Ubuntu Manpage: ppmlabel - add text to a portable pixmap

NAME

       ppmlabel - add text to a portable pixmap

SYNOPSIS

       ppmlabel [-angle angle] [-background transparent | colour] [-colour colour] [-file filename] [-size
                textsize] [-text 'text string'] [-x column] [-y row] ...  [ppmfile]

DESCRIPTION

       ppmlabel  uses  the  text  drawing facilities of ppmdraw to add text to a portable pixmap.  The location,
       size, baseline angle, colour of the text and background colour (if any) are controlled  by  command  line
       arguments.   The  text  can  be specified on the command line or read from files.  Any number of separate
       text strings can be added by one invocation of ppmlabel, limited only by the maximum length of  the  com‐
       mand line.

       If no ppmfile is specified, ppmdraw reads its input pixmap from standard input.

OPTIONS

The arguments on the ppmlabel command line are not options in the strict sense; they are commands which
control the placement and appearance of the text being added to the input pixmap. They are executed left
to right, and any number of arguments may appear.

All flags can be abbreviated to their shortest unique prefix.

-angle angle
Sets the angle of the baseline of subsequent text. angle is specified as an integral number of
degrees, measured counterclockwise from the row axis of the pixmap.

-background transparent | colour
If the argument is ``transparent'', text is drawn over the existing pixels in the pixmap. If a
colour is given (see the -colour switch below for information on how to specify colours), rec‐
tangles enclosing subsequent text are filled with that colour.

-colour colour
Sets the colour for subsequent text. The colour can be specified in five ways:

• A name, assuming that a pointer to an X11-style colour names file was compiled in.

• An X11-style hexadecimal specifier: rgb:r/g/b, where r g and b are each 1- to 4-digit
hexadecimal numbers.

• An X11-style decimal specifier: rgbi:r/g/b, where r g and b are floating point numbers
between 0 and 1.

• For backwards compatibility, an old-X11-style hexadecimal number: #rgb, #rrggbb,
#rrrgggbbb, or #rrrrggggbbbb.

• For backwards compatibility, a triplet of numbers separated by commas: r,g,b, where r g
and b are floating point numbers between 0 and 1. (This style was added before MIT came
up with the similar rgbi style.)

-file filename
Reads text from the file filename and draws it on successive lines.

-size textsize
Sets the height of the tallest characters above the baseline to textsize pixels.

-text 'text string'
Draws the given text string (which must be quoted if it contains spaces). The location for
subsequent text is advanced by 1.75 times the current textsize, which allows drawing multiple
lines of text in a reasonable manner without specifying the position of each line.

-x column Sets the column at which subsequent text will be left justified. Depending on the shape of the
first character, the actual text may begin a few pixels to the right of this point.

-y row Sets the row which will form the baseline of subsequent text. Characters with descenders, such
as ``y'', will extend below this line.

BUGS

       Text  strings  are  restricted to 7 bit ASCII.  The text font used by ppmdraw doesn't include definitions
       for 8 bit ISO 8859/1 characters.

       When drawing multiple lines of text with a non-transparent background, it should probably fill the  space
       between  the lines with the background colour.  This is tricky to get right when the text is rotated to a
       non-orthogonal angle.

       The -size, -x, and -y options MUST precede the -text option specifying the string they apply to, or  they
       will be silently ignored in favor of the defaults.

AUTHOR