jhasting has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Sorry if this prints twice, I neglected to login prior to submitting this question. I think I stopped the previous post before posting.

Hello, I have been using the Term:ANSIColor module to print in color, but I would like to print this color on a printer. A simple redirect to the printer just prints the ANSI escape code. Could someone please let me know the best way to print color.

thanks
J 

open(LPR, "|lpr -P agrprt165 >/dev/null 2>&1");
open TMP, ">.tmp";

$COLOR{"0"} = "black";
$COLOR{"1"} = "red";
$COLOR{"2"} = "yellow";
$COLOR{"3"} = "green";
$COLOR{"4"} = "blue";
$COLOR{"5"} = "cyan";
$COLOR{"6"} = "magenta";
$COLOR{"7"} = "white";

$ON_COLOR{"0"} = "on_black";
$ON_COLOR{"1"} = "on_red";
$ON_COLOR{"2"} = "on_yellow";
$ON_COLOR{"3"} = "on_green";
$ON_COLOR{"4"} = "on_blue";
$ON_COLOR{"5"} = "on_cyan";
$ON_COLOR{"6"} = "on_magenta";
$ON_COLOR{"7"} = "on_white";

$SPECIAL{"0"} = "";
$SPECIAL{"1"} = "dark";
$SPECIAL{"2"} = "bold";
$SPECIAL{"3"} = "underline";
$SPECIAL{"4"} = "underscore";
$SPECIAL{"5"} = "blink";
$SPECIAL{"6"} = "reverse";
$SPECIAL{"7"} = "concealed";

$SY{"0"} ="A";
$SY{"1"} ="B";
$SY{"2"} ="C";
$SY{"3"} ="D";
$SY{"4"} ="E";


for ($w=0; $w<8; $w++) {
for ($x=0; $x<8; $x++) {
for ($y=0; $y<4; $y++) {
for ($z=0; $z<5; $z++) {

  $tmp = "$COLOR{$x} $ON_COLOR{$w} $SPECIAL{$y}";
  print colored ("$SY{$z}", $tmp);
  print TMP colored ("$SY{$z}", $tmp);
  print LPR colored ("$SY{$z}", $tmp);
}
print "\n";
print TMP "\n";
print LPR "\n";
}
}
}

close TMP;
close(LPR);

[download]

edited: Tue Aug 5 17:30:58 2003 by jeffa - code tags, formatting

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: send color text to printer
by Aristotle (Chancellor) on Aug 05, 2003 at 17:09 UTC
    Probably your best bet is to instead produce Postscript, or maybe TeX or some other format for which there's a to-Postscript converter. For monospace output, scribbling together some Postscript to do the job should be quite simple.

    Makeshifts last the longest.

[reply]

      Thanks, could you point me to an example of code, or module which produces postscript?

      thanks again
      J

      edited: Tue Aug 5 17:36:09 2003 by jeffa - removed unclosed pre tag, adding HTML formatting

[reply]

        Google turns up A First Guide to PostScript as one of the first links for a query for postscript. I had a quick look, it seems like a decent intro.

        Don't fret, Postscript is both a complex graphical model and an actual complete language, which may seem intimidating at first, but you only need the very basics of that to just put some coloured text on a page.

        Makeshifts last the longest.

[reply]
Re: send color text to printer
by jeffa (Bishop) on Aug 05, 2003 at 18:04 UTC
    I see no reason to store your data in hashes, especially since the keys are consecutive numbers ... try arrays: 
    my @color = qw(
   black red yellow
   green blue cyan
   magenta white
);

my @on_color = map "on_$_", @color;
my @special  = (undef,qw(
   dark bold underline underscore
   blink reverse concealed
));

my @sy = ('a'..'e');

for my $w (0..8) {
   for my $x (0..8) {
      for my $y (0..4) {
         for my $z (0..5) {
            my $tmp = join(' ',$color[$x],$on_color[$w],$special[$y]);
            ... etc.
         }
      }
   }
}

    [download]

    jeffa

    L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
H---H---H---H---H---H---
(the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)
[reply]
[d/l]

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