1 Downloading the tools
My own preferred work environments are Linux and Mac OS X. However, most of the methods explained in the following chapters can be applied to Windows too. Readers will benefit most from this book if they reproduce and play with some of the example commandlines given. To do that they should install the following tools.
1.1 Windows
These are the preferred download sites. They are the ones which are offered by the respective developers themselves. Do not ever use any other, third-party download links, unless you really know what you do!
- Download Ghostscript:
http://downloads.ghostscript.com/public/
Currently available are installer files for Windows:- gs914w32.exe (for all Windows OS 32bit, but also works on Windows 64 bit)
- gs914w64.exe (does not work on Windows 32bit – but Ghostscript developers warn anyway: the 64bit version may even run slower on 64bit than does the 32bit version on 64bit Windows!)
- Keep your eyes open for newer versions appearing in that directory!
- Download GhostPCL:
http://downloads.ghostscript.com/public/binaries/
Currently available are pre-compiled 32-bit binaries for Windows embedded in a *.zip file:- ghostpcl-9.14-win32.zip
- Keep your eyes open for newer versions appearing in that directory!
- Download GhostXPS:
http://downloads.ghostscript.com/public/binaries/
Currently available are pre-compiled 32-bit binaries for Windows embedded in a *.zip file:- 32-bit Version: ghostxps-9.14-win32.zip
- Keep your eyes open for newer versions appearing in that directory!
- Download XPDF-Utils (CLI tools: pdffonts, pdfinfo, pdfimages, pdftotext, pdftops…)
http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/download.html
Current file version:-
xpdfbin-win-3.03.zip
The .zip contains pre-compiled binaries for Windows. It’s not an installer: just unpack anywhere you want, modify the %PATH% variable to find the binaries and start them from an CMD window.
You may want to additionally add one or more of the *‘Language Support Packages’. - Keep your eyes open for newer versions appearing in that directory!
-
xpdfbin-win-3.03.zip
- Download qpdf:
32-bit Version: http://sourceforge.net/projects/qpdf/files/qpdf/5.1.1/qpdf-5.1.1-bin-mingw32.zip
64-bit Version: http://sourceforge.net/projects/qpdf/files/qpdf/5.1.1/qpdf-5.1.1-bin-mingw64.zip
64-bit Version: http://sourceforge.net/projects/qpdf/files/qpdf/5.1.1/qpdf-5.1.1-bin-msvc64.zip - Download pdftk:
http://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/pdftk_server-2.02-win-setup.exe - Download ImageMagick:
http://www.imagemagick.org/download/binaries/ (make sure to select the correct and most current download for your system)
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A Warning Note about Downloading from SourceforgeSourceforge.net used to be a resource that was very useful for the Open Source community. However, in recent years the site has become more and more overloaded with ads. Some of the more recent stories on the Internet even suggest that the site may be poisoned with links that lead you to third party ‘drive-by’ malware download sites. Unfortunately, some of the tools advertised in this eBook (such as :-( |
1.2 Mac OS X
My recommendation is to use the ‘MacPorts’ framework for installing additional software packages:
After you have put MacPorts in place, open a Terminal.app window and start installing the packages by typing:
Be aware that this may take a while.
Ghostscript depends on additional packages for its functionality, like libpng, jpeg, tiff, zlib and more.
The same applies for the other tools.
The port command downloads, compiles and installs all these dependencies automatically, so this may take quite a while…
1.3 Linux
Debian, Ubuntu, …
You can run this command in a terminal window:
Or you use the package manager of your choice to find and install the packages…
RedHat, Fedora
Command in a terminal window:
Slackware
Command in a terminal window: