POD2PDF(1)

📦
version 0.42 · 3 versions
, in arch rolling

okay so bestie, welcome to pod2pdf — part of the User Contributed Perl Documentation — and it's literally giving "turn your docs into a PDF" main character energy. let's go 💖

✨ NAME ✨

pod2pdf — converts Pod to PDF format. that's the whole vibe. slay.

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

pod2pdf converts documents written in Perl's POD (Plain Old Documentation) format to PDF files. no cap, it really does the thing.

🌸 Usage 🌸

pod2pdf [options] input.pod >output.pdf

If no input filename is specified, pod2pdf will read from STDIN, e.g.

perldoc -u File::Find | pod2pdf [options] >File-Find.pdf

iconic. pipe it, redirect it, live your truth 🫶

💅 Options 💅

pod2pdf accepts the following command-line options:

  • --output-file — Sets the output filename for the generated PDF file. By default pod2pdf will output to STDOUT.
  • --page-size — Sets the page size to be used in the PDF file, can be set to any of the standard paper sizes (A4, A5, Letter, etc). Defaults to A4.
  • --page-orientation — Controls if pages are produced in landscape or portrait format. Defaults to 'portrait'.
  • --page-width, --page-height — Sets the width and height of the generated pages in points (for using non-standard paper sizes).
  • --left-margin, --right-margin, --top-margin, --bottom-margin — Allows each of the page margins (top, bottom, left, and right) to be individually set in points.
  • --margins — Sets all page margins to the same size (specified in points).
  • --header, --noheader — Controls if a header (containing the page title, and optional timestamp and icon) will be included on each page. Defaults to on, so use --noheader to disable.
  • --title — Sets the page title (defaults to the input filename).
  • --timestamp — Boolean option — if set, includes the 'last modified' timestamp of the input file in the page header.
  • --icon — Filename of an icon to be displayed in the top left corner of each page.
  • --icon-scale — Scaling value for the header icon (defaults to 0.25).
  • --footer, --nofooter — Controls if a footer (containing the current page number and optional text string) will be included on each page. By default the footer will be included, so use --nofooter to disable.
  • --footer-text — Sets an optional footer text string that will be included in the bottom left corner of each page.
  • --version — Prints version number and exits.

🎀 Configuration files 🎀

Sets of command-line options may be saved into configuration files. yes bestie, you can save your fave settings and never type them again 💅

A configuration file contains options in the same format as used by pod2pdf on the command-line, with one option given on each line of the file, e.g.

--page-size A5
--page-orientation landscape

To use a config file, invoke pod2pdf with the option @/path/to/configfile.conf.

For example, if you wanted to always include a company logo, timestamp, and copyright notice in your PDF files, create a file mycompany.conf containing the following:

--icon "/path/to/your/logo.png"
--footer-text "Copyright 2007 MyCompany Limited"
--timestamp

Then invoke pod2pdf as:

pod2pdf @/path/to/mycompany.conf input.pod >output.pdf

If you create a config file called pod2pdf.conf and place this in the same directory as the pod2pdf script, it will be loaded as the default configuration.

🦋 POD ENTENSIONS 🦋

As well as the standard POD commands (see perlpodspec), pod2pdf supports the following extensions to the POD format:

  • =ff — The =ff command inserts a page break (form feed) into the document.
  • O<...> — The O<...> formatting code inserts an external object (file) into the document. This is primarily intended for embedding images, e.g.
O</path/to/figure1.jpg>

to insert diagrams, etc into documentation.

pod2pdf supports the file types JPG, GIF, TIFF, PNG, and PNM for embedded objects.

🌈 DEPENDENCIES 🌈

pod2pdf requires the following modules to be installed:

  • PDF::API2
  • Pod::Escapes
  • Getopt::ArgvFile

Additionally to use images, the modules File::Type and Image::Size must be installed, and to specify alternative page sizes the Paper::Specs module is required.

💖 SEE ALSO 💖

The pod2pdf homepage: <http://perl.jonallen.info/projects/pod2pdf>

For more information about POD, read the perlpod manpage or see the POD page on the Perl 5 Wiki (<http://www.perlfoundation.org/perl5/index.cgi?pod>).

Copyright (C) 2007 Jon Allen (JJ) <jj@jonallen.info>

This software is licensed under the terms of the Artistic License version 2.0.

For full license details, please read the file artistic-2_0.txt included with this distribution, or see <http://www.perlfoundation.org/legal/licenses/artistic-2_0.html>.

and that's the page, bestie 💅 — this was the pod2pdf(1) page, shipped with perl v5.42.0 on 2025-12-14. mwah ✨🫶

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