TED(1)TED(1)NAMETed - an easy rich text processor (RTF file editor)
SYNOPSIS
Interactive calls as a GUI text processor
Ted [ settings ] [ filename-1 ] [ filename-2 ..... ]
Special command-line calls
Ted [ settings ] --command [ arg-1 ..... ] [ arg-2 ..... ]
DESCRIPTIONTed is an easy rich text processor (RTF file editor) with a graphic
user interface. For more information, see the users' manual (details
below). Besides that, Ted is a utility to convert RTF files to various
formats. One of its goals is to make it possible to produce decent
looking documents avoiding the pain of antiquated packages like nroff
that I had to use to type this man page.
Ted can read the following file formats
Documents can be read from files or from standard input. Ted only reads
from standard input in calls that consume one single input document.
(a file, a pipe, or what you type as a proficient RTF guru)
rtf Rich Text Files with extension *.rtf or -rtf- for standard
input.
txt Plain Text Files with extension *.txt or -txt- for standard
input. The encoding of the text file is assumed to be UTF-8. To
open files with a different encoding, use the iconv command.
Ted can write the following file formats
Documents can be written to files or to standard output.
rtf Rich Text Files with extension *.rtf or -rtf- for standard out‐
put.
txt Plain Text files with extension *.txt or -txt- for standard out‐
put. The encoding of the text file is UTF-8. To save files with
a different encoding, use the iconv command. If Ted saves a doc‐
ument to plain text, it discards all formatting and all illus‐
trations.
html Hypertext Markup Language files with extension *.html or -html-
for standard output. If Ted saves HTML to standard output, it
discards all images and all embedded objects.
eml HTML Mail message format (rfc 2557) files with extension *.eml
or -eml- for standard output. The output can be piped into
ssmtp or mailx as a HTML formatted mail message.
epub EPUB e-book files with extension *.epub or -epub- for standard
output. The document is saved in the EPUB electronic book for‐
mat that is supported by most e-readers and tablets.
ps PostScript files with extension *.ps or -ps- for standard out‐
put. The output can be printed or converted to PDF.
svg Scalable Vector Graphics files with extension *.svg or -svg- for
standard output. The output can be used as an illustration.
pdf Portable Document Format files with extension *.pdf or -pdf- for
standard output. The output can be viewed with the Adobe Acro‐
bat reader or compatible programs. Ted uses GhostScript (ps2pdf
and gs) to convert PostScript to pdf.
COMMAND LINE CALLSTed
Show initial window with menu options to open files and to exit Ted.
Ted doc1.rtf doc2.txt ..
Open the documents on the command line.
Ted--Find pattern f1.rtf f2.txt
Open the files on the command line and search for pattern.
Ted--RegFind pattern f1.rtf f2.txt
Open the documents on the command line and search for pattern. Pattern
is a regular expression. Ted uses the pcre regular expression matching
library by Philip Hazel. For documentation see http://www.pcre.org.
(Please realize that the casual user does not need to use or understand
regular expressions.)
Ted--TtfToAfm x.ttf y.afm
Make an afm file that describes a true type font. This can be practical
when you manually configure fonts for Ted.
Ted--RtfToPs < x.rtf > y.ps
Obsolete invocation: Use --printToFile. -rtf- -ps-
Ted--RtfToPsPaper A4 < x.rtf > y.ps
Obsolete invocation: Use --printToFilePaper. -rtf- -ps- A4
Ted--version
Show the version of Ted.
Ted--platform
Show the platform for which Ted was built.
Ted--build
Show the host and the date where Ted was built.
Ted--fullVersion
Show version, platform and build.
Ted--saveTo f1.rtf f2.txt
Read a file and save it. (in a different supported format) Supported
formats are *.txt *.rtf and *.html. As Ted writes relatively readable
rtf, this can be used as a kind of rtf pretty-printer.
Ted--printToFile x.rtf y.ps
Convert a document to PostScript. Format for the default paper format.
Use -rtf- for the document name to read the document from standard
input. Use -ps- as output name to emit PostScript to standard output.
This call is used by the rtf2pdf.sh script. If you use the script from
an internet scripting tool like PHP, make sure that both Ted and gs are
in the PATH. Note that this produces ps files with Teds default paper
size.
Ted--printToFilePaper x.rtf y.ps A4
Convert a document to PostScript. Format for the paper size given.
Refer to --printToFile for IO redirections. Note that this produces ps
files with the given paper size.
Ted--print x.rtf
Print the document on the default printer. Format for the default paper
size.
Ted--printPaper x.rtf a4
Print the document on the default printer. Format for the paper size
given.
Ted--printToPrinter x.rtf lp1
Print the document on the printer given. Format for the default paper
size.
Ted--printToPrinterPaper x.rtf lp1 letter
Print the document on the printer given. Format for the paper size
given.
Ted--setProperty property value ....
See below
Ted--FontsDocuments /tmp/fontsdocs
Create a directory and for every font that Ted knows about, store a
document with all the symbols in the font. This is excellent testing
material. It can also be used to view the fonts. The checkfontsdocs.sh
job can be used to check whether the documents are correctly handled.
Ted--GSFontmapForFiles `pwd`/*.ttf
Ted--GSFontmapForFiles `pwd`/*.pfb
Emit a fragment for a GhostScript Fontmap file. The second and subse‐
quent arguments are *.ttf, *.pfa or *.pfb file names. It always always
makes sense to use absolute font file names: GhostScript needs to know
where to look for the fonts.
Ted--AfmForFontFiles `pwd`/*.ttf
Create an afm file for all *.pfa, *.pfb, *.ttf files on the command
line. Note that to run the command, you need to have writing permission
to the Ted afm directory, or at least in the localfonts subdirectory.
Also note that you need to run the command with a umask that gives the
generated afm files the correct permissions (022). The ++AfmForFont‐
Files variant tries to leave information in the AFM files on how to
match X11 fonts to the fonts. With recent versions of Ted that use
fontconfig, that is not really relevant.
OPTIONSTed supports the following configuration options. Default values are
compiled into the Ted executable program. Ted searches for values in
the following locations: (1) The command line, (2) ${HOME}/Ted.proper‐
ties (3) @DATADIR@/Ted/Ted-${LOCALE}.properties, (4)
@DATADIR@/Ted/Ted.properties. Unknown (or misspelled) properties are
silently ignored. Use the --property=value or the --setProperty prop‐
erty value syntax on the command line.
magnification
Magnification for drawing documents on the screen. The default
value is 100%. The alternative format 1.0 for 100% is also sup‐
ported. It has the disadvantage that it depends on the decimal
sign of the current locale. (E.G: 1,2 for 120% in Western
Europe.) Very small and very big values are ignored. 100% magni‐
fication translates to 96 DPI on screen.
unit The unit that is used by default. This property influences the
appearance of the ruler and the interpretation of numbers
entered in the format tool. Possible values are: inch, ", cm,
mm, points, pt, picas, pi. The default is inch.
paper The format of the paper in the printer. The paper format is also
used as the default page size for new documents. If a smaller
page size is used for a document, Ted uses the Ted.paper prop‐
erty to print in the upper left corner of the paper. Possible
values are: a4,a5,letter,legal,executive and strings in the
form <Width> x <Height> or <Width> x <Height> <Unit> where
<Width> and <Height> are numbers. Values for units are given
above. If <Unit> is omitted, the value of the 'unit' property is
assumed. Plain text files do not store a paper size for the file
inside the file. The Ted.paper property is used for the page
layout of every plain text file that Ted opens. Note that Ted
uses the file /etc/papersize to find a default paper format. The
default format can be overridden with any of the configuration
mechanisms.
leftMargin, topMargin, rightMargin, bottomMargin:
The default width of the page margins. The format is <Width> or
<Width> <Unit>. Width is a number. Unit is one of the units men‐
tioned above. The default unit is the value of unit above.
defaultPrinter
If you want to use a different printer than the system default
printer as the default printer from Ted, you can set this prop‐
erty to select that printer the first time you use the Print
Dialog. The value is the name of a printer. Use the same names
that you use in the lp -d somePrinter, or the lpr -P somePrinter
commands.
afmDirectory
The directory where Ted looks for font metric files. Ted only
uses font metric files if fontconfig is disabled. Without font‐
congig, only fonts that have a metric file in this directory can
be used by Ted. In a default installation, metric files are
expected in @DATADIR@/Ted/afm. This property is particularly
useful when you cannot install Ted as root, and hence you have
to store the metric files in some private directory. You can
also make the afmDirectory point to the GhostScript fonts direc‐
tory. E.G. to /usr/share/ghostscript/fonts. Refer to the section
on adding fonts for more details. Use the gs -h command to find
the exact location of the GhostScript afm files.
spellToolSystemDicts
The directory where Ted looks for spelling dictionaries. In a
default installation, spelling dictionaries are expected in
@DATADIR@/Ted/dfa. This property is particularly useful when you
cannot install Ted as root, and hence you have to store the dic‐
tionaries in some private directory.
documentFileName
The name of this online document file. In a default installation
this is @DATADIR@/Ted/TedDocument-en_US.rtf.
customPrintCommand
A command to print through a custom printer command. Refer to
the paragraph on printing for details.
customPrinterName
The name that is used to designate the custom printer command on
the Print Dialog. Refer to the paragraph on printing for
details.
customPrintCommand2, customPrinterName2:
To configure a second custom printer.
printDialogShowPlacementDrawing:
Some laptops have microscopic screens. Setting this property to
0 hides the diagram that shows the placement of the document
pages on the sheets of paper. This is to make the dialog a lot
lower and to fit on the screen of this kind of computer.
showTableGrid
By default, Ted draws a grid to show the structure of tables
without borders. If you set this property to 0 no grid will be
drawn.
fontDirectory
The directory where Ted looks for fonts to include (embed) in
its printed documents. Refer to the section on adding fonts for
more details. Use the gs -h command to find the exact value.
This property is only used on traditional UNIX systems that do
not use fontconfig. AFM files that have been generated by Ted
have a Ted specific comment that gives the font file name. So
this property is only relevant is neither fontconfig, nor Ted
generated AFM files are used.
usePostScriptFilters
PostScript levels 2 and 3 support the concept of filters. Fil‐
ters make it possible to code the images in a PostScript file
much more efficiently. You can deactivate this option when you
have a printer that does not support level 2 filters and the
/FlateDecode filter. Recent versions of GhostScript support
both. If you cannot print all images deactivate this setting.
To deactivate set the value to 0.
usePostScriptIndexedImages:
PostScript level 2 has a variant of the image operator that
makes it possible to include images with a color indirection via
a palette in the PostScript file. As many if the images included
in rtf documents are of this kind, setting this property can
help you to reduce the volume of the PostScript that is sent to
the printer. All level 2 implementations, including GhostScript
support indexed images. If you cannot print all images deacti‐
vate this setting. To deactivate set the value to 0.
customPsSetupFilename:
The name of a PostScript file that is used for special printer
setup and configuration. The contents of the file are inserted
as part of the Setup section of the PostScript output.
skipBlankPages
If this parameter is set to 1, Ted skips blank pages while
printing. Pages that are completely empty will not be printed.
If the document has headers and footers, the relevant headers
and footers will be printed on the page and the page will not be
blank.
skipEmptyPages
If this parameter is set to 1, Ted skips empty pages while
printing. Pages that are completely empty will not be printed. A
page is not considered to be empty if it actually is empty, but
the document has headers and footers. Under many circumstances
the page would contain a header and a footer and it will be
printed.
omitHeadersOnEmptyPages:
If this parameter is set to 1, Ted will not print the page head‐
ers and footers on pages that do not contain any text from the
document body or from notes. By design, this property interacts
with the skipEmptyPages and skipBlankPages in the following sur‐
prising way: If both omitHeadersOnEmptyPages and skipBlankPages
are set, a page without any body content will not be printed at
all. However, if both omitHeadersOnEmptyPages and skipEmptyPages
are set, a page without any body content will be printed as an
empty page.
findToolExplicitFocus
Tell the find tool to get the keyboard focus when you activate
it. Usually this is desirable behavior. However some window man‐
agers make Ted crash when it tried to manipulate the keyboard
focus. For that reason you can set the findToolExplicitFocus to
0 to tell Ted not to move the keyboard focus to the find tool to
avoid problems.
autoHyphenate
If a word in a line of text is wider than the width allocated
for the paragraph, Ted makes the word protrude beyond the right
margin. If you set the autoHyphenate property to 1, Ted will
automatically insert optional hyphens (-) to fold the word. In
general this is undesirable behavior. Only set the property on
the command line and only if you use Ted to format documents. If
the autoHyphenate property is set while you edit documents, the
optional hyphens will end up in completely arbitrary locations
in the document.
avoidFontconfig
If Ted has been compiled to use fontconfig and freetype, setting
this option to 1 tells Ted not to use fontconfig or freetype. It
will fall back to the afm files and plain X11 text rendering.
Turning off fontconfig has the disadvantage that fewer fonts are
available and that text looks far worse on screen. For rtf to
PostScript/PDF conversion it has the advantage that Ted is less
dependent on the environment and that documents, that use stan‐
dard fonts, are formatted even more more similar to what MS-Word
does.
preferBase35Fonts
If Ted has been compiled to use fontconfig and freetype, setting
this option to 1 tells Ted not to use fontconfig to obtain the
list of fonts. It will use the Adobe collection of 35 core Post‐
Script fonts. Turning off fontconfig had the disadvantage the
fewer fonts are available. The advantage is that the documents
that you make only use a set of widely supported standard fonts.
embedFonts
If Ted knows the name and location of font files on the file
system, it will embed the fonts in its print out. This has the
advantage that the generated PostScript will print identically
on all printers. The disadvantage is that the files are bigger
and possibly print slower. If you set this property to 0, Ted
will not embed any fonts in its printout.
useKerning
If set to 0, Ted will ignore kerning information in the afm
files. This will make Ted start a little faster. The name sug‐
gests that otherwise, Ted will use kerning. That is not the
case. The current version of Ted will never produce kerned out‐
put. The pretentious name was chosen because it is simple an it
can be used in the future for what it actually suggests.
shadingMeshTwips
The rtf file format supports 12 patterns that can be used as a
background in the document. A shading can be applied to table
cells, paragraphs and even separate pieces of text. Though Ted
does not support shading patterns in the user interface, it does
so if you print a document, or if you convert existing documents
with a shading to file to convert them to Acrobat PDF. For
printing, fine patterns are preferable to coarse ones and for
PDF files that you want to view on screen, coarse patterns are
preferable. For that reason, the default value of 3 points for
the grain of the pattern is often undesirable. With this parame‐
ter, you can set the distance between the lines that make up the
shading. The value is the distance between the lines in twips.
Sensible values are between 10 and 100 twips. (0.5 and 5 points)
lenientRtf
In normal operation, Ted performs elementary checks on the
validity of rtf files. E.G. It checks whether the braces in the
rtf file match. If you set this property to 1, the checks are
much more lenient and Ted will try to open files that are syn‐
tactically incorrect.
traceEdits
In normal operation, Ted keeps a trace of your editing actions.
Ted uses the trace file to remember the information that it
needs to execute Undo en Repeat actions. The trace is also used
to recover your work after a crash. If you set the traceEdits
property to 0 (zero) Ted will not make a trace. This also deac‐
tivates the Undo, Repeat and Recover actions.
pdfOutline
By default, Ted inserts pdfmarks in the PostScript that it
issues to produce an outline when the PostScript is converted to
Acrobat PDF. Set this value to 0 (zero) if you do not want an
outline.
BUGS
It can take a minute to start - before the Ted window appears on the
display - because Ted polls the system printers.
FILES
@DATADIR@/Ted
The directory with architecture independent files for Ted
/usr/bin/Ted
The Ted executable program
@DATADIR@/Ted/Ted.properties
The system wide configuration file for Ted
@DATADIR@/Ted/TedDocument-en_US.rtf
The Ted help document
@DATADIR@/Ted/dfa/*.dfa
Spell check dictionaries
@DATADIR@/Ted/Ted-*.properties
Localized texts for the user interface+ localized settings
@DATADIR@/Ted/TedDocument-*.rtf
Localized Ted documents. They must be configured in the
@DATADIR@/Ted/Ted-*.properties files.
${HOME}/.Ted.properties
Private configuration for Ted.
SEE ALSO
"Ted, an easy rich text processor", Mark de Does,
http://www.nllgg.nl/Ted/ 2003 .. 2012.
The Ted users' manual that is accessible through Teds Help menu.
rtf2pdf(1), rtf2ps(1)AUTHOR
A draft manual page was started by John A. Murdie, Department of Com‐
puter Science, University of York.
This version is composed and maintained by Mark de Does.
Mark de Does TED(1)
