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 formatted 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 isnt given, it defaults to STDIN.  output, if given,
       is the file to which to write the formatted output.  If output isnt
       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 viewing 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 isnt 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 youre 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 character, 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 its two columns less than
	   the width of your terminal device.

DIAGNOSTICS
       If pod2text fails with errors, see Pod::Text and Pod::Parser for infor
       mation 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 environment variable, if available.  It overrides termi
	   nal width information in TERMCAP.

       TERMCAP
	   If -t is given, pod2text will use the contents of this environment
	   variable if available 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 .  It is also
       part of the Perl core distribution 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			  2008-04-25			   POD2TEXT(1)