PD Collection CD 1

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ PD Collection CD 1 / PD Collection CD 1.iso / textual / pdftops / README < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1996-05-24 | 16.9 KB | 533 lines

xpdf ==== and pdftops version 0.5 (beta) 96-may-23 The xpdf and pdftops software and documentation are copyright 1996 Derek B. Noonburg. Email: derekn@ece.cmu.edu WWW: http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/usr/dn0o/xpdf/xpdf.html The PDF data structures, operators, and specification are copyright 1995 Adobe Systems Inc. What is xpdf? ------------- Xpdf is a viewer for Portable Document Format (PDF) files. (These are also sometimes also called 'Acrobat' files, from the name of Adobe's PDF software.) Xpdf runs under UNIX or VMS and the X Window System. Xpdf is designed to be small and efficient. It does not use the Motif or Xt libraries. It uses standard X fonts. Xpdf is quite usable on a 486-66 PC running Linux. Compatibility ------------- Xpdf is known to work on the following systems: * x86, Linux 1.2.13 a.out, gcc 2.7.2 * x86, Linux 1.2.13 ELF, gcc 2.7.2 * PowerPC, AIX 4.1, gcc 2.7.0 * SPARC, SunOS 4.1.3, gcc 2.7.2 * MIPS, Ultrix 4.4, gcc 2.6.3 * Alpha, OSF/1 3.2, gcc 2.7.0 * HP-PA, HP-UX 9.05, gcc 2.7.2 It should work on pretty much any UNIX or VMS system which runs X11. You'll need ANSI C++ and C compilers to compile it. If you compile it for a system not listed on the xpdf web page, please let me know. If you're willing to make your binary available by ftp or on the web, I'll add a pointer to the web page. If you can't get it to compile on your system, I'll try to help. Getting xpdf ------------ The latest version is available from: http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/usr/dn0o/xpdf/xpdf.html or: ftp://ftp.andrew.cmu.edu/pub/xpdf/ Source code and several precompiled executables are available. Announcements of new versions are posted to several newsgroups (comp.text.pdf, comp.os.linux.announce, and others) and emailed to a list of people. If you'd like to receive email notification of new versions, just let me know. Running xpdf ------------ To run xpdf, simply type: xpdf file.pdf where 'file.pdf' is your PDF file. The file name can be followed by a number specifying the page which should be displayed first, e.g.: xpdf file.pdf 18 On-screen controls, at the bottom of the xpdf window: left/right arrow buttons: Move to the previous/next page. 'Page' entry box: Move to a specific page number. Click in the box to activate it, type the page number, then hit return. magnifying glass buttons: Increase and decrease the resolution, i.e., zoom in and zoom out. print button: Bring up a dialog for generating a PostScript file. The dialog has options to set the pages to be printed and the PostScript file name. curved arrow buttons: Rotate the page clockwise and counterclockwise. These are intended primarily for PDF files where the rotation isn't correctly specified in the file, but they're also useful if your X server doesn't support font rotation. '?' button: Bring up the 'about xpdf' window. 'Quit' button: Quit xpdf. Links: Clicking on a hyperlink will jump to the link's destination. Currently, only links within PDF documents or to another PDF file are supported. Clicking on a URL link just prints the URL. Clicking on any other type of link (e.g., links to executable programs) prints an error message. Key bindings: n move to the next page p move to the previous page <Space> scroll down on the current page; if already at bottom, <PageDown> move to next page <Next> <Backspace> scroll up on the current page; if already at top, move <Delete> to previous page <PageUp> <Previous> <Home> scroll to top of current page <End> scroll to bottom of current page arrows scroll the current page control-L redraw the current page q quit xpdf Command line options and X resources: -err Send error messages to /dev/tty instead of stderr (useful if xpdf is started from another application, e.g., netscape which otherwise pops up an annoying little window for every error). -z <number> [xpdf.initialZoom] Set the initial zoom factor (-5 .. 5). -g <geometry> [xpdf.geometry] -geometry <geometry> Set the initial window geometry. -remote <name> Start/contact xpdf remote server with specified name (see the 'Remote server mode' section below). -raise Raise xpdf remote server window (with -remote only). -quit Kill xpdf remote server (with -remote only). -rgb <number> Set the size of largest RGB cube xpdf will try to allocate. The default is 5 (for a 5x5x5 cube); set to a smaller number to conserve color table entries. -cmd Print commands as they're executed (useful for debugging). -h or -help Print usage information. Several other standard X options and resources will work as expected: -display <display> [xpdf.display] -foreground <color> [xpdf.foreground] -fg <color> -background <color> [xpdf.background] -bg <color> -font <font> [xpdf.font] -fn <font> The color and font options only affect the user interface elements, not the PDF display (the 'paper'). Web browsers ------------ If you want to run xpdf automatically from netscape or mosaic (and probably other browsers) when you click on a link to a PDF file, you need to edit (or create) the files '.mime.types' and '.mailcap' in your home directory. In '.mime.types' add the line: application/pdf pdf In '.mailcap' add the lines: # Use xpdf to view PDF files. application/pdf; xpdf -err %s Make sure that xpdf is on your executable search path. Remote server mode ------------------ Xpdf can be started in remote server mode by specifying a server name (in addition to the file name and page number). For example: xpdf -remote myServer file.pdf If there is currently no xpdf running in server mode with the name 'myServer', a new xpdf window will be opened. If another command: xpdf -remote myServer another.pdf 9 is issued, a new copy of xpdf will not be started. Instead, the first xpdf (the server) will load 'another.pdf' and display page nine. If the file name is the same: xpdf -remote myServer another.pdf 4 the xpdf server will simply display the specified page. The -raise option tells the server to raise its window; it can be specified with or without a file name and page number. The -quit option tells the server to close its window and exit. Fonts ----- Xpdf uses X server fonts. It requires the following fonts: * courier: medium-r, bold-r, medium-o, and bold-o * helvetica: medium-r, bold-r, medium-o, and bold-o * times: medium-r, bold-r, medium-i, and bold-i * symbol: medium-r * Zapf Dingbats: medium-r Most X installations should already have all of these fonts, except Zapf Dingbats (which isn't used very heavily anyway). X servers, starting at R5, support font scaling. Xpdf will automatically take advantage of this. There are two types of scaling. The first type uses standard bitmap fonts: if a font doesn't exist in the requested size, the server will scale the bitmapped characters. This is reasonably fast, and the results are readable but not very pretty. X servers can also handle true scalable, e.g., Type-1, fonts. (The free Adobe Acrobat Reader comes with a set of Type-1 fonts which can be used by X; see the mkfontdir(1) man page for details on setting these up.) Scalable fonts are slower, especially since PDF documents tend to use lots of fonts, but they look much nicer. Some X servers also support font rotation. Xpdf will use this feature if available. PostScript output ----------------- Xpdf can generate PostScript files. Click on the 'printer' button, select the pages you want to print and the name for the PostScript file, and click 'Ok' (or hit return). There is also a separate program which converts PDF files to PostScript. It runs from the command line, and can be compiled without the X includes and libraries. To run it, type: pdftops file.pdf to generate 'file.ps' or: pdftops file.pdf anotherfile.ps to generate 'anotherfile.ps'. You can specify a range of pages to convert: pdftops -f 3 -l 17 file.ps will generate PostScript for pages 3 through 17. Downloading fonts is not currently supported. This means that if xpdf has trouble displaying the document, the PostScript output will probably look just as bad. The generated PostScript is Level 2. If you have an old printer which supports only Level 1 PostScript, you won't be able to print the files. I'm not sure how many Level 1 printers are out there -- if you want Level 1 PostScript output, send me email, and if there's enough interest, I'll work on it. The PostScript output has not been thoroughly tested yet. Please send me email if you find any bugs. The Unisys LZW Patent --------------------- Nearly all PDF files include data which has been compressed with the LZW compression algorithm. Unfortunately, LZW is covered by a software patent which is owned by Unisys Corporation. Unisys refuses to license this patent for PDF-related use in software such as xpdf which is released for free and which may be freely redistributed. (This is same algorithm which is used by GIF. However, Unisys is not doing licensing for free PDF viwers in the same way as for free GIF viewers.) As a workaround, xpdf converts PDF-format LZW data to compress-format LZW data. (The standard UNIX compress utility also uses LZW, but with a slightly different file format.) This conversion does *not* decompress the data; it simply converts it to a different file format. Xpdf then calls uncompress to actually decompress the data. I have been told by several notable people that the LZW patent covers compression only, and does not cover decompression. This seems pretty fuzzy to me, so I'm going to stick with my workaround, at least for now. Software patents in general are a bad idea. Consider supporting the League for Programming Freedom <http://www.lpf.org/>. For Unisys's slant on things (mostly regarding GIF), see <http://www.unisys.com/LeadStory/lzwterms.html> and <http://www.unisys.com/LeadStory/lzwfaq.html>. These pages mention an email address for feedback. Compiling xpdf -------------- Xpdf is written in C++ (with a little bit of C). It should work with any ANSI-compliant C++ and C compilers. The systems and compilers it's been tested with are listed on the xpdf web page. To compile xpdf for UNIX: * Edit Makefile.config in the top-level directory. Set the compilers you want to use (e.g., gcc and g++) and add any necessary switches and options (e.g., include and library directories). * If neither 'uncompress -c file.Z' nor 'gzip -d -c file.Z' decompress a standard UNIX .Z file to stdout on your system, you'll need to change uncompressCmd in xpdf/config.h. This should not be necessary on most systems. * Type 'make' in the top-level directory to compile both xpdf and pdftops. If you only want to make one of the executables, type 'make xpdf' or 'make pdftops'. * If nothing goes wrong, the executables will be left in xpdf/xpdf and xpdf/pdftops. There are no runtime configuration or support files; the binary can be moved to any directory. * If desired, type 'make PREFIX=/usr/local install'. (You can change '/usr/local' to some other directory, of course.) To compile xpdf for VMS: * There are two sets of scripts: vmscomp.com (for gcc on VAX) and vmsdecccomp.com (for DEC C on Alpha). There are four of each: in the top-level directory, [.goo], [.ltk], and [.xpdf]. You may need to edit these scripts as appropriate for your system. * The 'stddef.h' include file which comes with older versions of gcc may be missing a definition for wchar_t. In this case, add the following lines: ----- File GNU_CC:[INCLUDE]STDDEF.H;2 44 /* Wide characters, not yet supported by VAXCRTL [match VAXC's <stddef. 45 #if !defined(_WCHAR_T) && !defined(_WCHAR_T_) 46 typedef unsigned int wchar_t; 47 #endif 48 #define _WCHAR_T 49 #define _WCHAR_T_ 50 ----- * Type '@vmscomp.com' or '@vmsdecccomp' in the top-level directory. * The executables will be left in '[.xpdf]xpdf' and '[.xpdf]pdftops'. Distribution ------------ Xpdf may be distributed under the following conditions: 1. This file ('README') is included, unmodified, in the distribution. 2. The distribution includes: a. all of the xpdf source code, unmodified; OR b. one or more xpdf executables, compiled from the unmodified source code; OR c. both of the above. If you distribute xpdf, I would appreciate receiving a pointer (ftp site, BBS phone number, etc.) or a copy (disk, CD-ROM, etc.). Modified versions of xpdf or applications using some or all of the xpdf code (i.e., 'derivative works' under copyright law) may not be distributed without explicit permission. Bugs ---- This is an beta release of xpdf, and there are still a bunch of PDF features which I have yet to implement. At this point, the biggest problem is that embedded fonts are not handled correctly. If you find a bug in xpdf, i.e., if it prints an error message, crashes, or incorrectly displays a document, and you don't see that bug listed here, please send me email, with a pointer (URL, ftp site, etc.) to the PDF file. This is a list of things which I plan to add (in approximate order of priority): * forms * text search/select/copy * separate program to extract all text from PDF file * text annotations * bookmarks * support for Adobe Acrobat Amber optimized PDF files * article threads * index window or mode -- outline and/or thumbnails * distribute with a small demo PDF file * RunLength filter (I haven't found a PDF file which uses this) * encryption (if I can get documentation) * adding text to clipping path * miter limit * text rendering mode (X display and PostScript output) * separate pdftoppm program (args are PDF file, page number, and resolution (in dpi)) There are also some problems which I know about. This is a list of things which I plan to fix: * handle embedded Type-1 and Type-3 fonts - on screen (dump Type-1 fonts to file and let X server load them?) - embed in PostScript files * "cancel" button to stop page computation * pan by dragging with button 2 * do a better job of scaling and dithering images - look at 'Interpolate' param; * rotated (non-90) images * fix trademark ('TM') constructed char to use smaller font * greek small fonts * deal better with file names in GoToR links * deal better with TrueColor visuals (don't use RGB cube) * option and resource for private color map * "load file" button, file dialog * mark links on screen * support other link types * some kind of 'configure' script to build Makefile.config * "save bitmap" (PPM) command (how to generate 24-bit image?) * efficiently handle very large files - don't read entire catalog, xref, etc. (is this necessary?) * don't allocate full-size pixmap (optional? only if > N bytes?) Acknowledgments --------------- Thanks to: * Patrick Voigt for help with the remote server code. * Patrick Moreau for the VMS port. * David Boldt and Rick Rodgers for sample man pages. References ---------- Adobe Systems Inc., _Portable Document Format Reference Manual_. Addison-Wesley, 1993, ISBN 0-201-62628-4. [The manual for PDF version 1.0. The updated version (for PDF 1.1) is available on the net from http://www.adobe.com/Support/TechNotes.html or ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/Acrobat/SDK/TECHDOC/PDFSPEC.PDF.] Adobe Systems Inc., _Updates to the Portable Document Format Reference Manual_, Adobe Developer Support Technical Note #5156. 1995. [Updates for PDF version 1.1. Available on the WWW as http://www.adobe.com/PDFs/TN/5156.PDF_UPD.PDF.] Adobe Systems Inc., _PostScript Language Reference Manual_, 2nd ed. Addison-Wesley, 1990, ISBN 0-201-18127-4. [The official PostScript manual.] Adobe Systems Inc., _Supporting the DCT Filters in PostScript Level 2_, Adobe Developer Support Technical Note #5116. 1992. [Description of the DCTDecode filter parameters.] CCITT, _Blue Book_, Volume VII Fascicle 3: "Terminal Equipment and Protocols for Telematic Services", Recommendations T.4 and T.6. [The official Group 3 and 4 fax standards. These are available on the net (but misformatted) as ftp://ftp.uu.net/doc/standards/ccitt/1988/7_3_01.ps and 7_3_02.ps.] Foley, van Dam, Feiner, and Hughes, _Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice_, 2nd ed. Addison-Wesley, 1990, ISBN 0-201-12110-7. [Colorspace conversion functions, Bezier spline math.] Robert L. Hummel, _Programmer's Technical Reference: Data and Fax Communications_. Ziff-Davis Press, 1993, ISBN 1-56276-077-7. [CCITT Group 3 and 4 fax decoding.] Christoph Loeffler, Adriaan Ligtenberg, George S. Moschytz, "Practical Fast 1-D DCT Algorithms with 11 Multiplications". IEEE Intl. Conf. on Acoustics, Speech & Signal Processing, 1989, 988-991. [The fast IDCT algorithm used in the DCTDecode filter.] Gregory K. Wallace, "The JPEG Still Picture Compression Standard". [Good description of the JPEG standard. Available on the net as ftp://ftp.uu.net/graphics/jpeg/wallace.ps.gz. Also published in CACM, April 1991, and submitted to IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics.]