pod2text is a front-end for Pod::Text and its subclasses.
It uses them to generate formatted ASCII text from POD
source. It can optionally use either termcap sequences or
ANSI color escape sequences to format the text.
input is the file to read for POD source (the POD can be
embedded in code). If input isn't given, it defaults to
STDIN. output, if given, is the file to which to write the
formatted output. If output isn't given, the formatted
output is written to STDOUT.
OPTIONS
-a, --alt
Use an alternate output format that, among other things,
uses a different heading style and marks `=item' entries
with a colon in the left margin.
-c, --color
Format the output with ANSI color escape sequences.
Using this option requires that Term::ANSIColor be
installed on your system.
-iindent, --indent=indent
Set the number of spaces to indent regular text, and the
default indentation for `=over' blocks. Defaults to 4
spaces if this option isn't given.
-h, --help
Print out usage information and exit.
-l, --loose
Print a blank line after a `=head1' heading. Normally,
no blank line is printed after `=head1', although one is
still printed after `=head2', because this is the
expected formatting for manual pages; if you're
formatting arbitrary text documents, using this option
is recommended.
-s, --sentence
Assume each sentence ends with two spaces and try to
preserve that spacing. Without this option, all
consecutive whitespace in non-verbatim paragraphs is
compressed into a single space.
-t, --termcap
Try to determine the width of the screen and the bold
and underline sequences for the terminal from termcap,
and use that information in formatting the output.
Output will be wrapped at two columns less than the
width of your terminal device. Using this option
requires that your system have a termcap file somewhere
where Term::Cap can find it and requires that your
system support termios. With this option, the output of
pod2text will contain terminal control sequences for
your current terminal type.
-w, --width=width, -width
The column at which to wrap text on the right-hand side.
Defaults to 76, unless -t is given, in which case it's
two columns less than the width of your terminal device.
DIAGNOSTICS
If pod2text fails with errors, see the Pod::Text manpage and
the Pod::Parser manpage for information about what those
errors might mean. Internally, it can also produce the
following diagnostics:
-c (--color) requires Term::ANSIColor be installed
(F) -c or --color were given, but Term::ANSIColor could
not be loaded.
Unknown option: %s
(F) An unknown command line option was given.
In addition, other Getopt::Long error messages may result
from invalid command-line options.
ENVIRONMENT
COLUMNS
If -t is given, pod2text will take the current width of
your screen from this environment variable, if
available. It overrides terminal width information in
TERMCAP.
TERMCAP
If -t is given, pod2text will use the contents of this
environment variable if available to determine the
correct formatting sequences for your current terminal
device.