# Install briss with Homebrew, Nix

Crop PDF files. Version 0.9 via Homebrew; verified from local package data. Also installable with nix: nix profile install nixpkgs#briss.

## Install

```sh
sudo av install brew:briss
```

Additional install commands:

### macOS

- Homebrew (100%):

```sh
brew install briss
```

  Evidence: local Homebrew formula metadata

### Linux

- Nix (92%):

```sh
nix profile install nixpkgs#briss
```

  Evidence: nixpkgs package indexes: pkgs/by-name/br/briss/package.nix from https://api.github.com/repos/NixOS/nixpkgs/git/trees/master?recursive=1

## Package facts

- **Package key:** brew:briss
- **Package manager:** Homebrew
- **Version:** 0.9
- **Source summary:** Crop PDF files
- **Homepage:** <https://briss.sourceforge.net/>
- **Generated:** 2026-08-03T19:37:03+00:00

## Executables

- briss (alias)

## Install behavior

- Bottle: not available

## Freshness

- Page generated: 2026-08-03
- Package-manager version: 0.9
## Project history and usage

Briss is a small Java/Swing utility for visually cropping PDF pages, especially scans and multi-column documents. Its niche is the simple desktop workflow: overlay pages, draw crop rectangles, and export a PDF with adjusted visible page regions.

### Project history

The project was registered on SourceForge in May 2010 by the maintainer account laborg and published GPLv3 releases through SourceForge. The official project page describes it as a spare-time, cross-platform application for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X, with development and bug tracking hosted on SourceForge.

The public release train is compact: SourceForge lists early 0.0.x releases beginning in May 2010, followed by 0.0.13 in April 2011 and the 0.9 release in May 2012. The SourceForge summary records a later project update in May 2013, but the release history remains centered on the 2010-2012 period.

### Adoption history

Briss became one of those package-manager-preserved desktop utilities: not a large ecosystem project, but useful enough for Homebrew and Nix to keep packaging it years after upstream activity slowed. SourceForge still shows ongoing weekly downloads and user reviews, indicating continuing long-tail use.

### How it is used

Users run Briss when a scanned PDF or two-up document needs manual crop boxes rather than automated OCR/layout processing. The interface is graphical, but Homebrew exposes it as the `briss` executable so it fits into a Unix package collection despite being a desktop app.

### Why package nerds care

For package-history purposes, Briss is a good example of the tiny Java GUI utilities that survived because package managers made old but still-useful desktop workflows easy to reinstall. It also illustrates the difference between visible cropping metadata and destructive redaction, a recurring footnote in PDF tooling.

### Timeline

- 2010-05-04: SourceForge project registered.
- 2010-05-10: Earliest listed SourceForge release, 0.0.2.
- 2012-05-26: Briss 0.9 release posted on SourceForge.
- 2013-05-20: SourceForge records the project's last update.

### Related projects

- Related package-manager neighbors include PDF Arranger for rearranging, splitting, and merging PDFs; ScanTailor-style tools for scanned-page cleanup; and lower-level PDF toolkits such as pdftk, qpdf, and mutool for scripted PDF manipulation.

### Sources

- <https://briss.sourceforge.net/>
- <https://sourceforge.net/projects/briss/>
- <https://sourceforge.net/projects/briss/files/>
- source_facts.package-manager


## Security Notes

narrow executable package without higher-risk signals.

- **Geiger risk:** green / low
- narrow executable package without higher-risk signals

## Other Package-Manager Records

- Nix - briss: normalized package name match | nixpkgs package indexes: pkgs/by-name/br/briss/package.nix from https://api.github.com/repos/NixOS/nixpkgs/git/trees/master?recursive=1


## Combined YAML source

View the package source record on GitHub. [combined/briss.yml](https://github.com/mxcl/pkgdb/blob/main/combined/briss.yml)


## Sources

- pkg.so package database
- Geiger risk classifier
- curated package history
- pkgdb category and tag curation
- external package-manager database matches
- cross-ecosystem install command graph