Install ImageMagick from Source

Chances are, ImageMagick is already installed on your computer if you are using some flavor of Unix, but that it is not installed if you are using some form of Windows. In either case, you can type the following to find out.

$ identify -version

If the identify program executes and identifies itself as ImageMagick, you may not need to install ImageMagick from source unless you want to add support for additional image formats or upgrade to a newer version. You also have the option of installing a pre-compiled binary release. However, if you still want to install from source, choose a platform, Unix or Windows. Before installing from source, you may want to review recent changes to the ImageMagick distribution.

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 www.imagemagick.org or a mirrors and verify its message digest.

Unpack the distribution with this command:

$ tar xvfz ImageMagick.tar.gz

Next configure and compile ImageMagick:

$ cd ImageMagick-6.7.9 $ ./configure $ make

If ImageMagick configured and compiled without complaint, you are ready to install it on your system. Administrator privileges are required to install. To install, type

$ sudo make install

You may need to configure the dynamic linker run-time bindings:

$ sudo ldconfig /usr/local/lib

Finally, verify the ImageMagick install worked properly, type

$ /usr/local/bin/convert logo: logo.gif

For a more comprehensive test, run the ImageMagick validation suite. Ghostscript is a prerequisite, otherwise the EPS, PS, and PDF tests will fail.

$ make check

Congratulations, you have a working ImageMagick distribution and you are ready to use ImageMagick to convert, compose, or edit your images or perhaps you'll want to use one of the Application Program Interfaces for C, C++, Perl, and others.

The above instructions will satisfy a great number of ImageMagick users, but we suspect a few will have additional questions or problems to consider. For example, what does one do if ImageMagick fails to configure or compile? Or what if you don't have administrator privileges and what if you don't want to install ImageMagick in the default /../usr/local folder? You will find the answer to these questions, and more, in Advanced Unix Source Installation.

Building ImageMagick source for Windows requires a modern version of Microsoft Visual Studio IDE. Users have reported success with the Borland C++ compiler as well.