Stirling-PDF/LocalRunGuide.md

To run the application without Docker/Podman, you will need to manually install all dependencies and build the necessary components.

Note that some dependencies might not be available in the standard repositories of all Linux distributions, and may require additional steps to install.

The following guide assumes you have a basic understanding of using a command line interface in your operating system.

It should work on most Linux distributions and MacOS. For Windows, you might need to use Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) for certain steps. The amount of dependencies is to actually reduce overall size, i.e., installing LibreOffice subcomponents rather than the full LibreOffice package.

You could theoretically use a Distrobox/Toolbox if your distribution has old or not all packages. But you might just as well use the Docker container then.

Step 1: Prerequisites

Install the following software, if not already installed:

• Java 17 or later (21 recommended)
• Gradle 7.0 or later (included within repo so not needed on server)
• Git
• Python 3.8 (with pip)
• Make
• GCC/G++
• Automake
• Autoconf
• libtool
• pkg-config
• zlib1g-dev
• libleptonica-dev

For Debian-based systems, you can use the following command:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y git automake autoconf libtool libleptonica-dev pkg-config zlib1g-dev make g++ openjdk-21-jdk python3 python3-pip

For Fedora-based systems use this command:

sudo dnf install -y git automake autoconf libtool leptonica-devel pkg-config zlib-devel make gcc-c++ java-21-openjdk python3 python3-pip

For non-root users with Nix Package Manager, use the following command:

nix-channel --update
nix-env -iA nixpkgs.jdk21 nixpkgs.git nixpkgs.python38 nixpkgs.gnumake nixpkgs.libgcc nixpkgs.automake nixpkgs.autoconf nixpkgs.libtool nixpkgs.pkg-config nixpkgs.zlib nixpkgs.leptonica

Step 2: Clone and Build jbig2enc (Only required for certain OCR functionality)

For Debian and Fedora, you can build it from source using the following commands:

mkdir ~/.git
cd ~/.git && \
git clone https://github.com/agl/jbig2enc.git && \
cd jbig2enc && \
./autogen.sh && \
./configure && \
make && \
sudo make install

For Nix, you will face Leptonica not detected. Bypass this by installing it directly using the following command:

nix-env -iA nixpkgs.jbig2enc

Step 3: Install Additional Software

Next we need to install LibreOffice for conversions, qpdf for OCR, and OpenCV for pattern recognition functionality.

Install the following software:

• libreoffice-core
• libreoffice-common
• libreoffice-writer
• libreoffice-calc
• libreoffice-impress
• python3-uno
• unoconv
• pngquant
• unpaper
• qpdf
• opencv-python-headless

For Debian-based systems, you can use the following command:

sudo apt-get install -y libreoffice-writer libreoffice-calc libreoffice-impress unpaper qpdf
pip3 install uno opencv-python-headless unoconv pngquant WeasyPrint --break-system-packages

For Fedora:

sudo dnf install -y libreoffice-writer libreoffice-calc libreoffice-impress unpaper qpdf
pip3 install uno opencv-python-headless unoconv pngquant WeasyPrint

For Nix:

nix-env -iA nixpkgs.unpaper nixpkgs.libreoffice nixpkgs.qpdf nixpkgs.poppler_utils
pip3 install uno opencv-python-headless unoconv pngquant WeasyPrint

Step 4: Clone and Build Stirling-PDF

cd ~/.git && \
git clone https://github.com/Stirling-Tools/Stirling-PDF.git && \
cd Stirling-PDF && \
chmod +x ./gradlew && \
./gradlew build

Step 5: Move Jar to Desired Location

After the build process, a .jar file will be generated in the build/libs directory. You can move this file to a desired location, for example, /opt/Stirling-PDF/. You must also move the Script folder within the Stirling-PDF repo that you have downloaded to this directory. This folder is required for the Python scripts using OpenCV.

sudo mkdir /opt/Stirling-PDF && \
sudo mv ./build/libs/Stirling-PDF-*.jar /opt/Stirling-PDF/ && \
sudo mv scripts /opt/Stirling-PDF/ && \
echo "Scripts installed."

For non-root users, you can just keep the jar in the main directory of Stirling-PDF using the following command:

mv ./build/libs/Stirling-PDF-*.jar ./Stirling-PDF-*.jar

Step 6: Other Files

OCR

If you plan to use the OCR (Optical Character Recognition) functionality, you might need to install language packs for Tesseract if running non-English scanning.

Installing Language Packs

The easiest method is to use the language packs provided by your repositories. Skip the other steps if they are available.

Manual:

1. Download the desired language pack(s) by selecting the .traineddata file(s) for the language(s) you need.
2. Place the .traineddata files in the Tesseract tessdata directory: /usr/share/tessdata

IMPORTANT: DO NOT REMOVE EXISTING eng.traineddata, IT'S REQUIRED.

Debian-based systems, install languages with this command:

sudo apt update && \
# All languages
# sudo apt install -y 'tesseract-ocr-*'

# Find languages:
apt search tesseract-ocr-

# View installed languages:
dpkg-query -W tesseract-ocr- | sed 's/tesseract-ocr-//g'

Fedora:

# All languages
# sudo dnf install -y tesseract-langpack-*

# Find languages:
dnf search -C tesseract-langpack-

# View installed languages:
rpm -qa | grep tesseract-langpack | sed 's/tesseract-langpack-//g'

Nix:

nix-env -iA nixpkgs.tesseract

Note: Nix Package Manager pre-installs almost all the language packs when Tesseract is installed.

Step 7: Run Stirling-PDF

Those who have pushed to the root directory, run the following commands:

./gradlew bootRun
or
java -jar /opt/Stirling-PDF/Stirling-PDF-*.jar

Since LibreOffice, soffice, and conversion tools have their dbus_tmp_dir set as dbus_tmp_dir="/run/user/$(id -u)/libreoffice-dbus", you might get the following error when using their endpoints:

[Thread-7] INFO  s.s.SPDF.utils.ProcessExecutor - mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/run/user/1501’: Permission denied

To resolve this, before starting Stirling-PDF, you have to set the environment variable to a directory you have write access to by using the following commands:

mkdir temp
export DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS="unix:path=./temp"
./gradlew bootRun
or
java -jar ./Stirling-PDF-*.jar

Step 8: Adding a Desktop Icon

This will add a modified app starter to your app menu.

location=$(pwd)/gradlew
image=$(pwd)/docs/stirling-transparent.svg

cat > ~/.local/share/applications/Stirling-PDF.desktop <<EOF
[Desktop Entry]
Name=Stirling PDF;
GenericName=Launch StirlingPDF and open its WebGUI;
Category=Office;
Exec=xdg-open http://localhost:8080 && nohup $location bootRun &;
Icon=$image;
Keywords=pdf;
Type=Application;
NoDisplay=false;
Terminal=true;
EOF

Note: Currently the app will run in the background until manually closed.

Optional: Changing the Host and Port of the Application

To override the default configuration, you can add the following to /.git/Stirling-PDF/configs/custom_settings.yml file:

server:
  host: 0.0.0.0 # Not working - use instead address
  address: 0.0.0.0
  port: 3000

-Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true --> To force IPv4 only in the Java starting command

Note: This file is created after the first application launch. To have it before that, you can create the directory and add the file yourself.

Optional: Run Stirling-PDF as a Service (requires root)

First create a .env file, where you can store environment variables:

touch /opt/Stirling-PDF/.env

In this file, you can add all variables, one variable per line, as stated in the main readme (for example SYSTEM_DEFAULTLOCALE="de-DE").

Create a new file where we store our service settings and open it with the nano editor:

nano /etc/systemd/system/stirlingpdf.service

Paste this content, make sure to update the filename of the jar file. Press Ctrl+S and Ctrl+X to save and exit the nano editor:

[Unit]
Description=Stirling-PDF service
After=syslog.target network.target

[Service]
SuccessExitStatus=143

User=root
Group=root

Type=simple

EnvironmentFile=/opt/Stirling-PDF/.env
WorkingDirectory=/opt/Stirling-PDF
ExecStart=/usr/bin/java -jar Stirling-PDF-0.17.2.jar
ExecStop=/bin/kill -15 $MAINPID

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Notify systemd that it has to rebuild its internal service database (you have to run this command every time you make a change in the service file):

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

Enable the service to tell it to start automatically:

sudo systemctl enable stirlingpdf.service

See the status of the service:

sudo systemctl status stirlingpdf.service

Manually start/stop/restart the service:

sudo systemctl start stirlingpdf.service
sudo systemctl stop stirlingpdf.service
sudo systemctl restart stirlingpdf.service

---

Remember to set the necessary environment variables before running the project if you want to customize the application. The list can be seen in the main readme.

You can do this in the terminal by using the export command or -D argument to the Java -jar command:

export APP_HOME_NAME="Stirling PDF"
or
-DAPP_HOME_NAME="Stirling PDF"