1viewfax(1) Local commands viewfax(1)
2
6 viewfax - display fax files in an X11 window
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9 viewfax [-fnluirvW24] [-hheight] [-wwidth] [-zzoom] [-ddisplay]
10 [-gwxh+x+y] [-bbell] [-mmemory] filename...
11
13 viewfax displays one or more fax files in an X11 window. The input
14 files may be either raw, single-page faxes received by a fax modem with
15 a program such as mgetty(1), or tiff files such as those used by
16 hylafax. The first (or only) page of "PC-Research"-style (DigiFAX)
17 files produced by the ghostscript dfaxhigh or dfaxlow drivers can also
18 be displayed.
19 Input files using any common fax encoding such as group 3 (1 and 2
21 dimensional) and group 4 can be displayed.
22 The fax images are rendered at full resolution and then successively
24 scaled down by a linear factor of 2 prior to display, until they fit on
25 the screen. The display can be controlled interactively using mouse
26 and keyboard commands. The left mouse button expands the image by a
27 factor of two and the right button reduces it by the same factor. If
28 the image is bigger than the available window size, the middle mouse
29 button can be used to reposition it within the window. Hold down the
30 middle button while dragging the image to its new position.
31 If the mouse has a scroll-wheel it can be used to move an oversized
33 image vertically. With the shift key depressed, the wheel scrolls
34 through the pages. The shift sense is inverted if viewfax is started
35 with -W on the command-line.
36 Further interaction is controlled by single-key commands:
38 h or Help
40 displays a page of help information. Type 'q' to return to the
41 original document.
42 p or Prior or PgUP or - or BackSpace
44 displays the previous page from the command-line list.
45 n or Next or PgDn or + or space
47 displays the next page from the command-line list.
48 Shift HOME
50 displays the first page from the command-line list.
51 Shift END
53 displays the last page from the command-line list.
54 z zoom in (same as right mouse button).
56 Shift Z
58 zoom out (same as left mouse button).
59 u turns the image upside down, which is useful if the fax was
61 originally fed the wrong way into the machine.
62 Shift U
64 turns this and all following pages upside down.
65 l turns the image through 90 degrees, to view landscape text.
67 Shift L
69 turns this and all following pages sideways.
70 m produce a left/right mirror image of the page.
72 Shift M
74 mirror this and all following pages.
75 cursor arrows
77 reposition the displayed image if it exceeds the window size.
78 HOME repositions so that the top left corner is visible.
80 END makes the bottom right corner visible.
82 Print if the environment variable VIEWFAX_PRINT is defined, the cur‐
84 rent page is printed. All pages are printed with Shift Print.
85 e if the environment variable VIEWFAX_EDIT is defined, the current
87 page is passed to the editor. All input files can be edited
88 with Shift e.
89 q terminates the program.
91 Shift Q
93 terminates the program with non-zero exit status. Can be used
94 to abort a shell script, e.g. when the user is previewing an
95 outbound fax and decides not to send it.
96
98 viewfax is designed to "do the right thing" when given just a filename.
99 Special cases can be handled with the following options. (Note that
100 tiff-files contain a header which overrides the -f, -n, -h, -w, -l, -m,
101 and -u flags.)
102 -f indicates that raw input files are fine resolution (7.7
104 lines/mm) faxes. This is the default unless the filename begins
105 with "fn". Tiff and "PC-Research" (DigiFAX) files are self-
106 specifying.
107 -n indicates that raw input files are normal resolution (3.85
109 lines/mm) faxes. Each fax line is duplicated in the displayed
110 image to give approximately equal vertical and horizontal
111 scales.
112 -hheight
114 specifies the number of fax lines. If this option is missing,
115 viewfax counts the number of lines in the input file.
116 -wwidth
118 specifies the number of pixels in each scan-line. The default
119 value is 1728.
120 -l display in landscape mode.
122 -u turn the image upside down.
124 -i invert pixels (black/white).
126 -b preferred warning style: 'a' for audible bell (console beep),
128 'v' for visible bell (flash the window), 'n' for neither. 'v'
129 is the default.
130 -d or -display
132 use specified X server
133 -g or -geometry
135 the preferred size and position of the window, specified as
136 widthxheight+x+y. If a position is given (x and y values),
137 viewfax asks the window manager to place the window there. The
138 initial size of the window is constrained to be at most widthx‐
139 height.
140 If the window is subsequently resized due to the user zooming in
142 or out, the geometry is taken as a constraint on the screen area
143 which may be used by viewfax.
144 If you do not supply a geometry value, everything works fine
146 with ICCCM-compliant window managers like olwm, mwm, twm, and
147 tvtwm. When fully zoomed out the viewfax window will occupy the
148 entire screen.
149 Users of fvwm will notice that the title bar and left border are
151 moved off screen when viewfax repositions the window to (0,0).
152 A workaround is to use -geometry +5+23 when using fvwm. The
153 proper fix would be for someone to update the routine HandleCon‐
154 figureRequest() in fvwm/events.c to correspond to the code in
155 twm/events.c.
156 -mmemory limit
158 each page is kept in memory after being fetched and expanded,
159 which saves time if the user returns to it in the same session.
160 To prevent viewfax from using all the available swap space, a
161 limit is placed on the total size of cached images. This
162 defaults to 4 MBytes, enough for about 6 typical pages. If the
163 memory limit is exceeded, old images are discarded and must be
164 reloaded from disk if the user returns to them. The operation
165 of this mechanism is transparent apart from the occasional
166 delays due to reloading. The value specified on the command
167 line can be suffixed k or m for kilo- or megabytes.
168 -r the bit order of the bytes in the input file is reversed. The
170 fax specification deals only with serial data transmission.
171 Modem manufacturers have to decide whether the first bit
172 received should be placed in the most significant or the least
173 significant position in a byte. The consensus is to pack most
174 significant first, but the -r flag is available to deal with the
175 opposite order.
176 -v produce some informative messages (verbose mode).
178 -zzoom specifies an initial zoom factor. A full-scale fax will usually
180 not fit on the screen. If the -z option is not specified, view‐
181 fax scales the image by a power of 2 such that it is fully visi‐
182 ble at a reduced size. The user can then use the mouse buttons
183 (see above) to view expanded portions of the image.
184 -2 Assume that raw input files use group 3 two dimensional coding.
186 -4 Assume that raw input files use group 4 coding. The number of
188 fax lines (-h option) is required in this case.
189
191 VIEWFAX_PRINT
192 Defines a command that will print one or more fax pages.
193 VIEWFAX_EDIT
196 Defines a command that will calls an editor on one or more fax
197 pages.
198 These two variables are optional. If a variable is undefined, the cor‐
201 responding keyboard command is ignored. If the variable is defined, it
202 should contain the name of a command or executable script that performs
203 the desired function. The command should process a single page if
204 called with a -p page-number argument. Alternatively, if can be called
205 with just a list of filenames, meaning that all pages should be pro‐
206 cessed.
207 Here is an oversimplified example of a print command. Note that it
209 assumes that the format is tiff and will fail when handed a raw fax
210 file.
211 VIEWFAX_PRINT=printfax
212 /usr/local/bin/printfax:
214 #!/bin/sh
215 case "$1" in
216 -p) shift
217 dopt=`expr $1 - 1`
218 shift
219 tiff2ps -d ${dopt} -2 -h 11.69 -w 8.27 "$1" | lp
220 ;;
221 *) tiff2ps -2 -h 11.69 -w 8.27 "$*" | lp
222 ;;
223 esac
224
227 mgetty (http://alpha.greenie.net/mgetty/) controls data/fax/voice
228 modems.
229 hylafax (http://www.hylafax.org/) is a full-function fax client/server
231 system.
232 g3topbm(1) and xv(1) can be used in a pipeline to view faxes. This
234 will usually be slower than using viewfax, but xv has many capabilities
235 for manipulating the image and saving it in other formats.
236 faxview.tcl, (ftp://ftp.leo.org/pub/comp/os/unix/network‐
238 ing/mgetty/faxview.tcl.gz) a simple dialog for viewing FAX messages by
239 Ralph Schleicher (rs@purple.in-ulm.de). This is a useful tool which
240 provides a file menu from which incoming faxes can be selected for dis‐
241 play with viewfax.
242 CCITT (now ITU) Recommendation T.4, Standardization of Group 3 Facsim‐
245 ile Apparatus for Document Transmission.
246 CCITT (now ITU) Recommendation T.6, Facsimile Coding Schemes and Coding
248 Control Functions for Group 4 Facsimile Apparatus.
249
251 The user interface does not comply with any known style guide.
252 The help text looks moth-eaten because it is encoded as a fax. This
253 avoids dealing with X11 fonts.
254 The program does not refer to the X resources database.
255
257 Frank D. Cringle (fdc@cliwe.ping.de).
258Frank´s Hacks 14 November 2004 viewfax(1)