Redirect terminal output to image file

Question

I need to programmatically run some unix commands and get the output in a image file, the format could be png or jpeg (jpg).

The commands are run in an AIX (IBM *nix) machine. I don't have permission to install new packages, however I think there a way to do this using a pipeline and redirections with the default packages from the Operating System.

Unfortunately I couldn't find a method to do this.

Take screenshots and edit them together on a more fully featured computer. — donothingsuccessfully, Jun 20 '12 at 18:35

Marco · Answer 1 · 2012-06-20T18:47:29.383

10

For commands with little output and short lines you can do that easily with a combination of a2ps, ghostscript and imagemagick:

Here the output of the command ls is used as an example.

ls | 
a2ps -=book -B -q --medium=A4dj --borders=no -o out1.ps &&
gs \
  -sDEVICE=png256           \
  -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -dSAFER \
  -dTextAlphaBits=4 -q      \
  -r300x300                 \
  -sOutputFile=out2.png out1.ps
convert -trim out2.png result.png

a2ps creates a vector image of the text. ghostscript rasterises it into a PNG graphic (don't use JPEG, it's the wrong graphic format for this, it's only useful for photorealistic images). Finally imagemagick is used to remove the surrounding white space. Read the man pages and tweak the parameters as necessary.

If the programs are not installed, you can compile and install them with --prefix=/home/me/.local as a user without admin rights.

EDIT: As mentioned in a comment a solution without the dependency of a2ps and ghostscript is the following one.

convert label:"$(ls)" result.png

edited Jun 20 '12 at 18:47

answered Jun 20 '12 at 18:23

Marco

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Thank you for your answer, but how as I indicated, I don't have permission to install new packages – Fernando Martinez Jun 20 '12 at 18:32
If you have imagemagick you could cut out the `a2ps` and just use `convert label:"$( ls )" ls_output.png`. I can't speak as to the aesthetics though. – donothingsuccessfully Jun 20 '12 at 18:33
@FernandoMartinez You don't need root privileges to install software, except if the home partition is mounted with `noexec`, but I've never seen a system in production where the users had no execute rights in their home directory. You should double-check that. – Marco Jun 20 '12 at 18:48
I didn't know this trick, I run "$(ls)" result.png, is it correct?, Do you have some examples?. Thank you. – Fernando Martinez Jun 20 '12 at 18:50
The example is printed on the gray area in my answer. You need the program `convert` from the `imagemagick` suite for that. – Marco Jun 20 '12 at 18:52
But as I said I can install extra package, so I can use imagemagick – Fernando Martinez Jun 21 '12 at 04:39
Perfect results. smooth solution. – David Bern Aug 19 '20 at 07:53

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Sep 13 '21 at 12:50

0

You use an online website to convert your terminal output to an image.

Both websites are free and easy to use. You copy your terminal output and paste one of the website editor sections. After clicking to export, your code successfully converts to a beautiful image.

Look like

edited Sep 13 '21 at 12:50

AdminBee

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answered Sep 13 '21 at 12:26

officialrajdeepsingh

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Those are fancy for source code but when you want to generate an image of terminal output you'll get only plaintext as syntax highlight. I found none that support shell/ANSI escape codes. – noraj Feb 05 '23 at 21:05

Redirect terminal output to image file

2 Answers2