Install swftools in Ubuntu / Linux

When I Installed swftools version 0.9.0 I got an error saying

make[1]: Entering directory `/home/ubuntu/swftools-0.9.0/swfs'
/bin/bash ../mkinstalldirs /usr/local/share/swftools
/bin/bash ../mkinstalldirs /usr/local/share/swftools/swfs
/usr/bin/install -c -m 644 ./simple_viewer.swf /usr/local/share/swftools/swfs/simple_viewer.swf
/usr/bin/install: cannot stat `./simple_viewer.swf': No such file or directory
make[1]: *** [install] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/ubuntu/swftools-0.9.0/swfs'
make: *** [install] Error 2

So I tried the version 0.9.1 and its done for me,

The Steps I followed is given below

Get necessary libraries and extract

  $ wget http://swftools.org/swftools-0.9.1.tar.gz
  $ tar -zvxf swftools-0.9.1.tar.gz
  $ wget http://www.ijg.org/files/jpegsrc.v7.tar.gz
  $ tar -zvxf jpegsrc.v7.tar.gz
  $ wget http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases-noredirect/freetype/freetype-2.3.12.tar.gz
  $ tar -zvxf freetype-2.3.12.tar.gz

Now order of installation. First we install jpeg:

  $ cd jpegsrc.v7
  $ sudo ./configure
  $ sudo make
  $ sudo make install

Freetype is a little trickier. For installation you have to reset cache, set flags, run ranlib (not sure why but it wouldn’t work for me without this, if you know I’d love the explanation)

  $ cd freetype-2.3.12
  $ rm -f config.cache 
  $ sudo ranlib /usr/local/lib/libjpeg.a
  $ sudo ldconfig /usr/local/lib
  $ sudo LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/lib" CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/include" ./configure
  $ sudo make
  $ sudo make install

If you want to be able to convert pdf files into text you have to install xpdf. Fortunately aptitude does provide us with the right libraries this time.

$ sudo apt-get install xpdf-reader

And now for the final step

  $ cd swftools-0.9.1
  $ sudo LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/lib" CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/include" ./configure
  $ sudo make
  $ sudo make install

References:
https://designbye.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/installing-swftools-and-pdf2swf-on-ubuntu-linux/

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Author: Abhilash

Hi, I’m Abhilash! A seasoned web developer with 15 years of experience specializing in Ruby and Ruby on Rails. Since 2010, I’ve built scalable, robust web applications and worked with frameworks like Angular, Sinatra, Laravel, Node.js, Vue and React. Passionate about clean, maintainable code and continuous learning, I share insights, tutorials, and experiences here. Let’s explore the ever-evolving world of web development together!

2 thoughts on “Install swftools in Ubuntu / Linux”

  1. thank you so much, I’ve been fighting with swftools for the past three days and this seems to be the first solution out of many that has worked. Who would have thought that 0.9.1 is what I needed instead of 0.9.0

    Reply

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