
This has been fixed in the latest version of paps, which is able to output selectable pdf. See: github.com/dov/paps . Jan 15, 2018 at 9:03
As posted above, enscript is a popular way to convert text to postscript, which can then be further converted to PDF.
A similar tool, which has been around for a long time, is a2ps. It has a large number of options, including putting multiple pages on a physical page. Install ap2s with
sudo apt-get install a2ps.
AFAIK, enscript and a2ps do the same job, but their interface is different and YMMV with each of them.
-
An example of using a2ps would help. The --delegate option seems to be needed for pdf, but the man page doesn't really help there.– nealmcbMar 14, 2015 at 3:56
You can use a2x
a2x - convert Asciidoc text file to PDF, XHTML, HTML Help, ODF, manpage or plain text
To install a2x:
sudo apt-get install asciidoc
for example:
a2x -f pdf testfile.txt
You can use u2ps too.
This generates both ps and pdf. This accepts UTF-8 text, and supports syntax highlighting through Pango markups.
