an easy way to turn formatted text files into PDFs.

txt2pdf.sh

#!/bin/bash

# a pandoc script to easily turn formatted text files into PDFs - May 2016.
# based on a script by @pdfkungfoo, minor changes by Ange Albertini

# requires pandoc http://pandoc.org/
#  and either XeTeX http://xetex.sourceforge.net/ or LuaTeX http://www.luatex.org/
# Xelatex supports all system fonts by default, and UTF8.
# standard PDFLateX doesn't. LuaLaTex also does but is slower.


# warning: you may have to change manually EOLs to match your OS.

in="${1}"
out="${in}".pdf

fontname="Ubuntu Mono"
paperwidth="11.5 cm"
paperheight="15 cm"

# 1- declare your favorite monospace font
# 2- tweak paperwidth (and paperheight? see below) according to your font

# example:
# for an 40 columns Apple II style output for an E-book screen
# fontname="Print Char 21"
# paperwidth="9cm"
# paperheight="125mm"


# if you are are not sure which exact font name
# to use for XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX,
# you can use `luaotfload-tool` like this:
# luaotfload-tool --find "Similar Fontname" --fuzzy

# wrap the text file around code marker
echo '~~~' > fence.txt
echo ""      >> fence.txt

# you can give paperheight a very big value
# to read with 'fit width' and minimize page changes.

pandoc                          \
    -o "${out}"                 \
    -f markdown                 \
    fence.txt                   \
    "${1}"                      \
    fence.txt                   \
    --latex-engine=xelatex      \
    -V monofont="${fontname}"   \
    -V geometry:"paperwidth=${paperwidth}, paperheight=${paperheight}, margin=3mm"

# recommended URLs about programming and old-school fonts:
# http://www.slant.co/topics/67/~programming-fonts
# http://int10h.org/oldschool-pc-fonts/fontlist/
# https://damieng.com/blog/2011/02/20/typography-in-8-bits-system-fonts