Compiling Inkscape for the Win32 Platform

For either native Windows, or for cross-compiling on Linux, you need to be organized. I would suggest that for organization's sake you make a project directory, like 'ink32' or 'my_project' something. We'll refer to your Inkscape-win32 directory, whatever it is called, as PROJECT.

For either way of building, you will need the bundle of dependent libraries needed to build Inkscape.

Go here and download the latest gtk28-YYMMDD.7z file you find there to your PROJECT directory.

We use 7-zip for the library bundle, because it is so very large. If you don't already have it, you will need to install it on your machine first. It is found here.

How to compile Inkscape on Windows

Get the latest Mingw distribution, here. It will be called something like mingw-x.x.x.exe. It will want to install at c:\mingw. You can put it anywhere you want, but I would suggest leaving it there. Look in mingw's /bin subdirectory. Is there a make.exe? If not copy the one named mingw-*-make.exe to make.exe.
Note: Temporarily, I suggest that people use the preassembled Mingw working directory that we have assembled here. It has the important pieces set up to compile the way we need them. Unzip it to c:\mingw.
With 7-zip, unpack the gtk28 directory from the gtk28-YYMMDD.7z file to c:\gtk28. You can put it anywhere, but the makefiles point to this location. If you choose another directory, they will need to be tweaked.
So, now that we are ready, check out a copy with Subversion (described elsewhere), cd into the top of the source directory. There is a batch file, 'mingwenv.bat'. Check that it has the correct information, then execute it to set up your PATH. You might want to copy it to your PROJECT directory for later convenience.
Finally.. Start the compile with:
```
make -f Makefile.mingw
```
Everything should build. If it works, then a working Inkscape distribution can be assembled with:
```
make -f Makefile.mingw dist
```
You now have an 'inkscape' subdirectory with a working copy.

How to cross-compile Inkscape from Linux

We have provided what you will need to cross-compile from Linux, so it will not be too painful. But, be warned: this is not for the tyro user. Only experienced persons should try this. We will not give you free Unix lessons online! ;-)

Install the cross-compiler
The cross-compiler can be found here. First, unzip it with:
```
tar jxf xmingw-3.4.4.tar.bz2
```
Then become root and move it to /usr/local/xmingw.
Install the dependent libraries
'cd' to your PROJECT directory, and unpack the .7z file with
```
7za x gtk28-YYMMDD.7z
```
Logically link to this directory from '/target'. This is very important. Become 'root' and make a symbolic link to the newly-created gtk26 directory:
```
ln -sf /home/buffy/PROJECT/gtk28 /target
```

Set up your environment.

You need to set up your environment to find the cross-compiler executables, and to find the proper package-config files. I have a csh file, mingwenv.sh, that is like this:

#!/bin/csh

### -ONLY- this pkgconfig dir must be visible!
setenv PKG_CONFIG_PATH /target/lib/pkgconfig

### Put this compiler in front
setenv PATH /usr/local/xmingw/bin:$PATH

alias dlltool i686-pc-mingw32-dlltool

'source mingwenv.sh' loads this information easily. Of course, the Bash equivalent would be:

#!/bin/bash

### -ONLY- this pkgconfig dir must be visible!
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/target/lib/pkgconfig

### Put this compiler in front
export PATH=/usr/local/xmingw/bin:$PATH

alias dlltool i686-pc-mingw32-dlltool

If your PATH is set up correctly, then this command should work:

i686-pc-mingw32-gcc --version

Building Inkscape
So, now that we are ready, check out a copy with Subversion (described elsewhere), cd into the top of the source directory, and type:
```
make -f Makefile.mingw
```
Everything should build. If it works, then a working Inkscape distribution can be assembled with:
```
make -f Makefile.mingw dist
```
You now have an 'inkscape' subdirectory with a working copy. This can be packaged easily with:
```
zip -rq9 inkscape.zip inkscape
```

You are done!

Note: Dependency problem

Occasionally the win32 Makedep make.* files will be out of sync with the normal Gnu Automake files. This will result in a compile failure complaining about a missing .c or .cpp file for a needed .o. For example, a user recently saw this problem with the 0.43 tarball:


mingw32-make[1]: *** No rule to make target
`dom/js/fdlibm/e_acos.c', needed by
`dom/js/fdlibm/e_acos.o'.  Stop.

This is easily remedied by regenerating make.dep. This is the method for 0.44 and earlier:

cd src
c:\gtk28\bin\perl mkfiles.pl
c:\gtk28\bin\perl mkdep.pl
cd ..

This is the method for the current Subversion trunk:

cd src
g++ -g -Wall -o deptool.exe deptool.cpp
deptool
cd ..

Then you should be able to resume your normal compile.

Last updated: 20 Jun 06
Bob Jamison (ishmal)