About the Contributed Software

We are not the first programmers who have discovered how cumbersome and troublesome graphics file formats can be. We have elected to organize the chaos by writing a book. Other programmers among us have responded by writing software that reads, converts, manipulates, or otherwise analyzes graphics files. Many of them have kindly agreed to let us include their software on the CD-ROM. The packages we have elected to include provide an excellent sampling of what is available in the world of publicly available software. They include software for Windows (3.1, 95, and NT), MS-DOS, OS/2, the Macintosh, and UNIX. There are also several excellent packages that is provided as source code. Although this code is most often compiled for UNIX, it can (with some work) be used on other platforms as well.

Although many of these packages are readily available on the Internet or via various PC bulletin board systems, their freeware or shareware nature should not in any way suggest that they lack value. These are excellent packages, and we are very grateful that we have been able to include them here. They should help you considerably in your dealings with graphics files.