1.) What's the cost of swftools? SWFTools is free of charge, and is released under the GPL (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html). 2.) How to compile/link swftools on Unix/Linux/BSD? Download swftools-0.x.x.tar.gz and t1lib-1.3.1.tar.gz. gzip -d swftools-0.x.x.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.x.x.tar cd swftools-0.x.x ./configure make make install 3.) What libraries do I need to compile swftools on Unix/Linux/BSD? You need t1lib and jpeglib to compile pdf2swf. Links: t1lib: ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/linux/libs/graphics/t1lib-1.3.1.tar.gz t1lib (mirrored here): http://www.quiss.org/swftools/t1lib-1.3.1.tar.gz jpeglib: http://www.ijg.org/files/jpegsrc.v6b.tar.gz Furthermore, if you want to compile avi2swf, you need the avifile library: http://avifile.sourceforge.net . 4.) when compiling the sourcecode version, configure doesn't find my jpeglib / my t1lib! 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 If it still doesn't work, try removing the file "config.cache" before running configure again. 5.) 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 6.) Is there a pdf2swf for Windows? Windows versions of all SWF utilities (except for avi2swf) are downloadable from http://www.quiss.org/swftools/download.html . Notice: For now, the utilities need to be installed to C:\SWFTOOLS to make pdf2swf work- otherwise it won't be able to find it's fonts. 7.) The fonts in the SWFs generated by pdf2swf are wrong! Watch the output of pdf2swf closely. You should see something like: WARNING Font Myriad-Roman could not be loaded. WARNING Try putting a TTF version of that font (named "Myriad-Roman.ttf") into /swftools/fonts 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 page 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. 8.) Can png2swf handle transparency? 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. 9.) 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 compresses, while swfcombine -d file.swf -o file_new.swf decompresses. 10.) avi2swf converts my avi files upside down! Try using the -p (--flip) switch. 11.) How to extract images/sounds from myfile.swf using swfextract? First list all extractable items: swfextract myfile.swf The result is something like: Objects in file myfile.swf: 3 Shapes: ID(s) 1-3 5 MovieClips: ID(s) 4, 5, 8, 10, 12 3 JPEGs: ID(s) 69, 116, 447 1 PNG: ID(s) 318 3 Sounds: ID(s) 28-30 10 Frames: ID(s) 0-10 Not 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. 12.) Is there a mailing list for SWFTools? Yes there is. You can subscribe by going to http://mail.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/swftools-common