16. Making a bulletin, BUL

The bulletin program BUL is intended for writing seismic bulletins in a nice format. The output is written to a PostScript file.

Input files:

1. A monthly data file: This file can be made by COLLECT or SELECT
2. BUL.INP : This file must be in DAT or in the local directory. In this file the layout of the front pages are decided, as well as the font selection for the main bulletin. There are ample comments in the file on how the commands are written.

Some special format features:

Type 3 line: If the first 5 columns in a type 3 line are:" Bul:", then the rest of the line is interpreted as text line that is written in the bulletin. In this way comments to certain earthquakes can be written into the bulletin. Type 2 line: Maximum intensity and casualty/damage reports are included in the bulletin if found in the S-file.

How to run the program:

Type bul -h this gives you a list of the different options like this:

Options:
-frontpage:	Only frontages are printed.
-nofrontpage:	No frontages are printed.
-onlyhypo:	Only hypocenter solutions are printed.
-minmag x.x :	Only hypocenter solutions with magnitude than the requested are printed.

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The last option may be used in cases where the number of earthquakes is very high, so that it is preferable to report phases only for events above a given magnitude.

You can also run the program without any options, in which case the default values used are:

i)	All phases are reported.
ii)	Front pages are printed.

You will always be asked for the name of the S-file.

Output file:

The output file is called bul.ps and is a PostScript file that you can print. Optionally, a limited number of pages can be selected from the bul.ps file for printing. The header page is still included and the page numbers correspond to the original page numbers.