2. Installing Zint

2.1 Linux

The easiest way to configure compilation is to take advantage of the CMake utilities. You will need to install CMake, and libpng-dev first. For instance on apt systems:

sudo apt install git cmake build-essential libpng-dev

If you want to take advantage of Zint Barcode Studio you will also need to have Qt and its component "Desktop gcc 64-bit" installed, as well as mesa. Other steps are required to avail of the GS1 Syntax Engine.¹ For details see "README.linux" in the project root directory.

Once you have fulfilled these requirements unzip the source code tarball or clone the latest source

git clone https://git.code.sf.net/p/zint/code zint

and follow these steps in the top directory:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install

The CLI command line program can be accessed by typing

zint [options]

The GUI can be accessed by typing

zint-qt

To test that the installation has been successful a shell script is included in the "frontend" sub-directory. To run the test type

./test.sh

This should create numerous files in the sub-directory "frontend/test_sh_out" showing the many modes of operation which are available from Zint.

2.2 BSD

The latest Zint CLI, libzint library and GUI can be installed from the zint package on FreeBSD:

su
pkg install zint
exit

and on OpenBSD (where the GUI is in a separate zint-gui package):

su
pkg_add zint zint-gui
exit

To build from source (including for NetBSD) see "README.bsd" in the project root directory.

2.3 Microsoft Windows

For Microsoft Windows, Zint is distributed as a binary executable. Simply download the ZIP file, then right-click on the ZIP file and "Extract All". A new folder will be created within which are two binary files:

qtZint.exe - Zint Barcode Studio
zint.exe - Command Line Interface

For fresh releases you will get a warning message from Microsoft Defender SmartScreen that this is an ‘unrecognised app’. This happens because Zint is a free and open-source software project with no advertising and hence no income, meaning we are not able to afford the $664 per year to have the application digitally signed by Microsoft.

The distributed binaries are built with Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 and both require the Visual C runtime DLL “VCRUNTIME140.dll”. qtZint.exe also requires the Visual C++ runtime DLL “MSVCP140.dll”.

To build Zint on Windows from source, see "win32/README".

2.4 Apple macOS

The latest Zint CLI and libzint can be installed using Homebrew.² To install Homebrew input the following line into the macOS terminal

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL \
    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Once Homebrew is installed use the following command to install the CLI and library

brew install zint

To build from source (and install the GUI) see "README.macos" in the project root directory.

2.5 Zint Tcl Backend