root / pkpgcounter / trunk / README @ 482

Revision 480, 5.7 kB (checked in by jerome, 17 years ago)

v3.20 is out with support for Brother HBP and improved PCLXL
parser wrt the inclusion of Canon ImageRunner? commands.

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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       
53        - Brother HBP
54       
55The seven latter ones, as well as some TIFF documents, are currently
56only supported in page counting mode.
57
58By default, when launched pkpgcounter prints on its standard output
59a single integer representing the total number of pages in all the
60files which filenames you've passed on the command line.
61
62With no argument, or with a single dash in non-option arguments,
63pkpgcounter reads datas to parse from its standard input in addition
64to other non-options arguments which are treated as filenames
65representing the files to parse.
66
67See pkpgcounter --help for details and examples.
68
69=============================================================================
70
71Installation :
72--------------
73
74  0 - Download pkpgcounter from :
75 
76        http://www.pykota.com/software/pkpgcounter/download
77       
78      and extract it : 
79     
80        $ tar -zxf pkpgcounter-x.yy.tar.gz
81       
82        where x.yy is pkpgcounter' version number.
83       
84  1 - Run the installation script :
85     
86        $ python setup.py install
87       
88      This will usually install the pkpgcounter into /usr/bin and 
89      the library into /usr/lib/python2.?/site-packages/pkpgpdls/
90       
91  2 - Use pkpgcounter :
92 
93      $ pkpgcounter file1.ps file2.pclxl ... <fileN.escp2
94     
95      pkpgcounter will display the total size in pages of all the files
96      passed on the command line.
97     
98      $ pkpgcounter --colorspace bw --resolution 150 file1.ps
99 
100      Will output the percent of black ink needed on each page of
101      the file1.ps file rendered at 150 dpi.
102     
103  3 - That's all !   
104 
105 
106IMPORTANT : To compute ink coverage, pkpgcounter relies on third party
107software which must be installed. These third party software are :
108
109        - GhostScript (this one is needed for all file formats).
110       
111        - The Python Imaging Library, aka PIL (this one is needed for all
112          file formats).
113       
114        - GhostPCL (this one is needed for the PCL3/4/5 and PCLXL formats)
115         
116        - The LaTeX typesetting software, in particular the dvips command
117          (this one is needed for the DVI file format).
118       
119=============================================================================
120
121Troubleshooting :
122-----------------
123
124  If pkpgcounter gives incorrect results to you, please make an incorrectly
125  parsed data file available to us on some website, and tell us which
126  driver was used.
127 
128  If pkpgcounter complain about your system lacking the Python Psyco module,
129  please consider installing it to speedup file parsing. However, don't forget
130  that Psyco currently only runs on the 32 bits x86 platform, so no need to
131  install it if you've got another system type.
132 
133=============================================================================
134
135Before pkpgcounter v1.86, the PCL3/4/5 parser was a Python backport of an early
136release of the PCLCount software by Eduardo Gielamo Oliveira and Rodolfo Broco
137Manin, available from :
138
139    http://www.fea.unicamp.br/pclcount/
140   
141Their software is distributed under either the terms of a BSD-like license,   
142or the terms of the GNU General Public License of the Free Software Foundation.
143
144Beginning with pkpgcounter v1.86, the PCL3/4/5 parser was rewritten from
145scratch, and is now much more readable, maintainable, and of course accurate.
146
147The old parser was still available until pkpgcounter v2.18 was published, but
148was definitely removed after that, just before pkpgcounter v3.00 was published.
149   
150pkpgcounter's PCLXL (aka PCL6) parser doesn't originate from PCLCount, but
151was written from scratch, just like all the other parsers included in
152pkpgcounter.
153
154=============================================================================
155
156pkpgcounter's ink coverage algorithm for the CMYK colorspace is a
157direct Python port from the PrintBill project by Daniel Franklin.
158PrintBill is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public
159License of the Free Software Foundation, version 2 or higher. The
160algorithms used for the other colorspaces are a complete rewrite of
161PrintBill's algorithms using both Python and the Python Imaging
162Library's facilities.
163
164=============================================================================
165
166Please e-mail bugs to : alet@librelogiciel.com (Jerome Alet)
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