---
name: "psign"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "radiance"
version: "4R1+20120125-1+b1"
release: "Debian 7 (Wheezy)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/psign"
---

# psign(1)

produce a RADIANCE picture from text.

## NAME

psign - produce a RADIANCE picture from text.

## SYNOPSIS

**psign** \[ **options** \] \[ **text** \]

## DESCRIPTION

*Psign* produces a RADIANCE picture of the given *text.* The output dimensions are determined by the character height, aspect ratio, number of lines and line length. (Also the character size if text squeezing is used.)  If no *text* is given, the standard input is read.

- **-cb** *r g b*

  Set the background color to *r g b* The default is white (1 1 1).

- **-cf** *r g b*

  Set the foreground color to *r g b* The default is black (0 0 0).

- **-dr**

  Text reads to the right (default).

- **-du**

  Text reads upwards.

- **-dl**

  Text reads to the left (upside down).

- **-dd**

  Text reads downwards.

- **-h** *cheight*

  Set the character height to *cheight.* The default is 32 pixels.

- **-a** *aspect*

  Set the character aspect ratio (height/width) to *aspect.* The default value is 1.67.

- **-x** *xsize*

  Set the horizontal image size to *xsize.* Use with *-y* option (below) in place of the *-h* specification to control output image size directly. If the character aspect ratio *(-a* option, above) is non-zero, then one of the specified x or y output dimensions may be reduced to maintain this ratio. If direction is right *(-dr)* or left *(-dl),* then it is not necessary to give the *-y* option, since it can be computed from the character height *(-h).*

- **-y** *ysize*

  Set the vertical image size to *ysize.* Use with the *-x* option (described above). If direction is up *(-du)* or down *(-dd),* then it is not necessary to give the *-x* option, since it can be computed from the character height *(-h).*

- **-s** *spacing*

  Set the intercharacter spacing to *spacing.* The magnitude of this value is multiplied by the character height over the aspect ratio (ie. the character width) to compute the desired distance between characters in the output. The sign of the value, positive or negative, determines how this ideal spacing is used in the actual placement of characters. If *spacing* is positive, then the overall width of the line will not be affected, nor will indentation of textual elements. Thus, the text format will be mostly unaffected. However, spacing between characters will reflect their relative size for a more natural appearance. If *spacing* is negative, characters will be squeezed together to meet the spacing critereon, regardless of how it might affect the format of the output. The default value for *spacing* is zero, which is interpreted as uniformly spaced characters.

- **-f** *fontfile*

  Load the font from *fontfile.* The default font is helvet.fnt

## EXAMPLE

To put a big "Hi!" on the terminal:

-

  psign -h 22 -a 1 -cb 0 0 0 -cf 1 1 1 Hi\\! \| ttyimage

## ENVIRONMENT

RAYPATH		path to search for font files

## AUTHOR

Greg Ward

## BUGS

The entire bitmap is stored in memory, which can be a problem for large and/or high-resolution signs.

## SEE ALSO

[getinfo(1)](/getinfo/1.md), [pcompos(1)](/pcompos/1.md), [pfilt(1)](/pfilt/1.md), [ttyimage(1)](/ttyimage/1.md)