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.

Download & Unpack

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 xvzf ImageMagick.tar.gz

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

Configure

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-7.0.2-0 ./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 a recent report from our system:

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-Q16 -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=c99 CFLAGS=-O2 LDFLAGS='-L/usr/local/lib -R/usr/local/lib' 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 automagically, 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:

Here are the optional packages you can configure:

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

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

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

Build

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

make

Build ImageMagick.

sudo make install

Install ImageMagick.

make check

Run tests using the installed ImageMagick (sudo make install must be done first). Ghostscript is a prerequisite, otherwise the EPS, PS, and PDF tests will fail.

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 sudo 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.

Install

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:

convert logo: logo.gif
identify logo.gif

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

Ghostscript is a prerequisite, otherwise the EPS, PS, and PDF tests will fail. 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.

Linux-specific Build instructions

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-7.0.2-?.*.rpm

Mac OS X-specific Build instructions

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

Install MacPorts. Download and install MacPorts and type the following commands:

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

This installs many of the delegate libraries ImageMagick will utilize such as JPEG and FreeType.

Install the latest Xcode from Apple.

Use the port command to install any delegate libraries you require, for example:

sudo port install jpeg

Now lets build ImageMagick:

Download the ImageMagick source distribution and verify the distribution against its message digest.

Unpack and change into the top-level ImageMagick directory:

 tar xvzf ImageMagick-7.0.2-0.tar.gz cd ImageMagick-7.0.2-0

Configure ImageMagick:

./configure --prefix=/opt --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 verify your install, type

/opt/local/bin/identify -list font

to list all the fonts ImageMagick knows about.

To test the ImageMagick GUI, in a new shell, type:

display -display :0

MinGW-specific Build instructions

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-7.0.2-?.tar.bz2
 cd ImageMagick-7.0.2-0
 export CPPFLAGS="-Ic:/Progra~1/GnuWin32/include"
 export LDFLAGS="-Lc:/Progra~1/GnuWin32/lib"
 ./configure --without-perl
 make
 sudo make install

Dealing with Unexpected Problems

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

Build Problems

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

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'

Dynamic Linker Run-time Bindings

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

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

ldd `which convert`

Delegate Libraries

On occasion you may receive these warnings:

no decode delegate for this image format
no encode delegate for this image format

This exception indicates that an external delegate library or its headers were not available when ImageMagick was built. To add support for the image format, download and install the requisite delegate library and its header files and reconfigure, rebuild, and reinstall ImageMagick. As an example, lets add support for the JPEG image format. First we install the JPEG RPMS:

yum install libjpeg libjpeg-devel

Now reconfigure, rebuild, and reinstall ImageMagick. To verify JPEG is now properly supported within ImageMagick, use this command:

identify -list format

You should see a mode of rw- associated with the JPEG tag. This mode means the image can be read or written and can only support one image per image file.

PerlMagick

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.