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Almost ok for release.

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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       
55        - Hewlett-Packard Lightweight Imaging Device Interface Language
56       
57The eight latter ones, as well as some TIFF documents, are currently
58only supported in page counting mode.
59
60By default, when launched pkpgcounter prints on its standard output
61a single integer representing the total number of pages in all the
62files which filenames you've passed on the command line.
63
64With no argument, or with a single dash in non-option arguments,
65pkpgcounter reads datas to parse from its standard input in addition
66to other non-options arguments which are treated as filenames
67representing the files to parse.
68
69See pkpgcounter --help for details and examples.
70
71=============================================================================
72
73Installation :
74--------------
75
76  0 - Download pkpgcounter from :
77 
78        http://www.pykota.com/software/pkpgcounter/download
79       
80      and extract it : 
81     
82        $ tar -zxf pkpgcounter-x.yy.tar.gz
83       
84        where x.yy is pkpgcounter' version number.
85       
86  1 - Run the installation script :
87     
88        $ python setup.py install
89       
90      This will usually install the pkpgcounter into /usr/bin and 
91      the library into /usr/lib/python2.?/site-packages/pkpgpdls/
92       
93  2 - Use pkpgcounter :
94 
95      $ pkpgcounter file1.ps file2.pclxl ... <fileN.escp2
96     
97      pkpgcounter will display the total size in pages of all the files
98      passed on the command line.
99     
100      $ pkpgcounter --colorspace bw --resolution 150 file1.ps
101 
102      Will output the percent of black ink needed on each page of
103      the file1.ps file rendered at 150 dpi.
104     
105  3 - That's all !   
106 
107 
108IMPORTANT : To compute ink coverage, pkpgcounter relies on third party
109software which must be installed. These third party software are :
110
111        - GhostScript (this one is needed for all file formats).
112       
113        - The Python Imaging Library, aka PIL (this one is needed for all
114          file formats).
115       
116        - GhostPCL (this one is needed for the PCL3/4/5 and PCLXL formats)
117         
118        - The LaTeX typesetting software, in particular the dvips command
119          (this one is needed for the DVI file format).
120       
121=============================================================================
122
123Troubleshooting :
124-----------------
125
126  If pkpgcounter gives incorrect results to you, please make an incorrectly
127  parsed data file available to us on some website, and tell us which
128  driver was used.
129 
130  If pkpgcounter complain about your system lacking the Python Psyco module,
131  please consider installing it to speedup file parsing. However, don't forget
132  that Psyco currently only runs on the 32 bits x86 platform, so no need to
133  install it if you've got another system type.
134 
135=============================================================================
136
137Before pkpgcounter v1.86, the PCL3/4/5 parser was a Python backport of an early
138release of the PCLCount software by Eduardo Gielamo Oliveira and Rodolfo Broco
139Manin, available from :
140
141    http://www.fea.unicamp.br/pclcount/
142   
143Their software is distributed under either the terms of a BSD-like license,   
144or the terms of the GNU General Public License of the Free Software Foundation.
145
146Beginning with pkpgcounter v1.86, the PCL3/4/5 parser was rewritten from
147scratch, and is now much more readable, maintainable, and of course accurate.
148
149The old parser was still available until pkpgcounter v2.18 was published, but
150was definitely removed after that, just before pkpgcounter v3.00 was published.
151   
152pkpgcounter's PCLXL (aka PCL6) parser doesn't originate from PCLCount, but
153was written from scratch, just like all the other parsers included in
154pkpgcounter.
155
156=============================================================================
157
158pkpgcounter's ink coverage algorithm for the CMYK colorspace is a
159direct Python port from the PrintBill project by Daniel Franklin.
160PrintBill is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public
161License of the Free Software Foundation, version 2 or higher. The
162algorithms used for the other colorspaces are a complete rewrite of
163PrintBill's algorithms using both Python and the Python Imaging
164Library's facilities.
165
166=============================================================================
167
168Please e-mail bugs to : alet@librelogiciel.com (Jerome Alet)
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