FITS is a Java program and requires Java version 1.7 or higher. To find out your Java version type java -version in a command-line window.

Download the latest official release from our Downloads page. If this is your first time downloading FITS, create a directory for FITS, for example:

On Windows: C:\Program Files\Fits
On Mac OS X: /Applications/Fits
On *nix: /home/myuser/Fits

Extract the contents of your ZIP file to your FITS directory. You should end up with a another directory under your top-level FITS directory that has a version number embedded in it, for example on Windows:

C:\Program Files\Fits\fits-0.9.0

FITS can be run on a command-line or within a program using the Java API.

Run FITS on the command-line using one of the start-up scripts (fits.bat on Windows, fits.sh on Mac OS X and *nix).

For example on Windows:

Open up a command line interface window: Click on Start -> Type in cmd in the lower-left box and hit enter
Navigate to the directory where you installed FITS, for example: cd "..\..\Program Files\fits\fits-0.9.0"
Execute FITS using the start-up script with the -h parameter to see the parameter options: fits.bat -h

For example on *nix:

Open up a terminal window.
Navigate to the directory where you installed FITS
If it not already, make the fits.sh file executable
    chmod +x fits.sh
Run the script named fits.sh
    ./fits.sh

Here are a couple examples of running FITS to get you started. These are relatively simple examples assuming Windows - more complex examples can be found in the on-line user manual.

Run FITS against its release text file printing the FITS output to the terminal: fits.bat -i RELEASE.txt
Run FITS against its release text file saving the FITS output to a file: fits.bat -i RELEASE.txt -o myoutput.txt
Output the technical metadata for FITS' release text file in the TextMD format to the terminal: fits.bat -i RELEASE.txt -x
Output the FITS output plus technical metadata for FITS' release text file in the TextMD format to the terminal: fits.bat -i RELEASE.txt -xc

See the Developer Manual.

After you are up and running see the User Manual for more documentation.

FITS is released under the GNU LGPL open source license. The source code for FITS is included in the downloadable ZIP files.

The tools bundled with FITS use the following open source licenses:

• Jhove (LGPL version 2.1 or any later version)
• Exiftool (GPL version 1 or any later version; or the artistic license)
• National Library of New Zealand Metadata Extractor (Apache Public License version 2)
• DROID (BSD (new version))
• FFIdent (LGPL)
• Tika (Apache Public License version 2)
• MediaInfo BSD-like

The source code for each of the above tools is available on their websites.

In addition, FITS includes the following open source libraries:

• JDOM (Apache-like license, modified Apache version 1.1)
• staxmate (BSD (new version))
• stax2 (LGPL version 2.1)
• Woodstox (LGPL version 2.1)
• xercesImpl (Apache Public License version 2)
• xml-apis (Apache Public License version 2)
• xmlunit (BSD (new version))
• JNA (Dual license LGPL version 2.1 and Apache Public License version 2)

For more license details, see FITS License