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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
       ‘‘FIGcharacters’’)made  up of ordinary screen characters (called ‘‘sub-
       characters’’).  FIGlet output is generally reminiscent of the  sort  of
       ‘‘signatures’’  many people like to put at the end of e-mail and UseNet
       messages.  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 FIGlets 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 FIGlets 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
       EXAMPLES 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
              justification  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
              outputwidth 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  terminal  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
              unnecessary 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
              controlfiles, 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
              figfont.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-
              characters  count  as  ‘‘overlapping’’  depends  on  the  font’s
              layoutmode,  which  is  defined by the font’s author.  -k causes
              ‘‘kerning’’.  As many blanks as  possible  are  removed  between
              FIGcharacters, 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
              ‘‘overlapped’’.   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.,
              guaranteed 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
                     normally, 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
                     outputwidth, 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
       piping 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
       appropriately, 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 FIGlets 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
       FIGcharacters 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
       output 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
       signatures.

       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
       documented 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

       FIGlets  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
       operating 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
       various 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@rbacomm.com>, 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@earthlink.net>.

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