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Improved the documentation.

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[185]1# $Id$
2
3pkpgcounter : a generic Page Description Language parser
4
[303]5(c) 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 Jerome Alet <alet@librelogiciel.com>
[185]6This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
7it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
8the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
9(at your option) any later version.
10
11This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
12but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
13MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
14GNU General Public License for more details.
15
16You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
17along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
[211]18Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.
[185]19
20=============================================================================
21
22pkpgcounter is a generic Page Description Language parser.
23
24It can currently compute the number of pages in several types of files :
25
26        - PostScript (both DSC compliant and binary)
27       
28        - PDF
29       
30        - PCL3/4/5
31       
32        - PCLXL (aka PCL6)
33       
34        - ESC/P2
35       
[221]36        - DVI
37       
38        - TIFF
39       
[340]40        - OpenDocument (ISO/IEC DIS 26300)
[229]41       
[329]42        - Zenographics ZjStream
[229]43       
[368]44In addition to counting pages, pkpgcounter can also compute the       
45ink coverage for the following document types :
[185]46
[368]47        - PostScript (both DSC compliant and binary)
48       
49        - PDF
50       
[373]51        - DVI
[368]52       
[373]53        - TIFF (some TIFF files don't work)
54       
[368]55Other formats will be supported in the future for ink coverage.       
56
57By default, when launched pkpgcounter prints on its standard output
58a single integer representing the total number of pages in all the
59files which filenames you've passed on the command line.
60
[185]61With no argument, or with a single dash in non-option arguments,
62pkpgcounter reads datas to parse from its standard input in addition
63to other non-options arguments which are treated as filenames
64representing the files to parse.
65
[368]66See pkpgcounter --help for details.
[185]67
68=============================================================================
69
70Installation :
71--------------
72
73  0 - Download pkpgcounter from :
74 
[336]75        http://www.pykota.com/software/pkpgcounter/download
[185]76       
77      and extract it : 
78     
79        $ tar -zxf pkpgcounter-x.yy.tar.gz
80       
81        where x.yy is pkpgcounter' version number.
82       
[204]83  1 - Run the installation script :
[185]84     
[204]85        $ python setup.py install
[185]86       
[204]87      This will usually install the pkpgcounter into /usr/bin and 
[235]88      the library into /usr/lib/python2.?/site-packages/pkpgpdls/
[204]89       
[185]90  2 - Use pkpgcounter :
91 
92      $ pkpgcounter file1.ps file2.pclxl ... <fileN.escp2
93     
94      pkpgcounter will display the total size in pages of all the files
95      passed on the command line.
96     
[374]97      $ pkpgcounter --colorspace bw --resolution 150 file1.ps
98 
99      Will output the percent of black ink needed on each page of
100      the file1.ps file rendered at 150 dpi.
101     
[185]102  3 - That's all !   
103 
[374]104 
105IMPORTANT : To compute ink coverage, pkpgcounter relies on third party
106software which must be installed. These third party software are :
107
108        - GhostScript.
109       
110        - The Python Imaging Library (PIL).
111       
112        - The LaTeX typesetting software, in particular the dvips command
113          (this one is only needed for the DVI file format).
114       
[185]115=============================================================================
116
117Troubleshooting :
118-----------------
119
120  If pkpgcounter gives incorrect results to you, please make an incorrectly
121  parsed data file available to us on some website, and tell us which
122  driver was used.
123 
[247]124  If pkpgcounter complain about your system lacking the Python Psyco module,
125  please consider installing it to speedup file parsing. However, don't forget
126  that Psyco currently only runs on the 32 bits x86 platform, so no need to
127  install it if you've got another system type.
128 
[185]129=============================================================================
130
[286]131The PCL3/4/5 parser included in pkpgcounter is a Python backport of an early
132release of the PCLCount software by Eduardo Gielamo Oliveira and Rodolfo Broco
133Manin.
134
135Although this IS NOT needed for pkpgcounter to work, you can download the
136original PCLCount software from :
137
138    http://www.fea.unicamp.br/pclcount/
139   
140Their software is distributed under either the terms of a BSD-like license,   
141or the terms of the GNU General Public License of the Free Software Foundation.
142   
143Over time both software evolved following different paths, and the accounting
144results they give may differ depending on the printer driver being used.
145We know that pkpgcounter's PCL3/4/5 parser sometimes is not accurate,
146and we are working on improving the situation. We currently don't know how
147PCLCount would behave with the same input files.
148
149pkpgcounter's PCLXL (aka PCL6) parser doesn't originate from PCLCount, but
150was written from scratch.
151
152=============================================================================
153
[368]154pkpgcounter's ink coverage algorithm for the CMYK colorspace is a
155direct Python port from the PrintBill project by Daniel Franklin.
156PrintBill is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public
157License of the Free Software Foundation, just like pkpgcounter. The
158algorithms used for the other colorspaces are a complete rewrite of
159PrintBill's algorithms using both Python and the Python Imaging
160Library's facilities.
161
162=============================================================================
163
[185]164Please e-mail bugs to : alet@librelogiciel.com (Jerome Alet)
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