root / pkpgcounter / trunk / README @ 404

Revision 386, 5.8 kB (checked in by jerome, 18 years ago)

Added support for Samsung QPDL (aka SPL2) language, thanks to
the documentation written by Aurélien Croc.

  • Property svn:keyword set to Auth Date Id Rev
  • 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 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 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
18Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.
19
20=============================================================================
21
22pkpgcounter is a generic Page Description Language parser which can either
23compute the number of pages in a document, or compute the percent of
24ink coverage needed to print each page, in different colorspaces.
25
26pkpgcounter currently recognizes the following document formats :
27
28        - PostScript (both DSC compliant and binary)
29       
30        - PDF
31       
32        - PCL3/4/5
33       
34        - PCLXL (aka PCL6)
35       
36        - DVI
37       
38        - TIFF
39       
40        - ESC/P2
41       
42        - OpenDocument (ISO/IEC DIS 26300)
43       
44        - Zenographics ZjStream
45       
46        - Samsung QPDL (aka SPL2)
47       
48The four latter ones, as well as some TIFF documents, are currently
49only supported in page counting mode.
50
51By default, when launched pkpgcounter prints on its standard output
52a single integer representing the total number of pages in all the
53files which filenames you've passed on the command line.
54
55With no argument, or with a single dash in non-option arguments,
56pkpgcounter reads datas to parse from its standard input in addition
57to other non-options arguments which are treated as filenames
58representing the files to parse.
59
60See pkpgcounter --help for details and examples.
61
62=============================================================================
63
64Installation :
65--------------
66
67  0 - Download pkpgcounter from :
68 
69        http://www.pykota.com/software/pkpgcounter/download
70       
71      and extract it : 
72     
73        $ tar -zxf pkpgcounter-x.yy.tar.gz
74       
75        where x.yy is pkpgcounter' version number.
76       
77  1 - Run the installation script :
78     
79        $ python setup.py install
80       
81      This will usually install the pkpgcounter into /usr/bin and 
82      the library into /usr/lib/python2.?/site-packages/pkpgpdls/
83       
84  2 - Use pkpgcounter :
85 
86      $ pkpgcounter file1.ps file2.pclxl ... <fileN.escp2
87     
88      pkpgcounter will display the total size in pages of all the files
89      passed on the command line.
90     
91      $ pkpgcounter --colorspace bw --resolution 150 file1.ps
92 
93      Will output the percent of black ink needed on each page of
94      the file1.ps file rendered at 150 dpi.
95     
96  3 - That's all !   
97 
98 
99IMPORTANT : To compute ink coverage, pkpgcounter relies on third party
100software which must be installed. These third party software are :
101
102        - GhostScript (this one is needed for all file formats).
103       
104        - The Python Imaging Library, aka PIL (this one is needed for all
105          file formats).
106       
107        - GhostPCL (this one is needed for the PCL3/4/5 and PCLXL formats)
108         
109        - The LaTeX typesetting software, in particular the dvips command
110          (this one is needed for the DVI file format).
111       
112=============================================================================
113
114Troubleshooting :
115-----------------
116
117  If pkpgcounter gives incorrect results to you, please make an incorrectly
118  parsed data file available to us on some website, and tell us which
119  driver was used.
120 
121  If pkpgcounter complain about your system lacking the Python Psyco module,
122  please consider installing it to speedup file parsing. However, don't forget
123  that Psyco currently only runs on the 32 bits x86 platform, so no need to
124  install it if you've got another system type.
125 
126=============================================================================
127
128The PCL3/4/5 parser included in pkpgcounter is a Python backport of an early
129release of the PCLCount software by Eduardo Gielamo Oliveira and Rodolfo Broco
130Manin.
131
132Although this IS NOT needed for pkpgcounter to work, you can download the
133original PCLCount software from :
134
135    http://www.fea.unicamp.br/pclcount/
136   
137Their software is distributed under either the terms of a BSD-like license,   
138or the terms of the GNU General Public License of the Free Software Foundation.
139   
140Over time both software evolved following different paths, and the accounting
141results they give may differ depending on the printer driver being used.
142We know that pkpgcounter's PCL3/4/5 parser sometimes is not accurate,
143and we are working on improving the situation. We currently don't know how
144PCLCount would behave with the same input files.
145
146pkpgcounter's PCLXL (aka PCL6) parser doesn't originate from PCLCount, but
147was written from scratch.
148
149=============================================================================
150
151pkpgcounter's ink coverage algorithm for the CMYK colorspace is a
152direct Python port from the PrintBill project by Daniel Franklin.
153PrintBill is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public
154License of the Free Software Foundation, just like pkpgcounter. The
155algorithms used for the other colorspaces are a complete rewrite of
156PrintBill's algorithms using both Python and the Python Imaging
157Library's facilities.
158
159=============================================================================
160
161Please e-mail bugs to : alet@librelogiciel.com (Jerome Alet)
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