Command output to pdf (linux)

[Gribouillis]

I call the following script 'a2pdf'. It sends a text on its standard input to a pdf format on its standard output, using the venerable a2ps utility and the commands iconv and ps2pdf.

#!/usr/bin/env python3
import argparse
import subprocess as sp
import sys

__version__ = '0.0.1'

def main():
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description='Write text input to pdf')
    parser.add_argument('-o', '--output-file', metavar='OUTPUT-FILE', type=str,
                    help='output.pdf', default='-', dest='ofile')

    args = parser.parse_args()


    com = "iconv -c -f utf-8 -t ISO-8859-1 | a2ps --columns=1 -f12 -R -B --borders=no -Xlatin1 -o - | ps2pdf - {ofile}".format(ofile=args.ofile)
    
    proc = sp.Popen(com, shell=True, stdin=sys.stdin, stdout=sys.stdout)
    proc.wait()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

To use it, just pipe the output of some command, for example

Output:
ls -l | a2pdf -o out.pdf

Or pipe directly the ouptut to a pdf viewer such as okular

Output:
ls -l | a2pdf | okular -

It is currently a rudimentary tool. You can develop your own ways of setting the subcommand's numerous options.