Subject: Announcing Pconvert 1.00 (RSN on CPAN)
From: Ulrich Pfeifer <[email-masked]>
Date: 12 Apr 1996 23:54:59 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl.announce,comp.lang.perl.misc

Does this look familiar to you:

You have a TIFF image from your scanner and want to convert it to a
GIF image to place it on your http server. You don't have a
TIFF-to-GIF converter.  But you have the PPM-tools which contain a
TIFF-to-PPM converter and a PPM-to-GIF converter. So you start:

   ,-----
   | % tifftoppm ls6.tif | ppmtogif > ls6.gif
   | tifftoppm: Command not found.
   | ppmtogif: Command not found.
   `-----
   
   Oops. Forgott to set the path.
   
   ,-----
   | % set path = ($path /usr/local/image-tools/bin)
   | % tifftoppm ls6.tif | ppmtogif > ls6.gif
   | tifftoppm: Command not found.
   | ppmtogif: EOF / read error reading magic number
   `-----
   
   Grmbl! Must be called 'tifftopnm'.
   
   ,-----
   | % tifftopnm ls6.tif | ppmtogif > ls6.gif
   | tifftopnm: writing PPM file
   | ppmtogif: computing colormap...
   | ppmtogif: too many colors - try doing a 'ppmquant 256'
   `-----
   
   OK. We will ppmquant.
   
   ,-----
   | % tifftopnm ls6.tif | ppmtogif | ppmquant 256 > ls6.gif
   | tifftopnm: writing PPM file
   | ppmtogif: computing colormap...
   | ppmtogif: too many colors - try doing a 'ppmquant 256'
   | ppmquant: EOF / read error reading magic number
   `-----

Been there done that?

Then Pconvert is for you! Yust do:

   ,-----
   | % pconvert -to gif ls6.tif
   `-----

Pconvert uses a set of known filters and file types and generates the
pipe for you. It looks up the programs paths and ensures that only
filters present on your system are used to generate plans. It does not
only know about GIF, TIFF, P?M. It also knows POD, MAN, PS
(Postscript), DVI, DIR (directories), TAR and MANIFEST (distributions
defined by a MANIFEST file).

So lean back and let Pconvert convert a POD-file to a TIFF image if
you want.

Pconvert is not (yet) a Perl module. But it comes with the usual
Makefile.PL.

So get it from CPAN/autors/id/ULPFR/Pconvert-1.00.tar.gz.

Unpack it somewhere,

   ,-----
   | gzip -cd Pconvert-1.00.tar.gz | tar xf -
   `-----

build the Makefile,

   ,-----
   | perl Makefile.PL
   `-----

extract the script with proper bang line,

   ,-----
   | make
   `-----

and install it.

   ,-----
   | make install
   `-----

Enjoy.

Ulrich Pfeifer <[email-masked]>
--
@J = split //,"J!k Phau^eHeens%rarrot&\ncl t ";
for(0..24){print $J[$_*7%($#J+1)]}