YAPS - an abc to PostScript Converter
YAPS is Yet Another abc to PostScript converter.
The original converter was Michael Methfessel's abc2ps program. Another
converter is abcm2ps, based on the abc2ps code. YAPS uses the library
of PostScript routines from abc2ps, but the parser and other C code does
not come from abc2ps.
What is PostScript ?
--------------------
This program is intended for converting an abc tune to high quality
printed output. If yaps created an image file in, say, GIF
or PNG format it would have to decide how many pixels wide and how
many pixels high the final image would be. When the image was printed
on a printer capable of much higher resolution, you would be able to
see that the image was built up of lower resolution pixels. PostScript
gets round this limitation by storing the image as a description of
all the objects that will appear on the page. These descriptions are
converted to pixels at the last moment, when the resolution of the
printer is known. This way, you can make full use of the resolution
available.
If you are lucky, you may have a PostScript printer, in which case
you can send the output of yaps directly to the printer. If not,
there are PostScript interpreter programs available, which will
turn a PostScript image into other image formats. A popular freely
available PostScript interpreter is called GhostScript. Another
freely available program, GSView, provides a graphical interface
to GhostScript and lets you view images on-screen.
For a full description of the PostScript language, see "PostScript
Language Reference (third edition)" by Adobe Systems Inc.
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Executing yaps with no filename will give the yaps version and the
following message:
Usage: yaps <abc file> [<options>]
possible options are -
-d : debug - display data structure
-e <list> : draw tunes with reference numbers in list
list is comma-separated and may contain ranges
but no spaces e.g. 1,3,7-20
-E : generate Encapsulated PostScript
-l : landscape mode
-M XXXxYYY : set margin sizes in points
28.3 points = 1cm, 72 points = 1 inch
-N : add page numbering
-k [NN] : number every bar or every NN th bar
-o <filename> : specify output file
-P ss : paper size; 0 is A4, 1 is US Letter
or XXXxYYY to set size in points
-s XX : scaling factor (default is 0.7)
-V : separate voices in multi-voice tune
-x : print tune number in X: field
Takes an abc music file and converts it to PostScript.
If no output filename is given, then by default it is
the input filename but with extension .ps .
YAPS features
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1. Uses the abc2midi parsing code, so hopefully compatibility with
abc2midi will be good.
2. Measures the width of lyric text for lyric typesetting.
3. Uses dynamically extensible data structures in most places, so
you should not be restricted by compiled-in limits.
4. Multiple voices drawn with notes played at the same time aligned.
5. Supports special characters using ISO latin 1 font. Special
characters are created with a TeX-like code e.g. \'E or a 3 digit octal
code e.g. \315 .
6. Supports the following clefs : baritone, tenor, alto, mezzo, soprano,
treble, bass. Recommended use is
I:clef=bass
To make it easier to enter tunes in clefs othan than treble clef,
yaps supports I:octave=-1 to indicate than a C in the tune represents
the note one octave below the pitch defined in the abc standard. These
may be combined in one I: statement e.g.
I:clef=bass octave=-2
You can also use clefs that are one, two or three octaves higher or
lower than normal using e.g. treble-8, treble+15, treble-22. The clef is
drawn with a small 8, 15 or 22 above or below the clef symbol. The clef=
and octave= commands may also go in the K: field e.g.
K:G clef=bass-8 octave=-3
Note that there is an incompatibility between the behaviour of yaps and
the behaviour of abc2ps 1.3.3. abc2ps 1.3.3 does not support the
I:octave=N command, but selecting certain clefs causes it to automatically
transpose by several octaves. You can produce abc that works for both by
following the clef change with an I:octave=N command to do the transpose
that abc2ps does automatically.
7. Produces boxed part labels.
8. Supports the segno symbol with !segno! and coda with !coda! . Other
musical instructions such as !fine! and !D.C.! come out as text.
9. Supports the U: field for abbreviating symbols to single characters.
e.g.
U:S = !segno!
allows S to be used to produce the segno symbol. Currently this only
allows new symbols to be defined and does not allow the existing
pre-defined symbols M,L,R,H and T to be altered.
10. Supports the following abc2ps extensions to abc :
%%newpage - start a new page,
%%vskip N - adds vertical space of N points. If N is followed by
'cm' or 'in' the units are taken as centimetres or inches
instead of points e.g. 4cm.
%%text - print text
%%centre (or %%center for Americans) - print centred text.
If %%text or %%centre appear in the header, the text appears above the
tune.
%%staffsep SIZE - set vertical blank space between 2 consecutive music
staves.
%%titleleft N - select title placed to the left or centred. N = 1 places
the title on the left while N = 0 centres it.
%%titlecaps - title is displayed in upper case (capital) letters.
%%textfont NAME SIZE - select font called NAME and point size SIZE for
text produced by %%text or %%centre. If only NAME is given, the font
stays the same size. Likewise, if '-' is given as the NAME, only the
font size changes.
%%titlefont NAME SIZE - select font for title.
%%subtitlefont NAME SIZE - select font for titles after the first title.
%%composerfont NAME SIZE - select font for words in C: and O: fields and
part specifier (P: in header).
%%wordsfont NAME SIZE - select font for words in W: fields.
%%partsfont NAME SIZE - select font for boxed parts and !instruction! .
%%vocalfont NAME SIZE - select font for words in w: fields.
%%gchordfont NAME SIZE - select font for guitar chords in the music.
(It is advisable not to change the font name for the last two, since
the program calculates the width of strings using default fonts)
%%titlespace, %%subtitlespace, %%textspace, %%composerspace, %%wordsspace,
%%partsspace, %%vocalspace and %%gchordspace determine the amount of
space left above the relevant type of text. Each of these should be
followed by a size in points or value in centrimetres or inches.
e.g. %%composerfont 3
%%titlefont 2cm
11. Supports placing of accompaniment chords either above or below the
stave.
%%chordsabove - places accompaniment chords above the stave (default).
%%chordsbelow - places accompaniment chords below the stave.
12. Supports optional text enclosed in quotes before and after the
tempo specification in the Q: field. This extension comes from abc2ps.
13. Allows highlighting notes by switching output from black to
red and vice-versa using the !red! and !black! instructions.
Known bugs and Limitations
--------------------------
1. Overfull lines of music are not split over multiple lines.
WARNING - the -s option is now used for scaling. Selecting separate
printing of each voice (which previously used -s) is now done with -V.
YAPS is still under development and missing a number of features. However,
it should produce acceptable output most of the time. You may want to try
abc2ps or abcm2ps if you find that YAPS will not do what you want.
Viewing PostScript Files from DOS
---------------------------------
Here is how I arranged things so that I can view PostScript from DOS :
1. Install Ghostscript 5.10 (compiled to run under DOS). This is not
totally straightforward; you have to install the fonts separately and
then set the environment variable GS_LIB to a path containing the
GhostScript initialization files and the fonts.
2. Install Pictview, a free image viewer.
3. Create a small batch file ps.bat containing the following line:
c:\gs5.10\gs386 -r120 -sOutputFile=out.tif -sDEVICE=tiffg3 -sPAPERSIZE=a4 -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH %1
When you run this, it creates a TIFF file out.tif containing all
pages in compressed format.
The following commands will show you the dots for an abc file:
yaps demo.abc
ps demo.ps
pictview out.tif
Copyright (c) James Allwright 1999
(parts of the code Copyright Michael Methfessel).
This code may be freely re-distributed under the terms of the
GNU public license. You are encouraged to modify and redistribute it,
provided this copyright notice is retained.
