Ubuntu Manpage: pbmtext - render text into a bitmap

NAME

       pbmtext - render text into a bitmap

SYNOPSIS

       pbmtext [-font fontfile] [-builtin fontname] [-space pixels] [-lspace pixels] [text]

DESCRIPTION

       Takes  the  specified  text,  either  a single line from the command line or multiple lines from standard
       input, and renders it into a bitmap.

       In the bitmap, each line of input is a line of output.  Formatting characters such  as  newline  have  no
       effect on the formatting; like any unprintable character, they turn into spaces.

       The  bitmap  is  just  wide  enough  for  the longest line of text, plus margins, and just high enough to
       contain the lines of text, plus margins.  The left and right margins are twice the width  of  the  widest
       character  in  the  font; the top and bottom margins are the height of the tallest character in the font.
       But if the text is only one line, all the margins are half of this.

OPTIONS

-font,-builtin
By default, pbmtext uses a built-in font called bdf (about a 10 point Times-Roman font). You can
use a fixed width font by specifying -builtin fixed.

You can also specify your own font with the -font flag. The fontfile is either a BDF file from
the X window system or a PBM file.

If the fontfile is a PBM file, it is created in a very specific way. In your window system of
choice, display the following text in the desired (fixed-width) font:

M ",/^_[`jpqy| M

/ !"#$%&'()*+ /
< ,-./01234567 <
> 89:;<=>?@ABC >
@ DEFGHIJKLMNO @
_ PQRSTUVWXYZ[ _
{ \]^_`abcdefg {
} hijklmnopqrs }
~ tuvwxyz{|}~ ~

M ",/^_[`jpqy| M

Do a screen grab or window dump of that text, using for instance xwd, xgrabsc, or screendump.
Convert the result into a pbm file. If necessary, use pnmcut to remove everything except the
text. Finally, run it through pnmcrop to make sure the edges are right up against the text.
pbmtext can figure out the sizes and spacings from that.

-space pixels
Add pixels pixels of space between characters. This is in addition to whatever space surrounding
characters is built into the font, which is usually enough to produce a reasonable string of text.

pixels may be negative to crowd text together, but the author has not put much thought or testing
into how this works in every possible case, so it might cause disastrous results.

-B -lspace pixels
Add pixels pixels of space between lines. This is in addition to whatever space above and below
characters is built into the font, which is usually enough to produce a reasonable line spacing.

pixels must be a whole number.

pixels may be negative to crowd lines together, but the author has not put much thought or testing
into how this works in every possible case, so it might cause disastrous results.

USAGE

       Often,  you  want  to place text over another image.  One way to do this is with ppmlabel.  ppmlabel does
       not give you the font options that pbmtext does, though.

       Another way is to use pbmtext to create an image containing the text, then use  pnmcomp  to  overlay  the
       text  image  onto  your  base  image.  To make only the text (and not the entire rectangle containing it)
       cover the base image, you will need to give pnmcomp a mask, via its -alpha option.  You can just use  the
       text image itself as the mask, as long as you also specify the -invert option to pnmcomp.

       If  you  want  to overlay colored text instead of black, just use ppmchange to change all black pixels to
       the color of your choice before overlaying the text image.  But still use the original  black  and  white
       image for the alpha mask.

       If you want the text at an angle, use pnmrotate on the text image (and alpha mask) before overlaying.

AUTHOR