RSS to Fax Gateway

Requirements

You will need a CUPS enabled Fax printer (or any other printer if you just want a hard copy) This was tested with a AVM Fritzbox and RogerRouter installed and configured correctly. The script defaults to the Roger-Router-Fax printer.
Rendering is done with selenium on a chrome webdriver backend. If something errors out please check if you need to install a chromedriver package for your distribution.
For converting from PDF to PostScript you need pdftops which is usually part of poppler_utils
To run this you need a modern Python 3 installation (Tested with 3.11.8 on NixOS)
I use poetry for dependency management, so either install it globally or follow the virtual environment instructions below

Installation

Create a python venv: python -m venv .venv
Activate it: source .venv/bin/activate
Install poetry: pip install poetry
Install dependencies: poetry install --no-root

(If you're on NixOS, you can use the provided shell.nix by typing nix-shell in this directory)

Running

Make sure the correct venv is activated:
```
deactivate
source .venv/bin/activate
```
Run rss2fax.py: python rss2fax.py

If you're not running with any parameters you will get the help screen.

Changing settings

You basically only have two settings:

fax-printer which should point to your softfax printer (or any other printer if you just want a hardcopy)
max-items which defines how many items per feed should be included at maximum

All settings will be saved automatically when changed.

Listing subscribed feeds

Run with --list-feeds to get a list of subscribed feeds:

Loading config from /home/dark/.config/kdedefaults/rss2fax.json
0: Dunkelstern (https://dunkelstern.de/atom.xml)
1: Golem.de (https://rss.golem.de/rss.php?feed=ATOM1.0)

You can use the ID numbers in front to unsubscribe a feed

Unsubscribing from a feed

Run with --remove-feed <id> with any ID from the --list-feeds command to unsubscribe from a feed.

Adding feeds

By default the configuration will contain two feeds, the german tech-news page golem.de and my blog. To add another just run with --add-feed <url>.

If you're not sure if the page you want to subscribe to has a feed URL you can use the --discover-feeds <url> command to search the header metadata for feed links.

For example if you run this on my blog:

# python rss2fax.py --discover-feeds https://dunkelstern.de
Loading config from /home/dark/.config/kdedefaults/rss2fax.json
https://dunkelstern.de/feed.rss
https://dunkelstern.de/atom.xml

You can use one of the URLs to subscribe to.

Generating a PDF

If you run in --pdf-mode the script will output a render.pdf with the content and will not send anything to a printer

Printing/Sending a Fax

Run in --fax-mode to send the generated pages off to the Fax printer you set up.

If you're using Roger Router, make sure it is running in the Background. The Tool will then pick up the print job from the spooler and pop up with a dialing dialog where you can specify the phone number to dial up.

dunkelstern/rss2fax