root / pkpgcounter / trunk / README @ 471

Revision 463, 5.7 kB (checked in by jerome, 17 years ago)

Licensing terms changed to GNU GPL v3.0 or higher.
Removed old PCL3/4/5 parser which for a long time now wasn't used
anymore, and for which I was not the original copyright owner.
Version number bumped to 3.00alpha to reflect licensing changes.

  • 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, 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        - Plain text
38       
39        - TIFF
40       
41        - ESC/P2
42       
43        - OpenDocument (ISO/IEC DIS 26300)
44       
45        - Zenographics ZjStream
46       
47        - Samsung QPDL (aka SPL2)
48       
49        - Samsung SPL1
50       
51The five latter ones, as well as some TIFF documents, are currently
52only supported in page counting mode.
53
54By default, when launched pkpgcounter prints on its standard output
55a single integer representing the total number of pages in all the
56files which filenames you've passed on the command line.
57
58With no argument, or with a single dash in non-option arguments,
59pkpgcounter reads datas to parse from its standard input in addition
60to other non-options arguments which are treated as filenames
61representing the files to parse.
62
63See pkpgcounter --help for details and examples.
64
65=============================================================================
66
67Installation :
68--------------
69
70  0 - Download pkpgcounter from :
71 
72        http://www.pykota.com/software/pkpgcounter/download
73       
74      and extract it : 
75     
76        $ tar -zxf pkpgcounter-x.yy.tar.gz
77       
78        where x.yy is pkpgcounter' version number.
79       
80  1 - Run the installation script :
81     
82        $ python setup.py install
83       
84      This will usually install the pkpgcounter into /usr/bin and 
85      the library into /usr/lib/python2.?/site-packages/pkpgpdls/
86       
87  2 - Use pkpgcounter :
88 
89      $ pkpgcounter file1.ps file2.pclxl ... <fileN.escp2
90     
91      pkpgcounter will display the total size in pages of all the files
92      passed on the command line.
93     
94      $ pkpgcounter --colorspace bw --resolution 150 file1.ps
95 
96      Will output the percent of black ink needed on each page of
97      the file1.ps file rendered at 150 dpi.
98     
99  3 - That's all !   
100 
101 
102IMPORTANT : To compute ink coverage, pkpgcounter relies on third party
103software which must be installed. These third party software are :
104
105        - GhostScript (this one is needed for all file formats).
106       
107        - The Python Imaging Library, aka PIL (this one is needed for all
108          file formats).
109       
110        - GhostPCL (this one is needed for the PCL3/4/5 and PCLXL formats)
111         
112        - The LaTeX typesetting software, in particular the dvips command
113          (this one is needed for the DVI file format).
114       
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 
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 
129=============================================================================
130
131Before pkpgcounter v1.86, the PCL3/4/5 parser was a Python backport of an early
132release of the PCLCount software by Eduardo Gielamo Oliveira and Rodolfo Broco
133Manin, available 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
140Beginning with pkpgcounter v1.86, the PCL3/4/5 parser was rewritten from
141scratch, and is now much more readable, maintainable, and of course accurate.
142
143The old parser was still available until pkpgcounter v2.18 was published, but
144was definitely removed after that, just before pkpgcounter v3.00 was published.
145   
146pkpgcounter's PCLXL (aka PCL6) parser doesn't originate from PCLCount, but
147was written from scratch, just like all the other parsers included in
148pkpgcounter.
149
150=============================================================================
151
152pkpgcounter's ink coverage algorithm for the CMYK colorspace is a
153direct Python port from the PrintBill project by Daniel Franklin.
154PrintBill is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public
155License of the Free Software Foundation, version 2 or higher. The
156algorithms used for the other colorspaces are a complete rewrite of
157PrintBill's algorithms using both Python and the Python Imaging
158Library's facilities.
159
160=============================================================================
161
162Please e-mail bugs to : alet@librelogiciel.com (Jerome Alet)
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