Manual for Fen2eps v1.0

Basically, Fen2eps doesn't have any dependencies. It should run out-of-the-box, when compiled with a decent C++ compiler. The Windows executable was prepared under Windows XP, and should work under Windows Vista/7 as well.

Starting Fen2eps is as simple as saying

fen2eps < a.fen > a.eps

where the file `a.fen' contains a single FEN string in one line and `a.eps' is the resulting EPS file. This EPS file contains all necessary graphic symbols for displaying the chess diagram, you don't have to install any fonts! Since Fen2eps reads each line only to the first "space" character you can also input EPD (Extended Position Description) strings...

If you call Fen2eps with one of the command-line arguments ``-h'', ``-?" or ``--help", a small usage message appears. It provides a short overview of the additional options, which are explained in detail in the following sections.

The current version 1.0 of Fen2eps provides 19 different chess fonts for creating board diagrams. The outlines of the chess pieces are stored in special definition files, which have the extension `*.fed' and can be found in the `fed' directory. These files also contain information about the different heights and widths of the single ``characters''.

The fonts were downloaded from www.enpassant.dk in TrueType format and then converted to Postscript outlines with the help of FontForge (formerly known as Pfaedit). Please, regard that the copyright is still with their authors Armando Hernandez Marroquin, Eric Bentzen and Egon Madsen. All fonts are freeware and may be used for non-commercial purposes only!

Fen2eps does not have something like a built-in font. For maximum flexibility it always needs an external `*.fed' file where it can extract the piece outlines from. If nothing else is specified, Fen2eps looks for the font file `default.fed' which is present in the same directory as the executable. Right after unZIPing the archive, this default font file is a copy of the font ``Chess Merida'' (filename: `merida.fed').

If you don't like it, all you have to do is to overwrite the file `default.fed' with one of the other `*.fed' files. For an overview you can take a look at the list of fonts. Afterwards, the new font is used for creating the EPS diagrams.

As an alternative, you can use the option ``-f'', followed by the name of the font definition file that should be used instead of `default.fed'.

So, replacing

cp fed/marroq.fed default.fed
fen2eps < a.fen > a.eps

you could also say

fen2eps -f fed/marroq.fed < a.fen > a.eps

which leaves the default font file untouched.

No notation

If you don't want to provide a notation for the chess diagram, you can specify the option ``-n'' while calling Fen2eps. The board is output without notation letters and digits then.

Reverse board

You might want to display a board from Blacks perspective. In this case, use the option ``-r'' which creates a diagram that is drawn reverse.

Exporting several FEN strings at once

Exporting several FEN strings with the same settings is a tedious task. Fen2eps can help if you prepare a file, let's name it `many.fen', that contains all the chess positions you want to convert. By specifying the ``-p'' option you give Fen2eps a file prefix it can use for generating single EPS diagrams automatically. You can say

fen2eps -p diag/dg < many.fen

for example. What you get is one EPS file for each FEN string in `many.fen'. These EPS files are created in the directory `diag' and have the prefix `dg' followed by a unique number.

If the ``-p'' option is given, Fen2eps does NOT write to `stdout' but to the created files directly. So redirecting the output by appending a

> isempty.eps

to the program call does not have any effect (except that you get an empty file named `isempty.eps'...).

Of course, you can mix all these options and after the call

fen2eps -n -r -p diag/dg -f fed/lucena.fed < many.fen

(let's assume the file `many.fen' contains 7 FEN strings...) you can find the files `dg1.eps' to `dg7.eps' in the directory `diag'. All boards are displayed reverse, without notation and use the font ``Chess Lucena''.