root / pkpgcounter / trunk / README @ 529

Revision 529, 6.4 kB (checked in by jerome, 16 years ago)

Finalized support for MS documents.

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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        - OpenDocument (ISO/IEC DIS 26300)
38       
39        - Microsoft Word (c) (tm) (r) (etc...)
40       
41        - Plain text
42       
43        - TIFF
44       
45        - Several other image formats
46       
47        - ESC/P2
48       
49        - Zenographics ZjStream
50       
51        - Samsung QPDL (aka SPL2)
52       
53        - Samsung SPL1
54       
55        - ESC/PageS03
56       
57        - Brother HBP
58       
59        - Hewlett-Packard Lightweight Imaging Device Interface Language
60       
61The seven latter ones, as well as some TIFF documents, are currently
62only supported in page counting mode.
63
64By default, when launched pkpgcounter prints on its standard output
65a single integer representing the total number of pages in all the
66files which filenames you've passed on the command line.
67
68With no argument, or with a single dash in non-option arguments,
69pkpgcounter reads datas to parse from its standard input in addition
70to other non-options arguments which are treated as filenames
71representing the files to parse.
72
73See pkpgcounter --help for details and examples.
74
75=============================================================================
76
77Installation :
78--------------
79
80  0 - Download pkpgcounter from :
81 
82        http://www.pykota.com/software/pkpgcounter/download
83       
84      and extract it : 
85     
86        $ tar -zxf pkpgcounter-x.yy.tar.gz
87       
88        where x.yy is pkpgcounter' version number.
89       
90  1 - Run the installation script :
91     
92        $ python setup.py install
93       
94      This will usually install the pkpgcounter into /usr/bin and 
95      the library into /usr/lib/python2.?/site-packages/pkpgpdls/
96       
97  2 - Use pkpgcounter :
98 
99      $ pkpgcounter file1.ps file2.pclxl ... <fileN.escp2
100     
101      pkpgcounter will display the total size in pages of all the files
102      passed on the command line.
103     
104      $ pkpgcounter --colorspace bw --resolution 150 file1.ps
105 
106      Will output the percent of black ink needed on each page of
107      the file1.ps file rendered at 150 dpi.
108     
109  3 - That's all !   
110 
111DEPENDENCIES :
112
113  Most of the time, pkpgcounter only depends on the presence of :
114 
115  - The Python Imaging Library (python-imaging)
116 
117  But, depending on the file formats you plan to work with, and on the
118  accounting mode you want to use (pages vs ink), you may need to install
119  some or all of the additional software listed below. Usually, if one is
120  needed then pkpgcounter will complain. So your best bet is probably
121  to NOT INSTALL anything until pkpgcounter asks you to do so on its
122  standard error stream. Here's the list of software which may be needed
123  for some operations with pkpgcounter :
124
125  - GhostScript (gs)
126 
127  - The X Virtual Frame Buffer (xvfb)
128 
129  - The X authority file utility xauth (xbase-clients)
130 
131  - The dvips converter from TeX DVI to PostScript (tetex-bin)
132 
133  - The ImageMagick image manipulation toolkit (imagemagick)
134 
135  - The AbiWord word processor (abiword)
136
137  - The GhostPCL/GhostPDL's pcl6 converter from PCL to PostScript
138       
139=============================================================================
140
141Troubleshooting :
142-----------------
143
144  If pkpgcounter gives incorrect results to you, please make an incorrectly
145  parsed data file available to us on some website, and tell us which
146  driver was used, how many pages are in the file, and any additional
147  information you think is relevant.
148 
149  If pkpgcounter complain about your system lacking the Python Psyco module,
150  please consider installing it to speedup file parsing. However, don't forget
151  that Psyco currently only runs on the 32 bits x86 platform, so no need to
152  install it if you've got another system type.
153 
154=============================================================================
155
156Before pkpgcounter v1.86, the PCL3/4/5 parser was a Python backport of an early
157release of the PCLCount software by Eduardo Gielamo Oliveira and Rodolfo Broco
158Manin, available from :
159
160    http://www.fea.unicamp.br/pclcount/
161   
162Their software is distributed under either the terms of a BSD-like license,   
163or the terms of the GNU General Public License of the Free Software Foundation.
164
165Beginning with pkpgcounter v1.86, the PCL3/4/5 parser was rewritten from
166scratch, and is now much more readable, maintainable, and of course accurate.
167
168The old parser was still available until pkpgcounter v2.18 was published, but
169was definitely removed after that, just before pkpgcounter v3.00 was published.
170   
171pkpgcounter's PCLXL (aka PCL6) parser doesn't originate from PCLCount, but
172was written from scratch, just like all the other parsers included in
173pkpgcounter.
174
175=============================================================================
176
177pkpgcounter's ink coverage algorithm for the CMYK colorspace is a
178direct Python port from the PrintBill project by Daniel Franklin.
179PrintBill is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public
180License of the Free Software Foundation, version 2 or higher. The
181algorithms used for the other colorspaces are a complete rewrite of
182PrintBill's algorithms using both Python and the Python Imaging
183Library's facilities.
184
185=============================================================================
186
187Please e-mail bugs to : alet@librelogiciel.com (Jerome Alet)
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