This document can be found at http://www.franjam.org.uk/linux/lpu.html
This Introduction assumes using LPU version 0.9-26
LPU (the Label Printing Utility) is a tool for creating labels and any kind of forms, from a textual description.
It uses a line oriented command language to describe the desired objects. Some of the features of the language are: variables, expressions, assignments, procedures, control elements for repeated or conditional execution of statements, import of data from a textual database, and even a small debugger.
To achieve a maximum of flexibility, LPU uses Adobe PostScript(TM) as output format.
The author is John R. Schrader <jrs@jrssoft.de>
The Source is at http://www.jrssoft.de/john/lpu/
It is best to have ghostscript installed. LPU needs ghostscript style font definitions available, and most of us use gs for viewing and printing postscript anyway.
The usual - untar, cd into directory, make (you may need to change the BINDIR setting in the Makefile), then make install as root.
~> tar xfz lpu-0.9-26.tar.gz ~> cd lpu-0.9-26 ~/lpu-0.9-26> cd src ~/lpu-0.9-26/src> grep BINDIR Makefile BINDIR = /usr/local/bin #BINDIR = $(HOME)/bin cp lpu lpu.sh $(BINDIR) rm -r $(BINDIR)/lpu ~/lpu-0.9-26/src> make cc -c devapi.c cc -c afmsup.c cc -c tdbfuncs.c cc -c expr.c cc -c utils.c cc -o lpu lpu.c devapi.o afmsup.o tdbfuncs.o expr.o utils.o ~/lpu-0.9-26/src> su Password: ~/lpu-0.9-26/src# make install cp lpu lpu.sh /usr/local/bin ~/lpu-0.9-26/src# exit ~/lpu-0.9-26/src>
Create a working directory and copy all the files from lpu-0.9-26/demo into it. e.g.
~> mkdir labels ~> cd labels ~/labels> cp /usr/src/lpu-0.9-26/demo/* .
Now edit the file lpu.dev and make sure it contains the correct path to the font directory. The default is......
%AfmPath /usr/share/ghostscript/fonts
Have a look at the examples provided. LPU scripts are in files with the .lpu suffix. It is a fairly simple script structure and the documentation explains things fairly completely.
Let's look at the file example.lpu to get a feel for the scripting. The start of it looks like......
## ## example.lpu -- a simple example of some lpu features ## jrs 07.06.1998 ## .requires 0.9-21 ; select a paper format .form DinA4 ; begin the first label (the first page in this case) .label ; define a border of 1/4 inch on all four sides .border 0.25i, 0.25i, 0.25i, 0.25i ; select a style, in this case Courier, 18 points, bold italic .style Cour 18 BI ; output an empty line .nl
Lines starting with "##" or ";" are comments, and lines starting with "." are commands.
.form specifies the name of a layout for a page that is defined in the lpu.tab file. DinA4 is the name given in the demo lpu.tab file for a standard form of portrait A4 paper.
.style specifies the font, its size and any attributes B for bold and I for italic .
To generate the postscript for example.lpu use this command...
~/labels> lpu example.lpu > example.ps
or
~/labels> lpu -o example.ps example.lpu
Then view the output with a postscript viewer..
~/labels> gv example.ps
Now edit example.lpu and change some of it or add extra lines. Regenerate the output and re-view it.
Page sizes and names are defined in the lpu.dev file....
;-------Id-------Xmax---Ymax---Lm---Rm---Tm---Bm----Options------------------- %Page A0P 84.1c 118.9c 0 0 0 0 %Page A1P 59.4c 84.1c 0 0 0 0 %Page A2P 42.0c 59.4c 0 0 0 0 %Page A3P 29.7c 42.0c 0 0 0 0 %Page A4P 21.0c 29.7c 0 0 0 0 %Page A4L 29.7c 21.0c 0 0 0 0 .rotate=90 .shift=21.0c,0 %Page A5P 14.8c 21.0c 0 0 0 0 %Page A5L 21.0c 14.85c 0 0 0 0 .shift=0,14.5c %Page A6P 10.5c 14.8c 0 0 0 0 %Page A7P 7.4c 10.5c 0 0 0 0 %Page A8P 5.2c 7.4c 0 0 0 0 %Page A9P 3.7c 5.2c 0 0 0 0 %Page Letter 8.5i 11.0i 0 0 0 0 %Page USEnv10 24.1c 10.5c 0 0 0 0 .shift=0,19.2c
You can add other names and definitions of other sizes of paper here is you wish, but the default set is fairly comprehensive.
Labels are defined in lpu.tab. There are several label formats pre-defined, have a look in the file. Here are a couple of definitions I created...
; compslip 3 complement slips per A4P page
;
form compslip A4P
label Comp 190m 87m
base 5.0m 8.0m
yrep 3 10m
This defines 3 "labels", useful for generating a handy sized complement slip. compslip is the name of the form, it contains one label format called Comp , the size of which is 190mm x 87mm, repeated 3 times down the page (in the Y direction) with a gap 10mm. The base gives the x and y offset for the start of the first "label".
Here's another.......
; Labels 2 x 7 on A4
;
form L2x7 A4P
label l1 90m 36m
base 10m 20m
xrep 2 10.1m
yrep 7 2.1m
This is for using a common address label format, 14 to the sheet, arranged 2 x 7.
LPU scripts can read data from standard CSV (coma seperated variable) style text files. Here is an example showing how to generate address labels
; format of labs.tdb is ; surname, forename, address1, add2, add3, postcode, phone, email .form L2x7 .db open 1 /; labs .use 1 OneLabel .db close .eject :: OneLabel .label .style Times 12 B .nl .ltext :\@2 \@1 .nl .style Times 12 .ltext :\@3 .nl .if "\@4" = "" goto l5 .ltext :\@4 .nl :l5 .if "\@5" = "" goto l6 .ltext :\@5 .nl :l6 .style Times 12 B .ltext :\@6 .nl .db next
The file labs.tdb contains lines of the form.....
Jackson;Jim;666 Any Road;East Ardsley;Wakefield;WF3 SOB;01924 123456;jj@franjam.org.uk
The phone and email fields are not used.
You can use make to ease the creation of the postscript files. This generic recipe allows the postscript file.ps to be generated by make from file.lpu
%.ps: %.lpu %.tdb
lpu $< > $@
allows you type make labs.ps to generate the postscript for the labs.lpu script, as long as labs.lpu or labs.tdb is newer than labs.ps .
HomePage http://www.franjam.org.uk
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