root / pkpgcounter / trunk / README @ 528

Revision 528, 6.4 kB (checked in by jerome, 17 years ago)

Improved documentation wrt dependencies.
Moved OpenDocument? up in the list of supported formats, since we now
support ink based accounting.

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  • Property svn:keywords set to Auth Date Id Rev
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1# $Id$
2
3pkpgcounter : a generic Page Description Language parser
4
5(c) 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 Jerome Alet <alet@librelogiciel.com>
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 3 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, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
18
19=============================================================================
20
21pkpgcounter is a generic Page Description Language parser which can either
22compute the number of pages in a document, or compute the percent of
23ink coverage needed to print each page, in different colorspaces.
24
25pkpgcounter currently recognizes the following document formats :
26
27        - PostScript (both DSC compliant and binary)
28       
29        - PDF
30       
31        - PCL3/4/5
32       
33        - PCLXL (aka PCL6)
34       
35        - DVI
36       
37        - OpenDocument (ISO/IEC DIS 26300)
38       
39        - Plain text
40       
41        - TIFF
42       
43        - Several other image formats
44       
45        - ESC/P2
46       
47        - Zenographics ZjStream
48       
49        - Samsung QPDL (aka SPL2)
50       
51        - Samsung SPL1
52       
53        - ESC/PageS03
54       
55        - Brother HBP
56       
57        - Hewlett-Packard Lightweight Imaging Device Interface Language
58       
59The seven latter ones, as well as some TIFF documents, are currently
60only supported in page counting mode.
61
62By default, when launched pkpgcounter prints on its standard output
63a single integer representing the total number of pages in all the
64files which filenames you've passed on the command line.
65
66With no argument, or with a single dash in non-option arguments,
67pkpgcounter reads datas to parse from its standard input in addition
68to other non-options arguments which are treated as filenames
69representing the files to parse.
70
71See pkpgcounter --help for details and examples.
72
73=============================================================================
74
75Installation :
76--------------
77
78  0 - Download pkpgcounter from :
79 
80        http://www.pykota.com/software/pkpgcounter/download
81       
82      and extract it : 
83     
84        $ tar -zxf pkpgcounter-x.yy.tar.gz
85       
86        where x.yy is pkpgcounter' version number.
87       
88  1 - Run the installation script :
89     
90        $ python setup.py install
91       
92      This will usually install the pkpgcounter into /usr/bin and 
93      the library into /usr/lib/python2.?/site-packages/pkpgpdls/
94       
95  2 - Use pkpgcounter :
96 
97      $ pkpgcounter file1.ps file2.pclxl ... <fileN.escp2
98     
99      pkpgcounter will display the total size in pages of all the files
100      passed on the command line.
101     
102      $ pkpgcounter --colorspace bw --resolution 150 file1.ps
103 
104      Will output the percent of black ink needed on each page of
105      the file1.ps file rendered at 150 dpi.
106     
107  3 - That's all !   
108 
109DEPENDENCIES :
110
111  Most of the time, pkpgcounter only depends on the presence of :
112 
113  - The Python Imaging Library (python-imaging)
114 
115  But, depending on the file formats you plan to work with, and on the
116  accounting mode you want to use (pages vs ink), you may need to install
117  some or all of the additional software listed below. Usually, if one is
118  needed then pkpgcounter will complain. So your best bet is probably
119  to NOT INSTALL anything until pkpgcounter asks you to do so on its
120  standard error stream. Here's the list of software which may be needed
121  for some operations with pkpgcounter :
122
123  - GhostScript (gs)
124 
125  - The X Virtual Frame Buffer (xvfb)
126 
127  - The X authority file utility xauth (xbase-clients)
128 
129  - The dvips converter from TeX DVI to PostScript (tetex-bin)
130 
131  - The ImageMagick image manipulation toolkit (imagemagick)
132 
133  - The AbiWord word processor (abiword)
134
135  - The GhostPCL/GhostPDL's pcl6 converter from PCL to PostScript
136       
137=============================================================================
138
139Troubleshooting :
140-----------------
141
142  If pkpgcounter gives incorrect results to you, please make an incorrectly
143  parsed data file available to us on some website, and tell us which
144  driver was used, how many pages are in the file, and any additional
145  information you think is relevant.
146 
147  If pkpgcounter complain about your system lacking the Python Psyco module,
148  please consider installing it to speedup file parsing. However, don't forget
149  that Psyco currently only runs on the 32 bits x86 platform, so no need to
150  install it if you've got another system type.
151 
152=============================================================================
153
154Before pkpgcounter v1.86, the PCL3/4/5 parser was a Python backport of an early
155release of the PCLCount software by Eduardo Gielamo Oliveira and Rodolfo Broco
156Manin, available from :
157
158    http://www.fea.unicamp.br/pclcount/
159   
160Their software is distributed under either the terms of a BSD-like license,   
161or the terms of the GNU General Public License of the Free Software Foundation.
162
163Beginning with pkpgcounter v1.86, the PCL3/4/5 parser was rewritten from
164scratch, and is now much more readable, maintainable, and of course accurate.
165
166The old parser was still available until pkpgcounter v2.18 was published, but
167was definitely removed after that, just before pkpgcounter v3.00 was published.
168   
169pkpgcounter's PCLXL (aka PCL6) parser doesn't originate from PCLCount, but
170was written from scratch, just like all the other parsers included in
171pkpgcounter.
172
173=============================================================================
174
175pkpgcounter's ink coverage algorithm for the CMYK colorspace is a
176direct Python port from the PrintBill project by Daniel Franklin.
177PrintBill is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public
178License of the Free Software Foundation, version 2 or higher. The
179algorithms used for the other colorspaces are a complete rewrite of
180PrintBill's algorithms using both Python and the Python Imaging
181Library's facilities.
182
183=============================================================================
184
185Please e-mail bugs to : alet@librelogiciel.com (Jerome Alet)
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