README for pdfcrop 2002/10/30 v1.0

TABLE OF CONTENTS
=================
A. Description
B. Copyright, Disclaimer, License
C. Files
D. Requirements
E. Installation
F. User Interface
G. Author
H. Acknowledgement
I. Questions, Suggested Improvements
J. Known Problems
K. History
L. ToDo

A. DESCRIPTION
==============
PDFCROP takes a PDF file as input, calculates the BoundingBox
for each page by the help of ghostscript and generates a output
PDF file with removed margins.

B. COPYRIGHT, DISCLAIMER, LICENSE
=================================
Copyright (C) 2002 Heiko Oberdiek.

This program may be distributed and/or modified under the
conditions of the LaTeX Project Public License, either version 1.2
of this license or (at your option) any later version.
The latest version of this license is in
  http://www.latex-project.org/lppl.txt
and version 1.2 or later is part of all distributions of LaTeX
version 1999/12/01 or later.

C. FILES
========
The project `pdfcrop' consists of two files:
pdfcrop(.pl): This perl script is the main program. The extension
              `.pl' may be omitted.
README:       Documentation, the file you are reading.

Following temporary files are produced if `pdfcrop' is invoked:
tmp-pdfcrop-*.tex:  input file for pdfTeX
tmp-pdfcrop-*.log:  log file of pdfTeX run
tmp-pdfcrop-*.pdf:  result after pdfTeX run

D. REQUIREMENTS
===============
* Perl5 (version 5 of the perl interpreter).
* Ghostscript:
* pdfTeX, version >= 1.0 (because of page selecting and \pdfximage syntax)
* A unix like environement is needed (Unix, cygwin, ...).
  The output of ghostscript's device bbox is written to STDERR, so
  the script has to capture STDERR. Easy under Unix, but how this
  can be done under DOS/Windows/...?

E. INSTALLATION
===============

1. Perl script `pdfcrop.pl':

   Unix
   * It is allowed to rename `pdfcrop.pl' to `pdfcrop':
       mv pdfcrop.pl pdfcrop
   * Ensure that the execute permission is set:
       chmod +x pdfcrop
   * Move the file to a directory where the shell can find it
     (environment variable PATH, e.g. /usr/local/bin/).

   Dos/Windows/(OS2)
   * See requirements. I do not expect that the perl script
     run under DOS or Windows. With cygwin it can work however.

2. Documentation `README':

   Copy it to an appropriate place, for example
   `/usr/local/share/doc/pdfcrop/README'.
   I is allowed to rename it to `pdfcrop.txt'.

F. USER INTERFACE
=================
* Online help:
    pdfcrop --help

G. AUTHOR
=========
Heiko Oberdiek
Email: oberdiek@uni-freiburg.de

H. ACKNOLEDGEMENT
=================
Anthony Williams

I. QUESTIONS, SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENTS
====================================
If you have questions, problems with `pdfcrop', error reports,
if you have improvements or want to have additional features,
please send them to the author.

My environment for developing and testing:
* linux, SuSE 7.2
* perl v5.6.0
* pdfTeX 3.14159-1.00b-pretest-20020211-HO20020802
* Ghostscript 5.50, 6.51, 7.x

J. KNOWN PROBLEMS
=================

K. HISTORY
==========
2002/10/30 v1.0: First release
2002/10/30 v1.1: Option --hires added.
2002/11/04 v1.2: "nul" instead of "/dev/null" for windows.

L. TODO
=======
* Description of user interface.
* Documentation in other formats, eg. man or info pages.
* Improved error checking.