Hello I am pretty new to PERL so please forgive the messy code. I have been working on a program to take in a text file convert it to pdf format and mail said pdf to a predetermined e-mail address. I have been successful in creating the rough outline of the program however I am having 3 problems. problem #1 The text I am pulling in is riddled with control characters, I am not sure how to get rid of them, chomp will only get rid of the newline character correct? problem #2 I am using MIME::Lite to create the e-mail and Net::SMTP to send it, I have tried to add an error trap using die just in case the mailserver is down but it does not seem to be working. problem #3 I am not sure how best to implement new pages if the text file is more than one page, I have an idea of how I would do it but just wanted suggestions. Here is what I have so far:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use PDF::Create;
use Net::SMTP;
use MIME::Lite;
#opens ascii file or else!
open TEXT_FILE, "textsample" or die " No text file to open! $!\n";
#sets text file to new array textstrings each line is an element
my @textstrings=<TEXT_FILE>; 
close TEXT_FILE;
#creates new pdf file and sets initial attributes
    my $pdf = new PDF::Create('filename' => 'test1.pdf',
             'Author'    => 'Aseidas Blauvelt',
             'Title'     => 'Test Invoice to PDF', 
             'Version'   => '1.3');
#sets to landscape orientation
my $root = $pdf->new_page('MediaBox' => [ 0, 0, 792, 612 ]); 
#give my page the properties of root page
my $page = $root->new_page;
#give me one font
my $f1 = $pdf->font('Subtype'  => 'Type1', 
                    'Encoding' => 'WinAnsiEncoding',
                 'BaseFont' => 'Courier');
#set y postition to top left  of page             
my $y=600;
# initilize starting array element
my $start=0;
foreach $start (@textstrings) {
#add string of text from @textstrings to pdf
$page->string($f1, 10, 20, $y,  $start); 
#move y position down 10 pixels
$y= $y-9;
}
#add mandatory pdf elements and go !
$pdf->close;
&mailpdf;
##################################################################
sub mailpdf {

#We don't want to use mime to send the message we don't have sendmail
#lets use smtp instead, we still need mime to create the multi part me
+ssage.
MIME::Lite->send('smtp', "smtp.someisp.net", Timeout=>60);
#create new message headers
my $msg = MIME::Lite->new( 
                 From    =>'someone@someisp.com',
                 To      =>'someone@someisp.com',
                 Cc      =>'someone@someisp.com, someone@someisp.com',
                 Subject =>'Text invoice converted to pdf',
                 Type    =>'multipart/mixed'
         );
#attach plain text (body) of message    
$msg->attach(Type     =>'TEXT',   
                 Data     =>"The attached pdf was converted from text 
+and mailed to\nyou from the same Perl program");
#attach the pdf to send, after some confusion, path is the path+name o
+f the file
#filename is the name you want it to have as your atachment
$msg->attach(Type     =>'document/pdf',
                 Path     =>'/home/aseidasb/perl/txt2pdf/test1.pdf',
                 Filename =>'test2.pdf',
         Disposition => 'attachment'
         );
#done send it !
$msg->send();
}
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