The
richtext
program allows users to view "richtext" files on an ASCII terminal. It uses termcap(5) capabilities to highlight text that is supposed to be bold or italic, and to underline text that is supposed to be underlined. It also implements most of the richtext commands that have to do with indentation and justification, as well as the "excerpt" and "signature" commands.
Richtext is a very simple markup language for sending rich text through the mail. It is not to be confused with Microsoft's RTF (Rich Text Format). It is part of the MIME standard for multimedia Internet mail.
The
richtext
program takes raw richtext output on its standard input or from a file
and produces formatted output on its standard output, which is assumed to be a terminal. It is intended primarily for use by the metamail(1) program.
The program will also repair the raw input to match up any richtext command
pairs that are out of order.
OPTIONS
When invoked with no options,
richtext
expects raw richtext on its standard input, which is corrected, and then
formatted output is written on its standard output. The following options can
alter that behaviour:
-a
This option, which is only available under DOS, toggles whether or not to use ANSI mode for highlighting bold, italic, or underlined text.
-c
This option directs
richtext
to just correct the raw richtext and write the corrected version to its
standard output, without performing any formatting.
-f
This option directs
richtext
to use termcap-derived escape codes for bold and italic text, even if
richtext
is called in a pipe.
-m
This option directs
richtext
to interpret '<' in multi-byte Japanese and Korean sequences as a
real less-than symbol and not the start of a richtext command. This
is called the ''multi-byte '<' hack'' in the source code. Primarily this
is for international variants of richtext.
-n
This option directs
richtext
to not do any correction to the raw richtext it receives.
-o
This option directs
richtext
to use overstriking for underlining, etc., on terminals where this is the most appropriate behavior.
-p
This enables the use of a pager which reports "Press RETURN to go on" after
each screen-full of data. Alternatively, if the environment variable
MM_USEPAGER
is present, then the pager will also be used. This option and the
environment variable have no effect if either standard input or standard
output is redirected.
-s charset
This option directs
richtext
to use the specified default character set initially when processing the
text. Legal values are
us-ascii,iso-2022-jp
and
iso-2022-kr.
Any other value will default to
us-ascii.
-t
This option directs
richtext
NOT to use termcap-derived escape codes for bold and italic text, even if
richtext
is called in a terminal. Instead, "*" and "_" will be used to highlight the
affected text.
X11 Resources
If you're using the xterm program, you can control what font is used for
bold
text using the "xterm*boldFont" resource.
This is a very quick hack, really -- an attempt to provide minimal richtext support for an ASCII terminal. The author makes no pretense of having gotten every single case right.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 1991 Bell Communications Research, Inc. (Bellcore)
Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this material
for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided
that the above copyright notice and this permission notice
appear in all copies, and that the name of Bellcore not be
used in advertising or publicity pertaining to this
material without the specific, prior written permission
of an authorized representative of Bellcore. BELLCORE
MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS ABOUT THE ACCURACY OR SUITABILITY
OF THIS MATERIAL FOR ANY PURPOSE. IT IS PROVIDED "AS IS",
WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES.
AUTHORS
Nathaniel S. Borenstein
Richtext correction algorithm and international language support
by Rhys Weatherley (rhys@cs.uq.oz.au).
