# PSTEXT

NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
OPTIONS
EXAMPLES
WINDOWS REMARKS
BUGS
SEE ALSO

## NAME

pstext − To plot text strings on maps

## SYNOPSIS

pstext textfile −J parameters −R west/east/south/north[r] [ −B[p|s]parameters ] [ −C dx/dy ] [ −D[j]dx[/dy][v[pen] ] [ −E azimuth/elevation ] [ −G color ] [ −H[i][nrec] ] [ −Jz|Z parameters ] [ −K ] [ −L ] [ −M[flag] ] [ −N ] [ −O ] [ −P ] [ −S pen ] [ −U[just/dx/dy/][c|label] ] [ −V ] [ −W[color,][o|O|c|C[pen]] ] [ −X[a|c|r][x-shift[u]] ] [ −Y[a|c|r][y-shift[u]] ] [ −Z zlevel ] [ −c copies ] [ −:[i|o] ]

## DESCRIPTION

pstext plots text strings of variable size, font type, and orientation. Various map projections are provided, with the option to draw and annotate the map boundaries. PostScript code is written to standard output. Greek characters, subscript, superscript, and small caps are supported as follows: The sequence @~ toggles between the selected font and Greek (Symbol). @%no% sets the font to no; @%% resets the font to the starting font, @- toggles subscripts on/off, @+ toggles superscript on/off, @# toggles small caps on/off, @;color; changes the font color (@;; resets it), @:size: changes the font size (@:: resets it), and @_ toggles underline on/off. @@ prints the @ sign. @e, @o, @a, @E, @O, @A give the accented Scandinavian characters. Composite characters (overstrike) may be indicated with the @!<char1><char2> sequence, which will print the two characters on top of each other. To learn the octal codes for symbols not available on the keyboard and some accented European characters, see Section 4.16 and Appendix F in the GMT Technical Reference and Cookbook. Note that CHAR_ENCODING must be set to an extended character set in your .gmtdefaults4 file in order to use the accented characters. Using the −W option, a colored rectangle underlying the text may be plotted (Does not work for strings with sub/super scripts, symbols, or composite characters, except in paragraph mode (−M)).
textfile

This file contains 1 or more records with (x, y, size, angle, fontno, justify, text). If no file is given, pstext will read standard input. size is text size in points, angle is measured in degrees counter-clockwise from horizontal, fontno sets the font type, justify sets the alignment. If fontno is not an integer, then it is taken to be a text string with the desired fontname. See the gmtdefaults man page for names and numbers of available fonts (or run pstext −L). The alignment refers to the part of the text string that will be mapped onto the (x,y) point. Choose a 2 character combination of L, C, R (for left, center, or right) and T, M, B for top, middle, or bottom. e.g., BL for lower left.

−J

Selects the map projection. Scale is UNIT/degree, 1:xxxxx, or width in UNIT (upper case modifier). UNIT is cm, inch, or m, depending on the MEASURE_UNIT setting in .gmtdefaults4, but this can be overridden on the command line by appending c, i, or m to the scale/width value. When central meridian is optional, default is center of longitude range on −R option. Default standard parallel is the equator. For map height, max dimension, or min dimension, append h, +, or - to the width, respectively.

More details can be found in the psbasemap man pages.

CYLINDRICAL PROJECTIONS:

−Jc lon0/lat0/scale (Cassini)
−Jcyl_stere/[lon0/[lat0/]]scale (Cylindrical Stereographic)
−Jj[lon0/]scale (Miller)
−Jm[lon0/[lat0/]]scale (Mercator)
−Jm lon0/lat0/scale (Mercator - Give meridian and standard parallel)
−Jo[a]lon0/lat0/azimuth/scale (Oblique Mercator - point and azimuth)
−Jo[b]lon0/lat0/lon1/lat1/scale (Oblique Mercator - two points)
−Joc lon0/lat0/lonp/latp/scale (Oblique Mercator - point and pole)
−Jq[lon0/[lat0/]]scale (Cylindrical Equidistant)
−Jt lon0/[lat0/]scale (TM - Transverse Mercator)
−Ju zone/scale (UTM - Universal Transverse Mercator)
−Jy[lon0/[lat0/]]scale (Cylindrical Equal-Area)

CONIC PROJECTIONS:

−Jb lon0/lat0/lat1/lat2/scale (Albers)
−Jd lon0/lat0/lat1/lat2/scale (Conic Equidistant)
−Jl lon0/lat0/lat1/lat2/scale (Lambert Conic Conformal)

AZIMUTHAL PROJECTIONS:

−Ja lon0/lat0[/horizon]/scale (Lambert Azimuthal Equal-Area)
−Je lon0/lat0[/horizon]/scale (Azimuthal Equidistant)
−Jf lon0/lat0[/horizon]/scale (Gnomonic)
−Jg lon0/lat0[/horizon]/scale (Orthographic)
−Jg lon0/lat0/altitude/azimuth/tilt/twist/Width/Height/scale (General Perspective).
−Js lon0/lat0[/horizon][/slat]/scale (General Stereographic)

MISCELLANEOUS PROJECTIONS:

−Jh[lon0/]scale (Hammer)
−Ji[lon0/]scale (Sinusoidal)
−Jkf[lon0/]scale (Eckert IV)
−Jk[s][lon0/]scale (Eckert IV)
−Jn[lon0/]scale (Robinson)
−Jr[lon0/]scale (Winkel Tripel)
−Jv[lon0/]scale (Van der Grinten)
−Jw[lon0/]scale (Mollweide)

NON-GEOGRAPHICAL PROJECTIONS:

−Jp[a]scale[/origin][r|z] (Polar coordinates (theta,r))
−Jx x-scale[d|l|p pow|t|T][/y-scale[d|l|p pow|t|T]] (Linear, log, and power scaling)

| −Jz |  | Sets the vertical scaling (for 3-D maps). Same syntax as −Jx.

−R

xmin, xmax, ymin, and ymax specify the Region of interest. For geographic regions, these limits correspond to west, east, south, and north and you may specify them in decimal degrees or in [+-]dd:mm[:ss.xxx][W|E|S|N] format. Append r if lower left and upper right map coordinates are given instead of w/e/s/n. The two shorthands −Rg and −Rd stand for global domain (0/360 and -180/+180 in longitude respectively, with -90/+90 in latitude). For calendar time coordinates you may either give (a) relative time (relative to the selected TIME_EPOCH and in the selected TIME_UNIT; append t to −JX|x), or (b) absolute time of the form [date]T[clock] (append T to −JX|x). At least one of date and clock must be present; the T is always required. The date string must be of the form [-]yyyy[-mm[-dd]] (Gregorian calendar) or yyyy[-Www[-d]] (ISO week calendar), while the clock string must be of the form hh:mm:ss[.xxx]. The use of delimiters and their type and positions must be exactly as indicated (however, input, output and plot formats are customizable; see gmtdefaults).

## OPTIONS

No space between the option flag and the associated arguments.

| −B |  | Sets map boundary annotation and tickmark intervals; see the psbasemap man page for all the details.
| −C |  | Sets the clearance between the text and the surrounding box [15%]. Only used if −W is specified. Append the unit you want (cm, inch, meter. or point; if not given we consult MEASURE_UNIT) or % for a percentage of the font size.

−D

Offsets the text from the projected (x,y) point by dx,dy [0/0]. If dy is not specified then it is set equal to dx. Use -Dj to offset the text away from the point instead (i.e. the text’s justification will determine the direction of the shift). Optionally, append v which will draw a line from the original point to the shifted point; append a pen to change the attributes for this line. (See SPECIFYING PENS below).

| −E |  | Sets the viewpoint’s azimuth and elevation (for perspective view) [180/90]. (Not implemented for paragraph mode).
| −G |  | Sets the shade or color used for drawing the text [Default is BASEMAP_FRAME_RGB, the current frame color (by default black)] (See SPECIFYING COLOR below).
| −H |  | Input file(s) has Header record(s). Number of header records can be changed by editing your .gmtdefaults4 file. If used, GMT default is 1 header record. Use −Hi if only input data should have header records [Default will write out header records if the input data have them]. Blank lines and lines starting with # are always skipped.
| −K |  | More PostScript code will be appended later [Default terminates the plot system].
| −L |  | Lists the font-numbers and font-names available, then exits.

−M

Paragraph mode. Files must be multiple segment files. Segments are separated by a special record whose first character must be flag [Default is ’>’]. Starting in the 3rd column, we expect to find information pertaining to the typesetting of a text paragraph (the remaining lines until next segment header). The information expected is (x y size angle fontno justify linespace parwidth parjust), where x y size angle fontno justify are defined above, while linespace and parwidth are the linespacing and paragraph width, respectively. The justification of the text paragraph is governed by parjust which may be l(eft), c(enter), r(ight), or j(ustified). The segment header is followed by one or more lines with paragraph text. Text may contain the escape sequences discussed above. Separate paragraphs with a blank line.

| −N |  | Do NOT clip text at map boundaries [Default will clip].
| −O |  | Selects Overlay plot mode [Default initializes a new plot system].
| −P |  | Selects Portrait plotting mode [Default is Landscape, see gmtdefaults to change this].
| −S |  | Draw text outline. Append pen attributes. (Not implemented for paragraph mode).

−U

Draw Unix System time stamp on plot. By adding just/dx/dy/, the user may specify the justification of the stamp and where the stamp should fall on the page relative to lower left corner of the plot. For example, BL/0/0 will align the lower left corner of the time stamp with the lower left corner of the plot. Optionally, append a label, or c (which will plot the command string.). The GMT parameters UNIX_TIME, UNIX_TIME_POS, and UNIX_TIME_FORMAT can affect the appearance; see the gmtdefaults man page for details. The time string will be in the locale set by the environment variable TZ (generally local time).

| −V |  | Selects verbose mode, which will send progress reports to stderr [Default runs "silently"].

−W

Paint a rectangle beneath the text string. Set color [Default is no fill]. Append o to draw rectangle outline, add a pen to specify pen attributes [width = 1, color = black, texture = solid]. use a comma to separate the fill information from the outline information if both are present. Choose upper case O to get a rounded rectangle. Choose lower case c to get a concave rectangle (only in paragraph mode). Choose upper case C to get a convex rectangle (only in paragraph mode). (See also SPECIFYING PENS and SPECIFYING COLOR below).

−X −Y

Shift plot origin relative to the current origin by (x-shift,y-shift) and optionally append the length unit (c, i, m, p). You can prepend a to shift the origin back to the original position after plotting, or prepend r [Default] to reset the current origin to the new location. If −O is used then the default (x-shift,y-shift) is (0,0), otherwise it is (r1i, r1i) or (r2.5c, r2.5c). Alternatively, give c to align the center coordinate (x or y) of the plot with the center of the page based on current page size.

| −Z |  | For 3-D projections: Sets the z-level of the basemap [0]. (Not implemented for paragraph mode).
| −: |  | Toggles between (longitude,latitude) and (latitude,longitude) input and/or output. [Default is (longitude,latitude)]. Append i to select input only or o to select output only. [Default affects both].
| −c |  | Specifies the number of plot copies. [Default is 1].

SPECIFYING PENS

pen

The attributes of lines and symbol outlines as defined by pen is a comma delimetered list of width, color and texture, each of which is optional. width can be indicated as a measure (points, centimeters, inches) or as faint, thin[ner|nest], thick[er|est], fat[ter|test], or obese. color specifies a grey shade or color (see SPECIFYING COLOR below). texture is a combination of dashes ‘-’ and dots ‘.’.

SPECIFYING COLOR

| color |  | The color of lines, areas and patterns can be specified by a valid color name; by a grey shade (in the range 0−255); by a decimal color code (r/g/b, each in range 0−255; h-s-v, ranges 0−360, 0−1, 0−1; or c/m/y/k, each in range 0−1); or by a hexadecimal color code (#rrggbb, as used in HTML). See the gmtcolors manpage for more information and a full list of color names.

## EXAMPLES

To plot the outlines of the text strings stored in the file text.d on a Mercator plot with the given specifications, use

pstext text.d −R-30/30/-10/20 −Jm0.1i −P −B5 −S0.5p > plot.ps

To add a typeset figure caption for a 3-inch wide illustration, use

pstext −R0/3/0/5 −JX3i −O −H −M −N << EOF >> figure.ps
This is an optional header record
> 0 -0.5 12 0 4 LT 13p 3i j
@%5%Figure 1.@%% This illustration shows nothing useful, but it still needs
a figure caption. Highlighted in @;255/0/0;red@;; you can see the locations
of cities where it is @_impossible@_ to get any good Thai food; these are to be avoided.
EOF

## WINDOWS REMARKS

Note that under Windows, the percent sign (%) is a variable indicator (like $ under Unix). To indicate a plain percentage sign in a batch script you need to repeat it (%%); hence the font switching mechanism (@%font% and @%%) may require twice the number of percent signs. This only applies to text inside a script or that otherwise is processed by DOS. Data files that are opened and read by pstext do not need such duplication.

## BUGS

In paragraph mode, the presence of composite characters and other escape sequences may lead to unfortunate word splitting.
The −N option does not adjust the BoundingBox information so you may have to post-process the PostScript outout with epstool or ps2epsi to obtain a correct BoundingBox.

## SEE ALSO

GMT(1), psbasemap(1), pslegend(1), psxy(1)