Compiling the Utilities

  • This page provides instructions for building WebP utilities (cwebp and dwebp) from source code if precompiled options are unsuitable.

  • Building on Windows involves using Visual C++ with specific commands to compile the utilities and library.

  • For Unix-like platforms (Linux, macOS, Cygwin), instructions cover installing necessary dependencies before building the WebP tools.

  • The building process on Unix-like systems involves downloading the source code, configuring, compiling, and installing the utilities and libraries.

  • After building the utilities, users can proceed to the "Using WebP" page for image conversion instructions.

If the precompiled utilities don't suit your needs, you can build the WebP utilities yourself.

Compiling on Windows with Visual C++

  1. Download libwebp-1.6.0.tar.gz from the downloads list and extract its contents.

  2. From the libwebp-1.6.0 directory, run:

    nmake /f Makefile.vc CFG=release-static RTLIBCFG=static OBJDIR=output

    To see additional options, run:

    nmake /f Makefile.vc

  3. The directory output\release-static\x86\bin or output\release-static\x64\bin will contain the tools cwebp.exe and dwebp.exe depending on the platform being targeted. The directory output\release-static\(x86|x64)\lib will contain the libwebp static library.

Compiling on Unix-like Platforms

Preparing the Platform

Linux

  1. Install the libjpeg, libpng, libtiff and libgif packages, needed to convert between JPEG, PNG, TIFF, GIF and WebP image formats.

    Package management varies by Linux distribution. On Ubuntu and Debian, the following command will install the needed packages:

    sudo apt-get install libjpeg-dev libpng-dev libtiff-dev libgif-dev

  2. Complete the installation (see below).

macOS

MacPorts is a convenient way to satisfy dependencies. If you already have MacPorts installed, go directly to Step 3. Otherwise, follow these steps:

  1. Download MacPorts for your macOS version from the MacPorts downloads site. MacPorts requires the installation of Xcode.

  2. Install MacPorts following the MacPorts directions.

  3. Update MacPorts:

    sudo port selfupdate

  4. Install the JPEG, PNG, TIFF and GIF dependencies:

    sudo port install jpeg libpng tiff giflib

  5. Complete the installation (see below).

Cygwin

  1. Download setup.exe from the Cygwin web page.

  2. Run setup.exe and proceed through the installation.

  3. At the Select Packages screen, add to the pre-selected packages the following:

    • libjpeg-devel, libpng-devel, libtiff-devel and libgif-devel

    • gcc, make and automake (for building packages)

  4. Complete the installation (see below).

Building

  1. Download libwebp-1.6.0.tar.gz from the downloads list.

  2. Untar or unzip the package. This creates a directory named libwebp-1.6.0/:

    tar xvzf libwebp-1.6.0.tar.gz

  3. Build WebP encoder cwebp and decoder dwebp:

    Go to the directory where libwebp-1.6.0/ was extracted to and run the following commands:

    cd libwebp-1.6.0
./configure
make
sudo make install

    This builds and installs the cwebp and dwebp command line tools, along with the libwebp libraries (dynamic and static).

    These tools are usually installed under /usr/local/bin/ by default. The local versions are built under the examples/ directory.

    The library will usually be installed under the /usr/local/lib/ directory. To avoid run-time errors, make sure that your LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable includes this location. The C headers are typically installed under /usr/local/include/webp.

    To see additional options, run:

    ./configure --help

What Next?

Go to Using WebP for instructions on how to start converting your images.