3

I need to render an ASCII file for printing in a way that removes ambiguity if (very unlikely) one decides to type it in and validate the signatures.

Essentially, I need a monospace typesetter that would typeset a 'blank space' symbol for space, a CR/LF symbol (and proceed to the next line for readability) whenever a CR/LF is encountered, etc., making it obvious if there are any trailing whitespaces before the CR/LF, if there is a character present, etc.

Is there a font that already accomplishes that goal? *nix utility? TeX module/package/derived system?

Is this even the proper SE site for this kind of questions? Would you think I'd have better luck at SuperUser? StackOverflow?

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  • the standard verbatim* environment does spaces (but not by default end of line) although could easily be added – David Carlisle Jun 3 '14 at 13:07
  • Have you considered the a2ps *nix utility. As far as I remember it is configurable to fulfill your needs. – user31729 Jun 3 '14 at 13:45
  • I've looked at a2ps - I haven't seen a good example on how that could be done - do you know of a good documentation for it? – qdot Jun 3 '14 at 14:28
5

Do you mean something like this? In this case, I made @ active to denote the end of the verbatim each line, so that it could both detect prior spaces, as well as typeset a <cr> to signify the end of line. (See ADDENDUM for update)

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{verbatimbox}
\def\rlwd{.5pt}
\begin{document}
\catcode`@=\active
\def@{<cr>}
\def\tmp{\setbox2=\hbox{0}%
  \def\ {\makebox[\wd2]{\rule{\rlwd}{2pt}\rule{3pt}{\rlwd}\rule{\rlwd}{2pt}}}%
}
\begin{verbnobox}[\tmp]
This is a test         @
more test      @
The end@
\end{verbnobox}
\catcode`@=12
\end{document}

enter image description here

If one did not like the confusion of having the <cr> in the same font as the verbatim, one could alter it thus:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{verbatimbox,xcolor}
\def\rlwd{.5pt}
\begin{document}
\catcode`@=\active
\def@{\textcolor{red}{{\tiny\rmfamily\bfseries$<$cr$>$}}}
\def\tmp{\setbox2=\hbox{0}%
  \def\ {\makebox[\wd2]{\rule{\rlwd}{2pt}\rule{3pt}{\rlwd}\rule{\rlwd}{2pt}}}%
}
\begin{verbnobox}[\tmp]
This is a test         @
more test      @
The end@
\end{verbnobox}
\catcode`@=12
\end{document}

enter image description here

ADDENDUM

Since this answer was originally provided I have learned that verbatim environment and even the \verb macro have star variants (e.g., verbatim*) which provide the visible space glyph. Thus, no extra packages are actually needed.

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\catcode`@=\active
\def@{<cr>}
\begin{verbatim*}
This is a test         @
more test      @
The end@
\end{verbatim*}
\catcode`@=12
\end{document}

enter image description here

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1

Some modification to fancyvrb allows you to reformat the end-of-line character (below I've used \CR):

enter image description here

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fancyvrb}
\newcommand{\CR}{<cr>}

\makeatletter

\begingroup
\catcode`\^^M=\active
\gdef\FancyVerbGetLine#1^^M{%
  \@nil%
  \FV@CheckEnd{#1}%
  \ifx\@tempa\FV@EnvironName%            % True if end is found
    \ifx\@tempb\FV@@@CheckEnd\else\FV@BadEndError\fi%
    \let\next\FV@EndScanning%
  \else%
    \def\FV@Line{#1\CR}%
    \def\next{\FV@PreProcessLine\FV@GetLine}%
  \fi%
  \next}%
\endgroup

\makeatother

\begin{document}

\begin{Verbatim}[showspaces=true]
This is a test         @
more test      @
The end@
\end{Verbatim}

\end{document}

The definition of \FancyVerbGetLine was taken directly from fancyvrb.dtx and modified to insert \CR as part of the definition of \FV@line.

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