# Install swftools with Homebrew, MacPorts, Nix

SWF manipulation and generation tools. Version 0.9.2 via Homebrew; verified from local package data. Also installable with nix: nix profile install nixpkgs#swftools.

## Install

```sh
sudo av install brew:swftools
```

Additional install commands:

### macOS

- Homebrew (100%):

```sh
brew install swftools
```

  Evidence: local Homebrew formula metadata

- MacPorts (94%):

```sh
sudo port install swftools
```

  Evidence: MacPorts ports tree: graphics/swftools/Portfile from https://api.github.com/repos/macports/macports-ports/git/trees/master?recursive=1

### Linux

- Nix (92%):

```sh
nix profile install nixpkgs#swftools
```

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

## Package facts

- **Package key:** brew:swftools
- **Package manager:** Homebrew
- **Version:** 0.9.2
- **Source summary:** SWF manipulation and generation tools
- **Homepage:** <https://github.com/swftools/swftools>
- **Generated:** 2026-08-03T19:37:03+00:00

## Executables

- as3compile (alias)
- font2swf (alias)
- png2swf (alias)
- swfbbox (alias)
- swfc (alias)
- swfcombine (alias)
- swfdump (alias)
- swfextract (alias)
- swfrender (alias)
- swfstrings (alias)
- wav2swf (alias)

## Install behavior

- Bottle: not available

## Freshness

- Page generated: 2026-08-03
- Package-manager version: 0.9.2
## Project history and usage

SWFTools is a collection of command-line utilities for reading, combining, extracting, and generating Adobe Flash SWF files. Its package-manager relevance comes from the Unix-toolbox shape of the project: many small executables such as swfdump, swfextract, png2swf, wav2swf, font2swf, swfc, and as3compile rather than one monolithic application.

### Project history

The official ChangeLog records the project from an initial 0.0.1 release through the 0.9 series. Across those releases the suite expanded from PDF and SWF manipulation into text extraction, image and audio conversion, Flash compression support, SWF bounding-box work, a scripting compiler, Python bindings, and ActionScript 3 tooling.

### Adoption history

The official README reports portability across Solaris, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, HP-UX, macOS, and older Windows releases. In package-manager culture, SWFTools survived the decline of browser Flash because archival, conversion, and inspection tasks still needed reproducible command-line tools.

### How it is used

Typical usage is file-oriented: inspect SWF metadata with swfdump, extract embedded assets with swfextract, combine or wrap movies with swfcombine, or generate SWF content from images, fonts, WAV audio, PDFs, or simple source scripts. This makes the suite closer to ImageMagick-style media plumbing than to an authoring environment.

### Why package nerds care

SWFTools matters to package nerds as a preservation-era media package: it packages a historically important but now legacy format, bundles many utilities with optional library dependencies, and keeps old Flash workflows scriptable on modern Unix-like systems.

### Timeline

- 0.0.1: Initial release recorded in the official ChangeLog.
- 0.3.0: png2swf and wav2swf added, alongside Flash 6 compressed SWF support.
- 0.5.0: swfc and swfbbox added.
- 0.9.0: as3compile added and SWF/Flash 8 and 9 support expanded.
- 0.9.2: Poppler integration work started for pdf2swf.

### Related projects

- Adobe Flash SWF is the file format SWFTools manipulates.
- xpdf and later Poppler appear in the official ChangeLog as PDF parser lineage for pdf2swf.
- LAME, zlib, freetype, and other media libraries appear in the build and feature history.

### Sources

- <https://github.com/swftools/swftools>
- <https://github.com/swftools/swftools/blob/master/ChangeLog>
- <https://www.swftools.org/>


## 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 - swftools: normalized package name match | nixpkgs package indexes: pkgs/by-name/sw/swftools/package.nix from https://api.github.com/repos/NixOS/nixpkgs/git/trees/master?recursive=1
- MacPorts - swftools: normalized package name match | MacPorts ports tree: graphics/swftools/Portfile from https://api.github.com/repos/macports/macports-ports/git/trees/master?recursive=1


## Combined YAML source

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