Install or Update

Get set up to use Quire on macOS, Windows, or Linux

Get set up to use Quire on macOS, Windows, or Linux
  • Quire is in a limited beta, © J. Paul Getty Trust, and not yet released as open-source software. For a free license to use Quire for your publication projects (and for additional access to support) please sign up.

macOS Installation

Installing and running Quire requires using the Terminal . Open it from your Applications/Utilities folder or by pressing Command–Space Bar and typing “Terminal”. If you are new to the command-line, read our tutorial Working in a Command-line Shell.

Quick Install

If you’re eager to get started, this will install the complete Quire package but without e-book or PDF output capability. These may be added later, by following steps 3–5 in the Full Install guidelines below.

  1. In Terminal, install Apple’s Xcode with: xcode-select --install
  2. Download and install the v14.18.1 release of Node.js: https://nodejs.org/download/release/v14.18.1/node-v14.18.1.pkg
  3. In Terminal, install Quire with: npm install --global @thegetty/quire-cli
  4. Confirm installation by pulling up a list of Quire commands: quire --help

The Quire installation process may take a minute or two, during which time there will be messaging output in Terminal.

  • The only Terminal messages of concern are those labeled as ERROR or ERR. For error messages that say “permission denied,” jump to the section on troubleshooting macOS install below. For other error messages or if you receive “command not found” after entering quire --help in step 4., search our Discussions Forum or post a new discussion.

Full Install

Follow the steps below to first install the support software for Quire, and then Quire itself.

  1. Apple’s Xcode is a set of developer tools for your mac. Install Apple’s Xcode by copying and pasting the following command and pressing enter. If Xcode is not already installed, an additional notification will pop up. Click “Install” and follow the prompts.

    xcode-select --install

  2. Node.js enables you to run javascript on your computer. Download and install the v14.18.1 release of Node.js: https://nodejs.org/download/release/v14.18.1/node-v14.18.1.pkg.

  3. Pandoc serves two purposes in Quire: You can use it to convert Word documents to Markdown, and it enables you to create EPUB e-book files of your Quire project with the quire epub command. Download the macOS installer, double-click it and follow the prompts to install: https://pandoc.org/installing.html.

  4. Kindle Previewer, along with Pandoc, enables you to create MOBI e-book files of your Quire project with the quire mobi command. Visit Amazon’s Kindle Previewer page and download the Mac version: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G202131170. Install by double clicking the icon and following the prompts.

  5. PrinceXML enables you to create a PDF version of your Quire project with the quire pdf command. Visit the PrinceXML site, download the Mac OS version, uncompress the folder, and rename it to “prince”: http://www.princexml.com/download/.

    Open Terminal and type these lines in, hitting enter after each:

    cd Downloads/prince
sudo ./install.sh

    You will be prompted to enter your computer password. Press enter. You should receive a message that PrinceXML will be installed in the /usr/local directory. Press enter again. If successful you will see a message in the Terminal saying “installation complete.” Or, if you get a “no such file or directory” message after the first line, the file you dowloaded is either not in your Downloads folder, or is not named “prince”. Correct as necessary and try again.

    When complete, type cd into the Terminal to return to your .

    cd

  6. Quire is operated through a (CLI) that enables you to create, preview and output publications using Terminal with commands like quire new, quire preview and quire site. You can learn more in the Quire Commands chapter of our guide. Copy and paste the following line into Terminal to install Quire:

    npm install --global @thegetty/quire-cli

    The Quire installation process may take a minute or two, during which time there will be messaging output in Terminal. The only messages of any concern are those labeled as ERROR or ERR. These likely indicate a failed installation.

    To verify installation, enter the command below. This will give you a list of commands that will help you get started using and navigating Quire. And if you get “command not found” it means it was not installed correctly.

    quire --help

    Search or post to our Discussions Forum to troubleshoot installation issues.

Troubleshooting macOS Install

During install, you may come across an error message that says “permission denied.” This is related to the ownership and permissions settings for the global node modules directories installed in step 2. To fix this issue, you will need to run a special command as an administrator or “super user.”

  1. Click on your computer background and press Shift-Command-G. Navigate to /usr/local/lib and delete the node_modules folder.
  2. Reinstall the v14.18.1 release of Node.js: https://nodejs.org/download/release/v14.18.1/node-v14.18.1.pkg
  3. Run the following sudo (“superuser do”) command:
sudo chown -R $(whoami) $(npm config get prefix)/{lib/node_modules,bin,share}
  1. Try reinstalling Quire.

If, after running the sudo command, the permission errors are not resolved, search our Discussions Forum for further troubleshooting advice or to post a new discussion.

Windows Installation

Installing Quire requires using Windows PowerShell as an Administrator. Open it by right clicking on Start and selecting “Windows PowerShell (Admin)”, or search for it in the search bar and select “Run as Administrator”. If you are new to the command-line, read our tutorial Working in a Command-line Shell.

Quick Install

If you’re eager to get started, this will install the complete Quire package but without e-book or PDF output capability. These may be added later, by following steps 3–5 in the Full Install guidelines below.

  1. Download and install Git for Windows: https://gitforwindows.org/
  2. Download and install v14.18.1 release of Node.js: https://nodejs.org/download/release/v14.18.1/node-v14.18.1-x64.msi
  3. In Windows PowerShell (Admin), install Windows Build Tools with: npm install --g --production windows-build-tools
  4. In Windows PowerShell (Admin), install Quire with: npm install --global @thegetty/quire-cli
  5. Confirm installation by pulling up a list of Quire commands: quire --help

The Quire installation process may take a minute or two, during which time there will be messaging output in PowerShell. The only messages of any concern are those labeled as ERROR or ERR. If you see these errors, or if you see “command not found” after entering quire --help in step 5., search our Discussions Forum to troubleshoot installation issues.

Full Install

  1. Git for Windows installs useful version control software on your computer. Download the EXE installer file at https://gitforwindows.org, click on it and hit “run”, you should see a setup wizard screen that will install Git for Windows. During the installation, use the default settings.

  2. Node.js enables you to run javascript on your computer. Download and install v14.18.1 release of Node.js: https://nodejs.org/download/release/v14.18.1/node-v14.18.1-x64.msi. The MSI installer will be downloaded, open it and a setup wizard screen will guide you through the process.

  3. Pandoc serves two purposes in Quire: You can use it to convert Word documents to Markdown, and it enables you to create EPUB e-book files of your Quire project with the quire epub command. Download the Pandoc MSI installer file, open it and a setup wizard screen will guide you through the process: https://pandoc.org/installing.html

  4. Kindle Previewer, along with Pandoc, enables you to create MOBI e-book files of your Quire project with the quire mobi command. Visit Amazon’s Kindle Previewer page and download the Widows version: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G202131170. Install by double clicking the icon and following the prompts.

  5. PrinceXML enables you to create a PDF version of your Quire project. At https://www.princexml.com/download/, download either the 32-bit or 64-bit EXE installer depending on your operating system. (If you’re not sure of your system open the Settings app by pressing Windows+I. Go to System > About and look for the “System type” entry on the right side.) Click on the downloaded file and hit “run”, you should see a setup wizard screen that will guide you through install.

  6. Windows Build Tools is a set of developer tools for your PC. To install them, open PowerShell as administrator, type the following command, and hit enter:

    npm install --g --production windows-build-tools

    This command installs c++ 2015 build tools and python 2 required for node-gyp. The process will take some time and you’ll see the starting prompt with the name of your computer once it’s complete.

  7. Quire is operated through a (CLI) that enables you to create, preview and output publications using Windows PowerShell with commands like quire new, quire preview and quire site. You can learn more in the Quire Commands chapter of our guide. Copy and paste the following line into PowerShell to install Quire:

    npm install --global @thegetty/quire-cli

    The Quire installation process may take a minute or two, during which time there will be messaging output in PowerShell. The only messages of any concern are those labeled as ERROR or ERR. These likely indicate a failed installation.

    To verify installation, enter the command below. This will give you a list of commands that will help you get started using and navigating Quire. And if you get “command not found” it means it was not installed correctly.

    quire --help

    Search or post to our Discussions Forum to troubleshoot installation issues.

Update Quire

  • Updating Quire will not effect your existing projects. It will only take effect on any new projects you start after updating.

To update Quire to the latest version, you can run the single install command again. In your command-line shell (Terminal on macOS and PowerShell in Administrator mode on Windows), type the following text and hit enter:

npm install --global @thegetty/quire-cli

Note that while any new projects you start at this point will use the latest version of Quire just installed, older, previously started projects will remain untouched. This is to avoid any unforeseen and unintended changes to publications that are completed or in progress as the version of Quire you use can effect layouts of a page, availability of features, etcetera.

While it will not make changes to older projects, you should still be able to run commands from the new version of Quire on old Quire projects. Commands like quire preview and quire pdf. If you run into trouble with this and find commands do not run as intended or you see errors logged in your command-line, search or post to our Discussions Forum for help.

Update an Existing Project

If you have an existing project that you want to migrate to a newer version of Quire, we recommend the following process:

  1. Update Quire following the instructions above.
  2. Start a new quire project.
  3. Delete the content, data, and static folders in the new project, and replace them with those from your old project.
  4. Copy over any style customization changes you made in the themes/default/layouts/source/css/variables.scss file or others. (In older versions of Quire this file would be themes/quire-starter-theme/layouts/source/css/variables.scss.)

Run quire preview --verbose to test. If you see errors logged in the command-line, or if the preview doesn’t display as intended on http://localhost:1313/, search our Discussions Forum for help.

Uninstall Quire

In your command-line shell (Terminal on macOS and PowerShell in Administrator mode on Windows), type the following text and hit enter:

npm uninstall --global @thegetty/quire-cli

This will only uninstall Quire itself. External software you installed as part of Quire (including Node.js, Pandoc, Kindle Previewer, and PrinceXML) will need to be uninstalled individually according to the directions they provide.

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