root / pkpgcounter / trunk / README @ 479

Revision 473, 5.7 kB (checked in by jerome, 17 years ago)

Added parser for ESC/PageS03.

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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        - 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       
51        - ESC/PageS03
52       
53The six latter ones, as well as some TIFF documents, are currently
54only supported in page counting mode.
55
56By default, when launched pkpgcounter prints on its standard output
57a single integer representing the total number of pages in all the
58files which filenames you've passed on the command line.
59
60With no argument, or with a single dash in non-option arguments,
61pkpgcounter reads datas to parse from its standard input in addition
62to other non-options arguments which are treated as filenames
63representing the files to parse.
64
65See pkpgcounter --help for details and examples.
66
67=============================================================================
68
69Installation :
70--------------
71
72  0 - Download pkpgcounter from :
73 
74        http://www.pykota.com/software/pkpgcounter/download
75       
76      and extract it : 
77     
78        $ tar -zxf pkpgcounter-x.yy.tar.gz
79       
80        where x.yy is pkpgcounter' version number.
81       
82  1 - Run the installation script :
83     
84        $ python setup.py install
85       
86      This will usually install the pkpgcounter into /usr/bin and 
87      the library into /usr/lib/python2.?/site-packages/pkpgpdls/
88       
89  2 - Use pkpgcounter :
90 
91      $ pkpgcounter file1.ps file2.pclxl ... <fileN.escp2
92     
93      pkpgcounter will display the total size in pages of all the files
94      passed on the command line.
95     
96      $ pkpgcounter --colorspace bw --resolution 150 file1.ps
97 
98      Will output the percent of black ink needed on each page of
99      the file1.ps file rendered at 150 dpi.
100     
101  3 - That's all !   
102 
103 
104IMPORTANT : To compute ink coverage, pkpgcounter relies on third party
105software which must be installed. These third party software are :
106
107        - GhostScript (this one is needed for all file formats).
108       
109        - The Python Imaging Library, aka PIL (this one is needed for all
110          file formats).
111       
112        - GhostPCL (this one is needed for the PCL3/4/5 and PCLXL formats)
113         
114        - The LaTeX typesetting software, in particular the dvips command
115          (this one is needed for the DVI file format).
116       
117=============================================================================
118
119Troubleshooting :
120-----------------
121
122  If pkpgcounter gives incorrect results to you, please make an incorrectly
123  parsed data file available to us on some website, and tell us which
124  driver was used.
125 
126  If pkpgcounter complain about your system lacking the Python Psyco module,
127  please consider installing it to speedup file parsing. However, don't forget
128  that Psyco currently only runs on the 32 bits x86 platform, so no need to
129  install it if you've got another system type.
130 
131=============================================================================
132
133Before pkpgcounter v1.86, the PCL3/4/5 parser was a Python backport of an early
134release of the PCLCount software by Eduardo Gielamo Oliveira and Rodolfo Broco
135Manin, available from :
136
137    http://www.fea.unicamp.br/pclcount/
138   
139Their software is distributed under either the terms of a BSD-like license,   
140or the terms of the GNU General Public License of the Free Software Foundation.
141
142Beginning with pkpgcounter v1.86, the PCL3/4/5 parser was rewritten from
143scratch, and is now much more readable, maintainable, and of course accurate.
144
145The old parser was still available until pkpgcounter v2.18 was published, but
146was definitely removed after that, just before pkpgcounter v3.00 was published.
147   
148pkpgcounter's PCLXL (aka PCL6) parser doesn't originate from PCLCount, but
149was written from scratch, just like all the other parsers included in
150pkpgcounter.
151
152=============================================================================
153
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, version 2 or higher. 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
164Please e-mail bugs to : alet@librelogiciel.com (Jerome Alet)
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