Pod::Simple::Text(3pm)

💅 Pod::Simple::Text — the perl 5.42.3 era glow-up

Okay bestie, so this page is Pod::Simple::Text, part of perl's Perl Programmers Reference Guide, and it's genuinely one of the most low-key iconic little modules out there. It's the thing that takes your Pod and turns it into nice wrapped plaintext. No cap. 🎀

✨ NAME ✨

Pod::Simple::Text — literally just formats Pod as plaintext. That's the whole gig, and she ate. 💖

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

Here's the one-liner, and yes it's a bit of a mouthful, but it slays:

  perl -MPod::Simple::Text -e \
   "exit Pod::Simple::Text->filter(shift)->any_errata_seen" \
   thingy.pod

That's it. Run it, point it at thingy.pod, done. 🦋

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

So this class right here is a formatter — it takes Pod and renders it out as wrapped plaintext. Simple as that, main character energy. 🌸

The wrapping? That's Text::Wrap's doing, bestie, so you can change $Text::Wrap::columns to whatever width your heart desires. You want 40 columns? Go off. You want 200? Unhinged, but valid. 💅

And important: this is a subclass of Pod::Simple and inherits all its methods. All of them. So anything Pod::Simple can do, this one's got too. 🙈

✨ SEE ALSO ✨

Go check out these besties when you're done here: Pod::Simple, Pod::Simple::TextContent, Pod::Text. 👑

✨ SUPPORT ✨

Got questions? Wanna talk about POD and Pod::Simple? Send them on over to the pod-people@perl.org mail list, fr fr. And if you need to subscribe, just send an empty email to pod-people-subscribe@perl.org. Easy. ✨

Also, this module is managed in an open GitHub repository at <https://github.com/perl-pod/pod-simple/>. Feel free to fork and contribute, or clone <https://github.com/perl-pod/pod-simple.git> and send patches! 🫶

Patches against Pod::Simple are welcome — the community literally wants them. And please send bug reports to <bug-pod-simple@rt.cpan.org>. 🐛

✨ COPYRIGHT AND DISCLAIMERS ✨

Copyright (c) 2002 Sean M. Burke. 💜

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. 🌈

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. (Read that bit twice, bestie — she's not promising anything. 😭)

✨ AUTHOR ✨

Pod::Simple was created by Sean M. Burke <sburke@cpan.org>. But don't bother him — he's retired. Let the man rest. 💀

Pod::Simple is maintained by:

• Allison Randal "allison@perl.org"
• Hans Dieter Pearcey "hdp@cpan.org"
• David E. Wheeler "dwheeler@cpan.org"

---

And that's the page, bestie! 🎀 This is from perl v5.42.3, dated 2026-11-03 — go forth and format your Pod responsibly. Mwah. 💖✨