POD2TEXT(1)                      Perl Programmers Reference Guide                     POD2TEXT(1)



NAME
       pod2text - Convert POD data to formatted ASCII text

SYNOPSIS
       pod2text [-aclost] [--code] [-i indent] [-q quotes] [-w width] [input [output]]

       pod2text -h

DESCRIPTION
       pod2text is a front-end for Pod::Text and its subclasses.  It uses them to generate for-
       matted ASCII text from POD source.  It can optionally use either termcap sequences or ANSI
       color escape sequences to format the text.

       input is the file to read for POD source (the POD can be embedded in code).  If input
       isn't given, it defaults to STDIN.  output, if given, is the file to which to write the
       formatted output.  If output isn't given, the formatted output is written to STDOUT.

OPTIONS
       -a, --alt
           Use an alternate output format that, among other things, uses a different heading
           style and marks "=item" entries with a colon in the left margin.

       --code
           Include any non-POD text from the input file in the output as well.  Useful for view-
           ing code documented with POD blocks with the POD rendered and the code left intact.

       -c, --color
           Format the output with ANSI color escape sequences.  Using this option requires that
           Term::ANSIColor be installed on your system.

       -i indent, --indent=indent
           Set the number of spaces to indent regular text, and the default indentation for
           "=over" blocks.  Defaults to 4 spaces if this option isn't given.

       -h, --help
           Print out usage information and exit.

       -l, --loose
           Print a blank line after a "=head1" heading.  Normally, no blank line is printed after
           "=head1", although one is still printed after "=head2", because this is the expected
           formatting for manual pages; if you're formatting arbitrary text documents, using this
           option is recommended.

       -m width, --left-margin=width, --margin=width
           The width of the left margin in spaces.  Defaults to 0.  This is the margin for all
           text, including headings, not the amount by which regular text is indented; for the
           latter, see -i option.

       -o, --overstrike
           Format the output with overstruck printing.  Bold text is rendered as character,
           backspace, character.  Italics and file names are rendered as underscore, backspace,
           character.  Many pagers, such as less, know how to convert this to bold or underlined
           text.

       -q quotes, --quotes=quotes
           Sets the quote marks used to surround C<> text to quotes.  If quotes is a single char-
           acter, it is used as both the left and right quote; if quotes is two characters, the
           first character is used as the left quote and the second as the right quoted; and if
           quotes is four characters, the first two are used as the left quote and the second two
           as the right quote.

           quotes may also be set to the special value "none", in which case no quote marks are
           added around C<> text.

       -s, --sentence
           Assume each sentence ends with two spaces and try to preserve that spacing.  Without
           this option, all consecutive whitespace in non-verbatim paragraphs is compressed into
           a single space.

       -t, --termcap
           Try to determine the width of the screen and the bold and underline sequences for the
           terminal from termcap, and use that information in formatting the output.  Output will
           be wrapped at two columns less than the width of your terminal device.  Using this
           option requires that your system have a termcap file somewhere where Term::Cap can
           find it and requires that your system support termios.  With this option, the output
           of pod2text will contain terminal control sequences for your current terminal type.

       -w, --width=width, -width
           The column at which to wrap text on the right-hand side.  Defaults to 76, unless -t is
           given, in which case it's two columns less than the width of your terminal device.

DIAGNOSTICS
       If pod2text fails with errors, see Pod::Text and Pod::Parser for information about what
       those errors might mean.  Internally, it can also produce the following diagnostics:

       -c (--color) requires Term::ANSIColor be installed
           (F) -c or --color were given, but Term::ANSIColor could not be loaded.

       Unknown option: %s
           (F) An unknown command line option was given.

       In addition, other Getopt::Long error messages may result from invalid command-line
       options.

ENVIRONMENT
       COLUMNS
           If -t is given, pod2text will take the current width of your screen from this environ-
           ment variable, if available.  It overrides terminal width information in TERMCAP.

       TERMCAP
           If -t is given, pod2text will use the contents of this environment variable if avail-
           able to determine the correct formatting sequences for your current terminal device.

SEE ALSO
       Pod::Text, Pod::Text::Color, Pod::Text::Overstrike, Pod::Text::Termcap, Pod::Parser

       The current version of this script is always available from its web site at
       <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/podlators/>.  It is also part of the Perl core dis-
       tribution as of 5.6.0.

AUTHOR
       Russ Allbery <>.

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
       Copyright 1999, 2000, 2001 by Russ Allbery <>.

       This program is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify it under the same
       terms as Perl itself.



perl v5.8.8                                 2007-07-13                                POD2TEXT(1)