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[Download & Unpack • Configure • Build • Install • Linux-specific Build Instructions • Mac OS X-specific Build Instructions • MinGW-specific Build Instructions • Dealing with Unexpected Problems]

It's possible you don't want to concern yourself with advanced installation under Unix or Linux systems. If so, you also have the option of installing a pre-compiled binary release or if you still want to install from source without all the fuss see the simple Install From Source instructions. However, if you want to customize the configuration and installation of ImageMagick under Unix or Linux systems, lets begin.

ImageMagick builds on a variety of Unix and Unix-like operating systems including Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, and others. A compiler is required and fortunately almost all modern Unix systems have one. Download ImageMagick.tar.gz from ftp.imagemagick.org or its mirrors and verify the distribution against its message digest.

Unpack the distribution it with this command:

  tar xvfz ImageMagick.tar.gz

Now that you have the ImageMagick Unix/Linux source distribution unpacked, let's configure it.

The configure script looks at your environment and decides what it can cobble together to get ImageMagick compiled and installed on your system. This includes finding a compiler, where your compiler header files are located (e.g. stdlib.h), and if any delegate libraries are available for ImageMagick to use (e.g. JPEG, PNG, TIFF, etc.). If you are willing to accept configure's default options, and build from within the source directory, you can simply type:

  cd ImageMagick-6.4.8
  ./configure

Watch the configure script output to verify that it finds everything that you think it should. Pay particular attention to the last lines of the script output. For example, here is what our system reports:

ImageMagick is configured as follows. Please verify that this configuration
matches your expectations.

Host system type: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
Build system type: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu

                  Option                     Value
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shared libraries  --enable-shared=yes		yes
Static libraries  --enable-static=yes		yes
Module support    --with-modules=yes		yes
GNU ld            --with-gnu-ld=yes		yes
Quantum depth     --with-quantum-depth=16	16
High Dynamic Range Imagery
                  --enable-hdri=no		no

Delegate Configuration:
BZLIB             --with-bzlib=yes		yes
Autotrace         --with-autotrace=yes	yes
DJVU              --with-djvu=yes		no
DPS               --with-dps=yes		no
FlashPIX          --with-fpx=yes		no
FontConfig        --with-fontconfig=yes	yes
FreeType          --with-freetype=yes		yes
GhostPCL          None			pcl6 (unknown)
GhostXPS          None			gxps (unknown)
Ghostscript       None			gs (8.63)
result_ghostscript_font_dir='none'
Ghostscript fonts --with-gs-font-dir=default	
Ghostscript lib   --with-gslib=yes		no (failed tests)
Graphviz          --with-gvc=yes		yes
JBIG              --with-jbig=		no
JPEG v1           --with-jpeg=yes		yes
JPEG-2000         --with-jp2=yes		yes
LCMS              --with-lcms=yes		yes
LQR               --with-lqr=yes		no
Magick++          --with-magick-plus-plus=yes	yes
OpenEXR           --with-openexr=yes		yes
PERL              --with-perl=yes		/usr/bin/perl
PNG               --with-png=yes		yes
RSVG              --with-rsvg=yes		yes
TIFF              --with-tiff=yes		yes
result_windows_font_dir='none'
Windows fonts     --with-windows-font-dir=	
WMF               --with-wmf=yes		yes
X11               --with-x=			yes
XML               --with-xml=yes		yes
ZLIB              --with-zlib=yes		yes

X11 Configuration:
      X_CFLAGS        = 
      X_PRE_LIBS      = -lSM -lICE
      X_LIBS          = 
      X_EXTRA_LIBS    = 

Options used to compile and link:
  PREFIX          = /usr/local
  EXEC-PREFIX     = /usr/local
  VERSION         = 6.4.8
  CC              = gcc -std=gnu99
  CFLAGS          = -fopenmp -g -O2 -Wall -W -pthread
  MAGICK_CFLAGS   = -fopenmp -g -O2 -Wall -W -pthread
  CPPFLAGS        = -I/usr/local/include/ImageMagick
  PCFLAGS         = -fopenmp
  DEFS            = -DHAVE_CONFIG_H
  LDFLAGS         = -lfreetype
  MAGICK_LDFLAGS  = -L/usr/local/lib -lfreetype
  LIBS            = -lMagickCore -llcms -ltiff -lfreetype -ljpeg -lfontconfig -lXext
                    -lSM -lICE -lX11 -lXt -lbz2 -lz -lm -lgomp -lpthread -lltdl
  CXX             = g++
  CXXFLAGS        = -g -O2 -Wall -W -pthread

You can influence choice of compiler, compilation flags, or libraries of the configure script by setting initial values for variables in the configure command line. These include, among others:

CC
Name of C compiler (e.g. cc -Xa) to use.
CXX
Name of C++ compiler to use (e.g. CC).
CFLAGS
Compiler flags (e.g. -g -O2) to compile C code.
CXXFLAGS
Compiler flags (e.g. -g -O2) to compile C++ code.
CPPFLAGS
Include paths (.e.g. -I/usr/local) to look for header files.
LDFLAGS
Library paths (.e.g. -L/usr/local) to look for libraries systems that support the notion of a library run-path may require an additional argument in order to find shared libraries at run time. For example, the Solaris linker requires an argument of the form -R/path. Some Linux systems will work with -rpath /usr/local/lib, while some other Linux systems who's gcc does not pass -rpath to the linker, require an argument of the form -Wl,-rpath,/usr/local/lib.
LIBS
Extra libraries (.e.g. -l/usr/local/lib) required to link.

Here is an example of setting configure variables from the command line:

  ./configure CC=c89 CFLAGS=-O2 LIBS=-lposix

Any variable (e.g. CPPFLAGS or LDFLAGS) which requires a directory path must specify an absolute path rather than a relative path.

Configure can usually find the X include and library files automatically, but if it doesn't, you can use the --x-includes=path and --x-libraries=path options to specify their locations.

The configure script provides a number of ImageMagick specific options. When disabling an option --disable-something is equivalent to specifying --enable-something=no and --without-something is equivalent to --with-something=no. The configure options are as follows (execute configure --help to see all options).

ImageMagick options represent either features to be enabled, disabled, or packages to be included in the build. When a feature is enabled (via --enable-something), it enables code already present in ImageMagick. When a package is enabled (via --with-something), the configure script will search for it, and if is properly installed and ready to use (headers and built libraries are found by compiler) it will be included in the build. The configure script is delivered with all features disabled and all packages enabled. In general, the only reason to disable a package is if a package exists but it is unsuitable for the build (perhaps an old version or not compiled with the right compilation flags).

Here are the optional features you can configure:

--enable-shared
build the shared libraries and support for loading coder and process modules. Shared libraries are preferred because they allow programs to share common code, making the individual programs much smaller. In addition shared libraries are required in order for PerlMagick to be dynamically loaded by an installed PERL (otherwise an additional PERL (PerlMagick) must be installed.


ImageMagick built with delegates (see MAGICK PLUG-INS below) can pose additional challenges. If ImageMagick is built using static libraries (the default without --enable-shared) then delegate libraries may be built as either static libraries or shared libraries. However, if ImageMagick is built using shared libraries, then all delegate libraries must also be built as shared libraries. Static libraries usually have the extension .a, while shared libraries typically have extensions like .so, .sa, or .dll. Code in shared libraries normally must compiled using a special compiler option to produce Position Independent Code (PIC). The only time this not necessary is if the platform compiles code as PIC by default.


PIC compilation flags differ from vendor to vendor (gcc's is -fPIC). However, you must compile all shared library source with the same flag (for gcc use -fPIC rather than -fpic). While static libraries are normally created using an archive tool like ar, shared libraries are built using special linker or compiler options (e.g. -shared for gcc).


If --enable-shared is not specified, a new PERL interpreter (PerlMagick) is built which is statically linked against the PerlMagick extension. This new interpreter is installed into the same directory as the ImageMagick utilities. If --enable-shared is specified, the PerlMagick extension is built as a dynamically loadable object which is loaded into your current PERL interpreter at run-time. Use of dynamically-loaded extensions is preferable over statically linked extensions so use --enable-shared if possible (note that all libraries used with ImageMagick must be shared libraries!).
--disable-static
static archive libraries (with extension .a) are not built. If you are building shared libraries, there is little value to building static libraries. Reasons to build static libraries include: 1) they can be easier to debug; 2) clients do not have external dependencies (i.e. libMagick.so); 3) building PIC versions of the delegate libraries may take additional expertise and effort; 4) you are unable to build shared libraries.
--disable-installed
disable building an installed ImageMagick (default enabled).


By default the ImageMagick build is configured to formally install into a directory tree. This the most secure and reliable way to install ImageMagick. Use this option to configure ImageMagick so that it doesn't use hard-coded paths and locates support files by computing an offset path from the executable (or from the location specified by the MAGICK_HOME environment variable. The uninstalled configuration is ideal for binary distributions which are expected to extract and run in any location.
--enable-ccmalloc
enable 'ccmalloc' memory debug support (default disabled).
--enable-prof
enable 'prof' profiling support (default disabled).
--enable-gprof
enable 'gprof' profiling support (default disabled).
--enable-gcov
enable 'gcov' profiling support (default disabled).
--disable-openmp
disable OpenMP (default enabled).


Certain ImageMagick algorithms, for example convolution, can achieve a significant speed-up with the assistance of the OpenMP API when running on modern dual and quad-core processors.
--disable-largefile
disable support for large (64 bit) file offsets.


By default, ImageMagick is compiled with support for large files (> 2GB on a 32-bit CPU) if the operating system supports large files. Some applications which use the ImageMagick library may also require support for large files. By disabling support for large files via --disable-largefile, dependent applications do not require special compilation options for large files in order to use the library.

Here are the optional packages you can configure:

--with-quantum-depth
number of bits in a pixel quantum (default 16).


Use this option to specify the number of bits to use per pixel quantum (the size of the red, green, blue, and alpha pixel components). For example, --with-quantum-depth=8 builds ImageMagick using 8-bit quantums. Most computer display adapters use 8-bit quantums. Currently supported arguments are 8, 16, or 32. We recommend the default of 16 because some image formats support 16 bits-per-pixel. However, this option is important in determining the overall run-time performance of ImageMagick.


The number of bits in a quantum determines how many values it may contain. Each quantum level supports 256 times as many values as the previous level. The following table shows the range available for various quantum sizes.



  Quantum Depth  Valid Range (Decimal)  Valid Range (Hex)
      8             0-255                  00-FF
     16             0-65535                0000-FFFF
     32             0-4294967295           00000000-FFFFFFFF
  



Larger pixel quantums can cause ImageMagick to run more slowly and to require more memory. For example, using sixteen-bit pixel quantums can cause ImageMagick to run 15% to 50% slower (and take twice as much memory) than when it is built to support eight-bit pixel quantums.


The amount of virtual memory consumed by an image can be computed by the equation (5 * Quantum Depth * Rows * Columns) / 8. This an important consideration when resources are limited, particularly since processing an image may require several images to be in memory at one time. The following table shows memory consumption values for a 1024x768 image:

  Quantum Depth   Virtual Memory
       8               3MB
      16               8MB
      32              15MB
  

--enable-hdri
accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels (experimental).
--enable-osx-universal-binary
build a universal binary on OS X.
--without-modules


disable support for dynamically loadable modules.


Image coders and process modules are built as loadable modules which are installed under the directory [prefix]/lib/ImageMagick-X.X.X/modules-QN (where 'N' equals 8, 16, or 32 depending on the quantum depth) in the subdirectories coders and filters respectively. The modules build option is only available in conjunction with --enable-shared. If --enable-shared is not also specified, support for building modules is disabled. Note that if --enable-shared and --disable-modules are specified, the module loader is active (allowing extending an installed ImageMagick by simply copying a module into place) but ImageMagick itself is not built using modules.
--with-cache
set pixel cache threshold (defaults to available memory).


Specify a different image pixel cache threshold with this option. This sets the maximum amount of heap memory that ImageMagick is allowed to consume before switching to using memory-mapped temporary files to store raw pixel data.
--without-threads
disable threads support.


By default, the ImageMagick library is compiled with multi-thread support. If this undesirable, specify --without-threads.
--with-frozenpaths
enable frozen delegate paths.


Normally, external program names are substituted into the delegates.xml configuration file without full paths. Specify this option to enable saving full paths to programs using locations determined by configure. This useful for environments where programs are stored under multiple paths, and users may use different PATH settings than the person who builds ImageMagick.
--without-magick-plus-plus
disable build/install of Magick++.


Disable building Magick++, the C++ application programming interface to ImageMagick. A suitable C++ compiler is required in order to build Magick++. Specify the CXX configure variable to select the C++ compiler to use (default g++), and CXXFLAGS to select the desired compiler optimization and debug flags (default -g -O2). Antique C++ compilers will normally be rejected by configure tests so specifying this option should only be necessary if Magick++ fails to compile.
--without-perl
disable build/install of PerlMagick, or


By default, PerlMagick is conveniently compiled and installed as part of ImageMagick's normal configure, make, make install process. When --without-perl is specified, you must first install ImageMagick, change to the PerlMagick subdirectory, build, and finally install PerlMagick. Note, PerlMagick is configured even if --without-perl is specified. If the argument --with-perl=/path/to/perl is supplied, /../path/to/perl is be taken as the PERL interpreter to use. This important in case the perl executable in your PATH is not PERL5, or is not the PERL you want to use.
--with-perl=PERL
use specified Perl binary to configure PerlMagick.
--with-perl-options=OPTIONS
options to pass on command-line when generating PerlMagick's Makefile from Makefile.PL.


The PerlMagick module is normally installed using the Perl interpreter's installation PREFIX, rather than ImageMagick's. If ImageMagick's installation prefix is not the same as PERL's PREFIX, then you may find that PerlMagick's 'make install' step tries to install into a directory tree that you don't have write permissions to. This common when PERL is delivered with the operating system or on Internet Service Provider (ISP) web servers. If you want PerlMagick to install elsewhere, then provide a PREFIX option to PERL's configuration step via "--with-perl-options=PREFIX=/some/place". Other options accepted by MakeMaker are 'LIB', 'LIBPERL_A', 'LINKTYPE', and 'OPTIMIZE'. See the ExtUtils::MakeMaker(3) manual page for more information on configuring PERL extensions.
--without-bzlib
disable BZLIB support.
--without-dps
disable Display Postscript support.
--with-fpx
enable FlashPIX support.
--without-freetype
disable TrueType support.
--with-gslib
enable Ghostscript library support.
--without-jbig
disable JBIG support.
--without-jpeg
disable JPEG support.
--without-jp2
disable JPEG v2 support.
--without-lcms
disable LCMS support.
--without-png
disable PNG support.
--without-tiff
disable TIFF support.
--without-wmf
disable WMF support.
--with-fontpath
prepend to default font search path.
--with-gs-font-dir
directory containing Ghostscript fonts.


Specify the directory containing the Ghostscript Postscript Type 1 font files (e.g. n022003l.pfb) so that they can be rendered using the FreeType library. If the font files are installed using the default Ghostscript installation paths (${prefix}/share/ghostwww/fonts), they should be discovered automatically by configure and specifying this option is not necessary. Specify this option if the Ghostscript fonts fail to be located automatically, or the location needs to be overridden.
--with-windows-font-dir
directory containing MS-Windows fonts.
Specify the directory containing MS-Windows-compatible fonts. This not necessary when ImageMagick is running under MS-Windows.
--without-xml
disable XML support.
--without-zlib
disable ZLIB support.
--without-x
don't use the X Window System.
By default, ImageMagick uses the X11 delegate libraries if they are available. When --without-x is specified, use of X11 is disabled. The display, animate, and import sub-commands are not included. The remaining sub-commands have reduced functionality such as no access to X11 fonts (consider using Postscript or TrueType fonts instead).
--with-share-path=DIR
Alternate path to share directory (default share/ImageMagick).
--with-libstdc=DIR
use libstdc++ in DIR (for GNU C++).

While configure is designed to ease installation of ImageMagick, it often discovers problems that would otherwise be encountered later when compiling ImageMagick. The configure script tests for headers and libraries by executing the compiler (CC) with the specified compilation flags (CFLAGS), pre-processor flags (CPPFLAGS), and linker flags (LDFLAGS). Any errors are logged to the file config.log. If configure fails to discover a header or library please review this log file to determine why, however, please be aware that *errors in the config.log are normal* because configure works by trying something and seeing if it fails. An error in config.log is only a problem if the test should have passed on your system.

Common causes of configure failures are: 1) a delegate header is not in the header include path (CPPFLAGS -I option); 2) a delegate library is not in the linker search/run path (LDFLAGS -L/-R option); 3) a delegate library is missing a function (old version?); or 4) compilation environment is faulty.

If all reasonable corrective actions have been tried and the problem appears be due to a flaw in the configure script, please send a bug report to the ImageMagick Defect Support Forum. All bug reports should contain the operating system type (as reported by uname -a) and the compiler/compiler-version. A copy of the configure script output and/or the relevant portion of config.log file may be valuable in order to find the problem. If you post portions of config.log, please also send a script of the configure output and a description of what you expected to see (and why) so the failure you are observing can be identified and resolved.

ImageMagick is now configured and ready to build

Once ImageMagick is configured, these standard build targets are available from the generated make files:

make
build ImageMagick.
make install
install ImageMagick.
make check
Run tests using the installed ImageMagick (make install must be done first).
make clean
Remove everything in the build directory created by make.
make distclean
remove everything in the build directory created by configure and make. This useful if you want to start over from scratch.
make uninstall
Remove all files from the system which are (or would be) installed by make install using the current configuration. Note that this target is imperfect for PerlMagick since Perl no longer supports an uninstall target.

In most cases you will simply wand to compile ImageMagick with this command:

  make

Once built, you can optionally install ImageMagick on your system as discussed below.

Now that ImageMagick is configured and built, type:

  make install

to install it.

By default, ImageMagick is installs binaries in /../usr/local/bin, libraries in /../usr/local/lib, header files in /../usr/local/include and documentation in /../usr/local/share. You can specify an alternative installation prefix other than /../usr/local by giving configure the option --prefix=PATH. This valuable in case you don't have privileges to install under the default paths or if you want to install in the system directories instead.

To confirm your installation of the ImageMagick distribution was successful, ensure that the installation directory is in your executable search path and type:

  display

The ImageMagick logo is displayed on your X11 display.

To verify the ImageMagick build configuration, type:

  identify -list configure

To list which image formats are supported , type:

  identify -list format

For a more comprehensive test, you run the ImageMagick test suite by typing:

  make check

Note that due to differences between the developer's environment and your own it is possible that a few tests may fail even though the results are ok. Differences between the developer's environment environment and your own may include the compiler, the CPU type, and the library versions used. The ImageMagick developers use the current release of all dependent libraries.

Download ImageMagick.src.rpm from ftp.imagemagick.org or its mirrors and verify the distribution against its message digest.

Build ImageMagick with this command:

  rpmbuild --rebuild ImageMagick.src.rpm

After the build you, locate the RPMS folder and install the ImageMagick binary RPM distribution:

  rpm -ivh ImageMagick-6.4.8-?.*.rpm

Perform these steps as an administrator or with the sudo command:

• Install Fink. The default setup creates a /sw folder on your main hard drive. Make sure /sw/bin is in your path.
• Install the latest Xcode from Apple.
• Create a symbolic link in /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.5.sdk/ to /sw:

  cd /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.5.sdk
  ln -s sw /sw

• Use Fink, or FinkCommander to install any delegate libraries you require, for example:

  fink install libjpeg

As a regular user or administrator:

• Download the ImageMagick source distribution and verify the distribution against its message digest.
• Unpack and change into the top-level ImageMagick directory:

  tar xvfz ImageMagick-6.4.8-0.tar.gz
  cd ImageMagick-6.4.8

• Choose an architecture and set your CFLAGS environment variable. Here we set CFLAGS for an Intel build:

  export CFLAGS="-O -g -isysroot /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.5.sdk/ -arch i386 -I/sw/include/"

• Set your LDFLAGS environment variable to:

  export LDFLAGS="-Wl,-syslibroot,/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.5.sdk/,-L/sw/lib/"

• Configure ImageMagick:

  ./configure --prefix=/sw --with-quantum-depth=16 \
    --disable-dependency-tracking --with-x=yes \
    --x-includes=/usr/X11R6/include --x-libraries=/usr/X11R6/lib/ \
    --without-perl

• Build ImageMagick:

  make

• Install ImageMagick:

  sudo make install

• To test the ImageMagick GUI, start X11 and in a new shell and type:

  display -display :0

An alterative method is to download and build ImageMagick with MacPorts. Download and install MacPorts and type the following command:

  sudo port -v install freetype +bytecode
  sudo port -v install librsvg
  sudo port -v install ImageMagick +graphviz +gs +wmf +jbig +jpeg2 +lcms

This not only installs ImageMagick but includes many of the delegate libraries such as JPEG and FreeType.

To verify your install, type

  /opt/local/bin/identify -list type

to list all the fonts ImageMagick knows about.

Although you can download and install delegate libraries yourself, many are already available in the GnuWin32 distribution. Download and install whichever delegate libraries you require such as JPEG, PNG, TIFF, etc. Make sure you specify the development headers when you install a package. Next type,

  tar jxvf ImageMagick-6.4.8-?.tar.bz2
  cd ImageMagick-6.4.8
  export CPPFLAGS="-Ic:/Progra~1/GnuWin32/include"
  export LDFLAGS="-Lc:/Progra~1/GnuWin32/lib"
  ./configure --without-perl
  make
  make install

Chances are the download, configure, build, and install of ImageMagick went flawlessly as it is intended, however, certain systems and environments may cause one or more steps to fail. We discuss a few problems we've run across and how to take corrective action to ensure you have a working release of ImageMagick

If PerlMagick fails to link with a message similar to libperl.a is not found, rerun configure with the --enable-shared or --enable-shared --with-modules options.

On some systems, ImageMagick may not find its shared library, libMagick.so. Try running the ldconfig with the library path:

  /sbin/ldconfig /usr/local/lib

If the build complains about missing dependencies (e.g. .deps/source.PLO), add --disable-dependency-tracking to your configure command line.

If you receive complaints about delegate libraries (e.g. JPEG) at build or run time, you may resolve these by simply updating to the latest release of the delegate library. For Linux system, it may be as simple as installing the latest delegate library RPM.

Some systems may fail to link at build time due to unresolved symbols. Try adding the LDFLAGS to the configure command line:

  configure LDFLAGS='-L/usr/local/lib -R/usr/local/lib'

Solaris and Linux systems have the ldd command which is useful to track which libraries ImageMagick depends on:

  ldd `which convert`