-1.) What's the cost of swftools?
+1.) What's the price of swftools?
- SWFTools is free of charge, and is released under the GPL
- (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html).
+ SWFTools is free of charge (donations are welcome, though), and is
+ released under the GPL (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html).
-2.) How to compile/link swftools?
+2.) Where can I donate?
- Download swftools-0.4.2.tar.gz and t1lib-1.3.1.tar.gz.
+ You can donate via PayPal by clicking on the "donate" button
+ on http://www.swftools.org/donate.html
+ .
- gzip -d swftools-0.4.2.tar.gz
- gzip -d t1lib-1.3.1.tar.gz
- tar -xf t1lib-1.3.1.tar
- cd t1lib-1.3.1
- ./configure
- make
- make install
- cd ..
- tar -xf swftools-0.4.2.tar
- cd swftools-0.4.2
+3.) How to compile/link swftools on Unix/Linux/BSD?
+
+ Download swftools-0.x.x.tar.gz. Then type, on the
+ command-line:
+
+ tar -zvxf swftools-0.x.x.tar
+ cd swftools-0.x.x
./configure
make
make install
-3.) Is there a pdf2swf for Windows?
+ (you will have to be root for the last step)
+
+4.) What libraries do I need to compile swftools on Unix/Linux/BSD?
+
+ You need freetype and jpeglib to compile pdf2swf.
+ Links:
+ freetype:
+ http://www.freetype.org
+ jpeglib:
+ http://www.ijg.org/files/jpegsrc.v6b.tar.gz
+
+5.) when compiling the sourcecode version, configure doesn't find my jpeglib!
+
+ In case some of your libraries/include files are installed in /usr/local,
+ try the following:
+
+ rm -f config.cache
+ LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/lib" CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/include" ./configure
+
+ Furthermore, a new installation of jpeglib (the following assumes it's in
+ /usr/local/lib) often requires doing a
+
+ ranlib /usr/local/lib/libjpeg.a
+ ldconfig /usr/local/lib
+
+ In order to install jpeglib, it's furthermore been remarked that you need
+ to do
+ make install-lib
+ make install-headers
+ .
+
+ If it still doesn't work, try removing the file "config.cache"
+ before running configure again.
+
+6.) There are problems during compilation:
+ Error messages complain about "undefined reference to `operator new(unsigned)'"
+ as well as "undefined reference to `__gxx_personality_v0'".
+
+ Try running configure as
+
+ LDFLAGS=-lstdc++ ./configure
+
+7.) How do I compile swftools on Mac OS X?
+
+ You need to get fink (http://fink.sourceforge.net), and install it.
+ After this, you need to install all the required libs (jpeg, freetype, lame):
+
+ fink install libjpeg libjpeg-shlibs freetype2 freetype2-shlibs lame lame-shlibs
+
+ Then, you have to inform configure of where they are:
+
+ LDFLAGS="-L/sw/lib" CPPFLAGS="-I/sw/include -I/sw/include/lame" ./configure
+ make
+ sudo make install
+
+ If this doesn't work, especially if you want to use the python library and
+ get weird exceptions, try to remove all versions of jpeglib, freetype and
+ lame from /usr/lib and /usr/local/lib, and then run configure / make / make install
+ again.
+
+ If you also want to use the python interface, you may have to copy the
+ Imaging headers (Imaging.h, ImPlatform.h, ImConfig.h) to
+ /System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.3/include/python2.3/
+ before running configure.
+
+8.) Is there a pdf2swf/avi2swf for Windows?
+
+ Windows versions of all SWF utilities are downloadable from
+ http://www.quiss.org/swftools/download.html
+ .
+ (There's a self-extracting .exe version of all versions since 0.6.1,
+ and a .zip or .rar archive of the newest development snapshot)
+
+9.) Where's the source code of the Windows version?
+
+ It's the same as the Unix source code. If you want to compile
+ under Windows, it's recommended that you get the CVS version
+ of the sources.
+ You need MingW (http://www.mingw.org) to compile it.
+ When cross-compiling under Linux, e.g. the following generates the Windows .exe files:
+
+ CXX=i386-mingw32msvc-g++ CPP=i386-mingw32msvc-cpp CC=i386-mingw32msvc-gcc \
+ ./configure --host=i586-mingw32msvc && make
- No. pdf2swf only runs on Unix platforms, like Linux, *BSD, MacOS X, etc.
- There have been some successes reported on compling pdf2swf on Win32 using
- Cygwin (http://sources.redhat.com/cygwin), however, there's no working version
- yet.
- If you want to use pdf2swf, find a Unix machine.
+ For compiling on Windows itself, there's a HOWTO from Daichi Shinozaki:
+ http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/swftools-common/2005-02/msg00023.html
-4.) Is there *going to* be a pdf2swf for Windows?
+10.) The fonts in the SWFs generated by pdf2swf are wrong!
- Probably. As soon as we find the time to look into the Cygwin compile issues.
+ Watch the output of pdf2swf closely.
+ You should see something like:
-5.) Can png2swf handle transparency?
+ WARNING Font Myriad-Roman could not be loaded.
+ WARNING Try putting a TTF version of that font (named "Myriad-Roman.ttf") into /swftools/fonts
- Yes.
+ Provided you actually own the font in question (here: Myriad-Roman.ttf),
+ you can copy that fonts into your current directory and pass
+ the "-F ./" (--fontpath ./) option to pdf2swf.
+ If you use a font in several PDFs, you can also simply copy it
+ to (on Windows) C:\SWFTools\Fonts\, or (on Unix) /usr/local/share/swftools/fonts
+ to make it work all the time.
-6.) How to get Flash MX compression with SWFTools?
+11.) Can png2swf handle transparency?
+
+ Yes. It supports PNG mode 2 transparency (256 color palettes with alpha) since version 0.4.2.
+ Mode 6 (32 bit RGBA truecolor) is also supported since version 0.4.4.
+
+12.) How to do Flash MX compression with SWFTools?
Most tools support the -z flag for outputting compressed SWF.
Furthermore you can compress/uncompress SWF files using swfcombine:
- swfcombine -dz file.swf -o file_new.swf
+ swfcombine -dz file.swf -o file_new.swf
compresses, while
- swfcombine -d file.swf -o file_new.swf
+ swfcombine -d file.swf -o file_new.swf
decompresses.
-7.) Is there a mailing list for SWFTools?
+13.) avi2swf converts my avi files upside down!
- There used to be, however it was shut down due to lack of traffic. The archive
- is available as raw INBOX file on http://www.quiss.org/swftools/list.tar.gz.
+ Try using the -p (--flip) switch.
-8.) avi2swf converts my avi files upside down!
+14.) How to extract images/sounds from myfile.swf using swfextract?
- Try using the -p (--flip) switch.
+ First list all extractable items:
+
+ swfextract myfile.swf
+
+ The result is something like:
+
+ Objects in file myfile.swf:
+ [-i] 3 Shapes: ID(s) 1-3
+ [-i] 5 MovieClips: ID(s) 4, 5, 8, 10, 12
+ [-j] 3 JPEGs: ID(s) 69, 116, 447
+ [-p] 1 PNG: ID(s) 318
+ [-s] 3 Sounds: ID(s) 28-30
+ [-f] 10 Frames: ID(s) 0-10
+
+ Now you can extract a shape using
+
+ swfextract -i 2 myfile.swf -o shape.swf
+
+ a sound using
+
+ swfextract -s 28 myfile.swf -o sound.wav
+
+ a PNG image file using
+
+ swfextract -p 318 myfile.swf -o file.png
+
+ etc.
+
+15.) Is there a mailing list for SWFTools?
+
+ Yes there is. You can subscribe by going to
+
+ http://mail.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/swftools-common
+
+16.) Why didn't Matthias answer my swftools-related mail?
+
+ Currently, Matthias is getting much more mails than he can answer. It's frustrating,
+ but it's true.
+ He tries his best to at least *read* all mails he receives.
+ If you need an answer to something, it's usually more effective to post it on the
+ mailing list, though, as there are a lot of friendly users around there which may
+ have the one or other helpful tip concerning your problem.
+
+16.) When will feature/bugfix/enhancement XY be implemented?
+
+ Setting deadlines in a non-commercial, spare-time project like swftools tools is hard,
+ and keeping them is even harder, if not impossible.
+
+ Therefore, do not ask about deadlines, and you won't get fuzzy, or even wrong, answers.
+
+17.) How to compile avi2swf?
+
+ avi2swf isn't part of the swftools distribution anymore. If you want to convert avi files
+ to swf, please use either mencoder or ffmpeg:
+
+ mencoder file.avi -lavfopts i_certify_that_my_video_stream_does_not_use_b_frames \
+ -ffourcc FLV1 -oac mp3lame -of lavf -ovc lavc \
+ -lavcopts vcodec=flv:acodec=mp3:vbitrate=500:abitrate=56 -srate 22050 \
+ -o file.swf
+
+ or
+
+ ffmpeg -i video.mpg -b <bitrate> -s <X>y<Y> -pass 1 -passlogfile log_file video.flv
+ ffmpeg -i video.mpg -b <bitrate> -s <X>y<Y> -pass 2 -passlogfile log_file video.flv
+ flvtool2 -UP video.flv
+
+18.) How can I create transparent SWFs from PDFs?
+
+ Run pdf2swf as usual, and then, on the resulting file, execute:
+
+ swfextract -i 3- file.swf -o file.swf
+
+19.) How can I convert SWF frames to bitmap?
+ There's a "swfrender" utility in the CVS, which isn't finished yet,
+ and will only work for *very* simple SWF files. (No Actionscript, no
+ gradient fills, no morph shapes, no blending modes, no filters, etc.)
+ Probably other Flash Open-Source projects (like Gnash) have some
+ more sophisticated utilities for this. (One user reported that
+ swfdec (http://swfdec.freedesktop.org/wiki/) and pyswfdec
+ (http://www.gnome.org/~gianmt) work good)
+ If you find other tools that work, I'd like to know about it.
+ Please mail me at kramm@quiss.org.