--- a/textshaper/main.py	Sat Feb 22 22:49:18 2014 -0800
+++ b/textshaper/main.py	Sun Feb 23 00:26:19 2014 -0800
@@ -12,6 +12,7 @@
 import time
 from which import which
 
+
 def info(content):
     """gathers info about the content and returns a dict"""
 
@@ -31,7 +32,11 @@
                       for key in keys]))
 
 def add_options(parser):
-    """add options to the OptionParser instance"""
+    """add options to the parser instance"""
+
+    parser.add_option('-f', '--file',  dest='input',
+                      type=argparse.FileType('r'), default=sys.stdin,
+                      help="file to read from [DEFAULT: stdin]")
 
     if which('xclip'): # TODO: support e.g. xsel or python native
         parser.add_option('-c', '--clip', '--copy', dest='copy_to_clipboard',
@@ -47,7 +52,7 @@
     options = parser.parse_args(args)
 
     # read from stdin
-    content = sys.stdin.read()
+    content = options.read()
 
     # print formatted content
     display(content)