basic PGP encryption

[BGThree]

Edit: See my last post in this thread for the solution I came up with.

I've been looking for a simple Ubuntu PGP guide but everything I've found is either out of date or beyond my comprehension level. I'm hoping someone can help me out here, because what I want to do is very very simple:

I have two text files. One is a PGP public key text file (i.e. a text file that begins "-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----"), and the other is the message text file that I want to encrypt with the public key.

In Windows I would use GPG4Win and import the public key, and then paste the message text into the Clipboard, and then click encrypt. I am then prompted to choose the public key I want to use for encryption, I select the key I imported, then boom all done - the encrypted text file is generated. I can open the encrypted text file in Notepad, and it's a plain text file that starts "-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----" and I can paste it into any other program.

I want to do the exact same thing in Ubuntu.

I tried to install GPA in Ubuntu 12.10, but immediately upon installation I get the error "The GPGME library returned an unexpected error. The error was: General Assuan error. This is probably a bug in GPA. GPA will now try to recover from this error." I also get this error every time I launch GPA. After clicking close the error disappears and GPA appears to run. However, when I try to import the public key text file (trying to use the same method I use in Windows that I explained above) I get the "General Assuan error" and GPA basically stops working.

So I'm at a dead end with GPA, probably because of this error. Google reveals two year old threads with people reporting this error. Has it been fixed yet?

Alternatively, is there another way to accomplish my goal with another program? It seems like it should be pretty straightforward to encrypt a text file with someone's public key. Is there a simple command line way to do this?

Thanks for any suggestions!