1 1.) What's the cost of swftools?
3 SWFTools is free of charge, and is released under the GPL
4 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html).
6 2.) How to compile/link swftools on Unix/Linux/BSD?
8 Download swftools-0.x.x.tar.gz. Then type, on the
11 tar -zvxf swftools-0.x.x.tar
17 (you will have to be root for the last step)
19 3.) What libraries do I need to compile swftools on Unix/Linux/BSD?
21 You need t1lib, freetype and jpeglib to compile pdf2swf.
24 http://www.freetype.org
26 ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/linux/libs/graphics/t1lib-1.3.1.tar.gz
27 t1lib (mirrored here):
28 http://www.quiss.org/swftools/t1lib-1.3.1.tar.gz
30 http://www.ijg.org/files/jpegsrc.v6b.tar.gz
32 Furthermore, if you want to compile avi2swf, you need the avifile library:
33 http://avifile.sourceforge.net
36 4.) when compiling the sourcecode version, configure doesn't find my jpeglib / my t1lib!
38 In case some of your libraries/include files are installed in /usr/local,
42 LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/lib" CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/include" ./configure
44 Furthermore, a new installation of jpeglib (the following assumes it's in
45 /usr/local/lib) often requires doing a
47 ranlib /usr/local/lib/libjpeg.a
48 ldconfig /usr/local/lib
50 If it still doesn't work, try removing the file "config.cache"
51 before running configure again.
53 5.) There are problems during compilation:
54 Error messages complain about "undefined reference to `operator new(unsigned)'"
55 as well as "undefined reference to `__gxx_personality_v0'".
57 Try running configure as
59 LDFLAGS=-lstdc++ ./configure
61 6.) How do I compile swftools on Mac OS X?
63 You need to get fink (http://fink.sourceforge.net), and install it.
64 After this, you need to install all the required libs (jpeg, freetype, lame):
66 fink install libjpeg libjpeg-shlibs freetype2 freetype2-shlibs lame lame-shlibs
68 Then, you have to inform configure of where they are:
70 LDFLAGS="-L/sw/lib" CPPFLAGS="-I/sw/include -I/sw/include/lame" ./configure
74 If this doesn't work, especially if you want to use the python library and
75 get weird exceptions, try to remove all versions of jpeglib, freetype and
76 lame from /usr/lib and /usr/local/lib, and then run configure / make / make install
79 If you also want to use the python interface, you may have to copy the
80 Imaging headers (Imaging.h, ImPlatform.h, ImConfig.h) to
81 /System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.3/include/python2.3/
82 before running configure.
84 7.) Is there a pdf2swf/avi2swf for Windows?
86 Windows versions of all SWF utilities are downloadable from
87 http://www.quiss.org/swftools/download.html
89 (There's a self-extracting .exe version of all versions since 0.6.1,
90 and a .zip or .rar archive of the newest development snapshot)
91 Notice: For now, the utilities need to be installed to C:\SWFTOOLS to make pdf2swf work-
92 otherwise it won't be able to find its fonts.
94 8.) Where's the source code of the Windows version?
96 It's the same as the Unix source code. If you want to compile
97 under Windows, it's recommended that you get the CVS version
99 You need MingW (http://www.mingw.org) to compile it.
100 When cross-compiling under Linux, e.g. the following generates the Windows .exe files:
102 CXX=i386-mingw32msvc-g++ CPP=i386-mingw32msvc-cpp CC=i386-mingw32msvc-gcc \
103 ./configure --host=i586-mingw32msvc && make
105 For compiling on Windows itself, there's a HOWTO from Daichi Shinozaki:
106 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/swftools-common/2005-02/msg00023.html
108 9.) The fonts in the SWFs generated by pdf2swf are wrong!
110 Watch the output of pdf2swf closely.
111 You should see something like:
113 WARNING Font Myriad-Roman could not be loaded.
114 WARNING Try putting a TTF version of that font (named "Myriad-Roman.ttf") into /swftools/fonts
116 Provided you actually own the font in question (here: Myriad-Roman.ttf),
117 you can copy that fonts into your current directory and pass
118 the "-F ./" (--fontpath ./) option to pdf2swf.
119 If you use a font in several PDFs, you can also simply copy it
120 to (on Windows) C:\SWFTools\Fonts\, or (on Unix) /usr/local/share/swftools/fonts
121 to make it work all the time.
123 10.) Can png2swf handle transparency?
125 Yes. It supports PNG mode 2 transparency (256 color palettes with alpha) since version 0.4.2.
126 Mode 6 (32 bit RGBA truecolor) is also supported since version 0.4.4.
128 11.) How to do Flash MX compression with SWFTools?
130 Most tools support the -z flag for outputting compressed SWF.
131 Furthermore you can compress/uncompress SWF files using swfcombine:
133 swfcombine -dz file.swf -o file_new.swf
137 swfcombine -d file.swf -o file_new.swf
141 12.) avi2swf converts my avi files upside down!
143 Try using the -p (--flip) switch.
145 13.) How to extract images/sounds from myfile.swf using swfextract?
147 First list all extractable items:
149 swfextract myfile.swf
151 The result is something like:
153 Objects in file myfile.swf:
154 [-i] 3 Shapes: ID(s) 1-3
155 [-i] 5 MovieClips: ID(s) 4, 5, 8, 10, 12
156 [-j] 3 JPEGs: ID(s) 69, 116, 447
157 [-p] 1 PNG: ID(s) 318
158 [-s] 3 Sounds: ID(s) 28-30
159 [-f] 10 Frames: ID(s) 0-10
161 Now you can extract a shape using
163 swfextract -i 2 myfile.swf -o shape.swf
167 swfextract -s 28 myfile.swf -o sound.wav
169 a PNG image file using
171 swfextract -p 318 myfile.swf -o file.png
175 14.) Is there a mailing list for SWFTools?
177 Yes there is. You can subscribe by going to
179 http://mail.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/swftools-common
181 15.) Where can I donate?
183 You can donate via PayPal by clicking on the "donate" button
184 on http://www.quiss.org/swftools/index.html
186 Any financial support for this project is most welcome!