Cannot make "pdftoipe.exe" and "poweripe.exe"

[MasahiroMae]

In my environment, I cannot make "pdftoipe.exe" and "poweripe.exe".
Are there any plans to distribute Windows binary exe files of these tools for Windows users?

[otfried]

I do not know how to build these on Windows.

Pdftoipe uses the poppler library, which got many changes lately and I no longer know how to compile it on Windows.

Poweripe is actually a Python script, but it relies on the Python module "ipepython". I don't know how to compile Python modules for Windows (and this one is particularly tricky, since it needs to link against both the Lua and the Ipe libraries).

Maybe some expert can solve these problems...

I have no plan to figure this out myself, so I can only suggest you use a Linux live image or run WSL (the Windows subsystem for Linux, part of Windows 10).

A working pdftoipe.exe is in older versions of the Ipe download (maybe 7.2.14?).

[MasahiroMae]

Thank you for telling me detailed discussions.
As you say above, this may be a difficult problem.

I think that a standalone "exe" file is very useful for many Windows users and I am now trying to make "poweripe.exe" file with e.g. pyinstaller.
However, I cannot make these exe files now because of some troubles around Anaconda, lua, and libipe as you said above.

Now, I am trying to use poweripe with WSL (Bash on Ubuntu on Windows).
I succeeded in converting "demo-presentation.ipe" file, but I cannot convert other my ipe files.
Error messages are "There were Latex errors." and "FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'tmpipe1.png'".
If you have an idea, please give me some advice.

I am now using "pdftoipe.exe" taken from an older version of Ipe.
Thanks.

[otfried]

If you can send me an Ipe file that does not work with poweripe.py, then I'll try to fix it. (My email is in the readme file.)

You used the right version of my python-pptx repository (you need to get the svg-pictures branch from https://github.com/otfried/python-pptx/tree/svg-pictures) ?

[MasahiroMae]

I downloaded "python-pptx-svg-pictures" as you instructed.

I will send my ipe file to your e-mail address. Thanks.

[otfried]

I've tried the file you sent, and the conversion worked.

Note that poweripe.py calls iperender to produce SVG and PNG files. It seems that failed on your computer.

Can you check that you can call pdflatex from the bash command line? You may have to add the directory where pdflatex.exe is to your path.

[MasahiroMae]

Thank you for checking my ipe file.
From your test result, my environment is not completed.

How iperender is called by poweripe.py?
Are any path setting of libipe needed?

I cheched pdflatex of my WSL environment. The result is as follows:

$ pdflatex -v
pdfTeX 3.14159265-2.6-1.40.16 (TeX Live 2015/Debian)
kpathsea version 6.2.1
Copyright 2015 Peter Breitenlohner (eTeX)/Han The Thanh (pdfTeX).
There is NO warranty. Redistribution of this software is
covered by the terms of both the pdfTeX copyright and
the Lesser GNU General Public License.
For more information about these matters, see the file
named COPYING and the pdfTeX source.
Primary author of pdfTeX: Peter Breitenlohner (eTeX)/Han The Thanh (pdfTeX).
Compiled with libpng 1.6.17; using libpng 1.6.17
Compiled with zlib 1.2.8; using zlib 1.2.8
Compiled with poppler version 0.41.0

[otfried]

For all the parts of the Ipe presentation that it cannot translate directly into Powerpoint, poweripe creates a temporary Ipe file. The first one will be called tmpipe1.ipe. You should be able to see it in the directory.

Then it will call iperender -png and iperender -svg to convert tmpipe1.ipe into PNG and SVG format, which it then uses to embed into the Powerpoint file.

So you can just open tmpipe1.ipe with Ipe, and check why the Latex conversion fails. Or from the command line, say

iperender -png tmpipe1.ipe

[otfried]

On my system, actually it now failed because I don't have lmodern.sty installed...

[MasahiroMae]

I changed the style sheets of my ipe file as simple with "standerd", "basic", and "slide".
My original isy file "slide" is as follows:

\arabic{ipePage}/\arabic{ipePages} \renewcommand\familydefault{\sfdefault}

With this file, poweripe is working well.
Maybe some of LaTeX preamble makes it worse and error is occur in pdflatex.

If I detect which LaTeX package is a problem, I will inform you. Thanks.

[MasahiroMae]

I found what is a problem.
Maybe, LaTeX package which is not installed causes a compile problem when iperender calls pdflatex.

I usually use latex on windows with texlive 2018 and LaTeX environment of WSL is texlive 2015.
This is why I trouble in using poweripe.

Now, poweripe works well on my WSL environment. Thank you for your kind help.

[otfried]

In principle you do not need to install Latex again on WSL if you already have it on Windows.

One way to use the Windows installation is to put a small bash-script called pdflatex in /usr/local/bin with contents:

#!/bin/bash
/mnt/c/texlive/2018/bin/win32/pdflatex.exe $*

Then you can say pdflatex file.tex on the command line in WSL and it will use the Windows texlive installation.

[MasahiroMae]

Thank you for your advice.
The size of texlive packages is big.
Therefore, it is maybe a better way to use the same texlive environment in Windows and WSL.

I am working toward making a standalone exe file of poweripe.
Now, I have some trouble in installing ipepython to Anaconda3.
When I input setup.py build and setup.py install --user to Anaconda Prompt, there is no output message.

Are there any environmental dependences to Linux in the installer of ipepython?

[otfried]

To compile ipepython, one needs to have access to the basic Ipe library (ipe.dll) and the Lua 5.3 library, so one needs to have compatible compiled versions of the libraries and the header files. Can Anaconda actually handle C++ compilation? How do you provide these libraries to the compilation process?

[MasahiroMae]

The files of libipe and Lua5.3 are copied from WSL.
However, I don't know that these header files also work on the Windows 10 environment.

I guess that C++ compiler of MinGW is called from Anaconda 3.
However, I don't know that it works well or not.

[otfried]

I've finally got pdftoipe to compile on Windows again.

Here is the current version:

pdftoipe-20200909.zip

I'll include it again in Windows releases from now on.