
                                  Notes: Xpdf
                                       
Package contents

   The Xpdf distribution actually contains six programs:
   
   Xpdf
          This is the actual Xwindows viewer program and therefore the
          most visible part of the distribution.
          
   pdfimages
          Pdfimages saves images from a Portable Document Format (PDF)
          file as Portable Pixmap (PPM), Portable Bitmap (PBM), or JPEG
          files.
          
   pdfinfo
          Pdfinfo prints the contents of the ŽInfo' dictionary (plus some
          other useful information) from a Portable Document Format (PDF)
          file.
          
   pdftopbm
          Pdftopbm converts Portable Document Format (PDF) files to
          black-and-white image files in Portable Bitmap (PBM) format.
          
   pdftops
          As the name implies, this filter converts a PDF document to a
          PS file suitable for printing. Graphics elements are preserved
          by this filter.
          
   pdftotext
          This program extracts the text portions of a PDF document and
          saves them to a plain ASCII file. Useful when working via slow
          lines.
          
Building

   vms_make.com makes some effort to check the compiler installation. If
   it complains about a missing C++ compiler chances are very good, that
   actually you don't have one installed. Note that C++ is an entirely
   seperate product from C, so having a C compiler installed on your
   system (which is also neccessary) does in no way imply that you also
   have C++. If you're not sure contact your system manager or drop me a
   note and we'll try to sort out things together.
   
  Parameters
  
   vms_make.com takes up to three parameters:
   
    1. Configuration settings
       
        xpm
                Enable XPM support for Xpdf. Make sure you've installed
                both the headerfiles as well as the compiled object
                library in your X11 path then. Information about the xpm
                library distribution can be found here.
                
        a4
                Use european A4 as the default paper size.
                
        japanese
                Compile Xpdf with support for Japanese fonts
                
        compress
                Use compress to decode embeded images (instead of the
                default Gzip).
                
    2. Compiler detection
       In case you want to override the automatic compiler detection
       specify either DECC or GCC as the second parameter, e.g. @vms_make
       "" GCC
    3. T1lib support
       In case you want to build a copy of xpdf with t1lib you need to
       tell the script where to find the header files and object library.
       The format of this parameter is (inc=<dir>,olb=<lib>). For use
       with Xpdf on OpenVMS t1lib 1.0.0 plus a patch is required.
       
  Sample invocation of the script
  

@vms_make xpm,a4,japanese "" -
          (inc=public$root:[xtools.libs.t1lib.lib.t1lib],olb=pubbin:t1.olb)

Decryption?!

   Having the decryption patches in Xpdf is more important than one would
   expect at first sight. Many documents use compressed PDF, which also
   needs the decryption routines to be rendered. Due to legal reasons the
   decryption code can't be distributed from the main site in the US.
   
T1lib

   The main reason why one actually needs t1lib support for Xpdf on
   OpenVMS is to correctly render rotated strings. While this is
   supported by some Xservers (e.g. XFree on Linux), it is not supported
   natively on OpenVMS (at least up to Motif 1.2.5), so one has to resort
   to using t1lib to add this capability. As a bon t1lib also should
   improve the quality of the display by using antialiasing.
   
Xresources

   Xpdf doesn't use an own Xresource file but relies on the Xresource
   information it gets from the Xserver. To set values for this process
   you can change decw$xdefaults.dat in your Xresource directory. Changes
   in this file only take effect after the next restart of the server.
   For experimenting with different settings one is better off using
   Xrdb, which allows to load new values for a running Xserver.
   If you do use t1lib with Xpdf you need to set one Xresource for each
   of the 14 well-known PDF fonts. An example for these settings can be
   found here.
   In case you don't have the needed fonts already on your system (they
   are e.g. part of Grace), you can get a copy of my t1lib font
   collection from here.


   
Special OpenVMS notes

Example

   Just in case you don't have a PDF document handy to check how Xpdf is
   working, you can fetch a copy of the VMS book from this server, which
   contains a short history of the OpenVMS operating system issued by
   Digital.
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User Notes

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   Comments to: Martin P.J. Zinser
   Last modified: 20000109
