Why unicode encoding is not supported?

[Dedeco Balaco]

Hello,

I recently discovered the existence of *a2ps*, and now, I am willing to
give it some tries, and practice what it can do that could be good for me.

But it seems that unicode is not supported at all, from what is written
in the *README* file that comes with the source package, other files in
it, and (possibly) other details written in the a2ps page in gnu.org
<https://www.gnu.org/software/a2ps/> and the project page in Savannah
<https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/a2ps/>.

First, there is an issue that only 12 encodings are mentioned in the
*README *file:

        latin1, latin2, latin3, latin4, latin5, latin6,
        ascii,  hp,     mac,    ibmpc,  pcg,    cp1250

But some more are mentioned in the file *encoding/encoding.map*. But
*Unicode*, *UTF-8* and *UTF-16* are not there. But will it work if
people use the other encondings that are not in this *map* file?

And the 12 encodings listed mean that *a2ps* cannot work with input
files that use characters not present in them?

A comment just for Reuben: it is noticeable all the details you added in
the message sent to GNU mailing list. I would not look around to test
this project today, but I read the "new details" in the email, and they
broke my idea.

The best for everyone!    *(:*