GS(1) Ghostscript GS(1) NAME gs - Ghostscript (PostScript and PDF language interpreter and previewer) SYNOPSIS gs [ options ] [ files ] ... (Unix, VMS) gswin32 [ options ] [ files ] ... (MS Windows) gswin32c [ options ] [ files ] ... (MS Windows) gs386 [ options ] [ files ] ... (DOS for PC) gsos2 [ options ] [ files ] ... (OS/2) DESCRIPTION The gs (gswin32, gswin32c, gs386, gsos2) command invokes Ghostscript, an interpreter of Adobe Systems' PostScript(tm) and Portable Document Format (PDF) languages. gs reads "files" in sequence and executes them as Ghost- script programs. After doing this, it reads further input from the stan- dard input stream (normally the keyboard), interpreting each line sepa- rately. The interpreter quits gracefully when it encounters the "quit" command (either in a file or from the keyboard), at end-of-file, or at an interrupt signal (such as Control-C at the keyboard). The interpreter recognizes several switches described below, which may ap- pear anywhere in the command line and apply to all files thereafter. In- voking Ghostscript with the -h or -? switch produces a message which shows several useful switches, all the devices known to that executable, and the search path for fonts; on Unix it also shows the location of detailed docu- mentation. Ghostscript may be built able to use many different output devices. To see which devices your executable can use, run "gs -h". Unless you specify a particular device, Ghostscript normally opens the first one of those and directs output to it, so if the first one in the list is the one you want to use, just issue the command gs myfile.ps You can also check the set of available devices from within Ghostscript: invoke Ghostscript and type devicenames == but the first device on the resulting list may not be the default device you determine with "gs -h". To specify "AbcXyz" as the initial output de- vice, include the switch -sDEVICE=AbcXyz For example, for output to an Epson printer you might use the command gs -sDEVICE=epson myfile.ps The "-sDEVICE=" switch must precede the first mention of a file to print, and only the switch's first use has any effect. Alternatively, in Ghost- script you can type (epson) selectdevice (myfile.ps) run All output then goes to the printer until you select another device with the "selectdevice" procedure in the PostScript program stream, for example (vga) selectdevice or (x11) selectdevice Finally, you can specify a default device in the environment variable GS_DEVICE. The order of precedence for these alternatives from highest to lowest (Ghostscript uses the device defined highest in the list) is: selectdevice (command line) GS_DEVICE (first device in build list) Some printers can print at different resolutions (densities). To specify the resolution on such a printer, use the "-r" switch: gs -sDEVICE=<device> -r<xres>x<yres> For example, on a 9-pin Epson-compatible printer, you get the lowest-den- sity (fastest) mode with gs -sDEVICE=epson -r60x72 and the highest-density (best output quality) mode with gs -sDEVICE=epson -r240x72. If you select a printer as the output device, Ghostscript also allows you to choose where Ghostscript sends the output -- on Unix systems, usually to a temporary file. To send the output to a file "foo.xyz", use the switch -sOutputFile=foo.xyz You might want to print each page separately. To do this, send the output to a series of files "foo1.xyz, foo2.xyz, ..." using the "-sOutputFile=" switch with "%d" in a filename template: -sOutputFile=foo%d.xyz Each resulting file receives one page of output, and the files are numbered in sequence. "%d" is a printf format specification; you can also use a variant like "%02d". On Unix systems you can also send output to a pipe. For example, to pipe output to the "lpr" command (which, on many Unix systems, directs it to a printer), use the switch -sOutputFile=\|lpr You can also send output to standard output for piping with the switch -sOutputFile=- In this case you must also use the -q switch, to prevent Ghostscript from writing messages to standard output. To select a specific paper size, use the command line switch -sPAPERSIZE=a_known_paper_size for instance -sPAPERSIZE=a4 or -sPAPERSIZE=legal At this time, the known paper sizes, defined in the initialization file "gs_statd.ps", are: PAPERSIZE X inches Y inches X cm Y cm ----------------------------------------------------- a0 33.0556 46.7778 83.9611 118.816 a1 23.3889 33.0556 59.4078 83.9611 a2 16.5278 23.3889 41.9806 59.4078 a3 11.6944 16.5278 29.7039 41.9806 a4 8.26389 11.6944 20.9903 29.7039 a5 5.84722 8.26389 14.8519 20.9903 a6 4.125 5.84722 10.4775 14.8519 a7 2.91667 4.125 7.40833 10.4775 a8 2.05556 2.91667 5.22111 7.40833 a9 1.45833 2.05556 3.70417 5.22111 a10 1.02778 1.45833 2.61056 3.70417 b0 39.3889 55.6667 100.048 141.393 b1 27.8333 39.3889 70.6967 100.048 b2 19.6944 27.8333 50.0239 70.6967 b3 13.9167 19.6944 35.3483 50.0239 b4 9.84722 13.9167 25.0119 35.3483 b5 6.95833 9.84722 17.6742 25.0119 archA 9 12 22.86 30.48 archB 12 18 30.48 45.72 archC 18 24 45.72 60.96 archD 24 36 60.96 91.44 archE 36 48 91.44 121.92 flsa 8.5 13 21.59 33.02 flse 8.5 13 21.59 33.02 halfletter 5.5 8.5 13.97 21.59 note 7.5 10 19.05 25.4 letter 8.5 11 21.59 27.94 legal 8.5 14 21.59 35.56 11x17 11 17 27.94 43.18 ledger 17 11 43.18 27.94 Note that the B paper sizes are ISO sizes: for information about using JIS B sizes, see Use.htm. Ghostscript can do many things other than print or view PostScript and PDF files. For example, if you want to know the bounding box of a PostScript (or EPS) file, Ghostscript provides a special "device" that just prints out this information: gs -sDEVICE=bbox myfile.ps For example, using one of the example files distributed with Ghostscript, gs -sDEVICE=bbox golfer.ps prints out %%BoundingBox: 0 25 583 732 %%HiResBoundingBox: 0.808497 25.009496 582.994503 731.809445 INITIALIZATION FILES When looking for the initialization files "gs_*.ps", the files related to fonts, or the file for the "run" operator, Ghostscript first tries to open the file with the name as given, using the current working directory if no directory is specified. If this fails, and the file name doesn't specify an explicit directory or drive (for instance, doesn't contain "/" on Unix systems or "\" on DOS systems), Ghostscript tries directories in this or- der: 1. the directories specified by the -I switches in the command line (see below), if any; 2. the directories specified by the GS_LIB environment variable, if any; 3. the directories specified by the GS_LIB_DEFAULT macro in the Ghost- script makefile when the executable was built. When gs is built on Unix, GS_LIB_DEFAULT is usually "/usr/local/share/ghost- script/#.##:/usr/local/share/ghostscript/fonts" where "#.##" represents the Ghostscript version number. Each of these (GS_LIB_DEFAULT, GS_LIB, and -I parameter) may be either a single directory or a list of directories separated by ":". X RESOURCES Ghostscript looks for the following resources under the program name "Ghostscript": borderWidth The border width in pixels (default = 1). borderColor The name of the border color (default = black). geometry The window size and placement, WxH+X+Y (default is NULL). xResolution The number of x pixels per inch (default is computed from WidthOf- Screen and WidthMMOfScreen). yResolution The number of y pixels per inch (default is computed from HeightOf- Screen and HeightMMOfScreen). useBackingPixmap Determines whether backing store is to be used for saving display window (default = true). See the usage document for a more complete list of resources. To set these resources on Unix, put them in a file such as "~/.Xresources" in the fol- lowing form: Ghostscript*geometry: 612x792-0+0 Ghostscript*xResolution: 72 Ghostscript*yResolution: 72 Then merge these resources into the X server's resource database: % xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources SWITCHES -- filename arg1 ... Takes the next argument as a file name as usual, but takes all re- maining arguments (even if they have the syntactic form of switches) and defines the name "ARGUMENTS" in "userdict" (not "systemdict") as an array of those strings, before running the file. When Ghost- script finishes executing the file, it exits back to the shell. -Dname=token -dname=token Define a name in "systemdict" with the given definition. The token must be exactly one token (as defined by the "token" operator) and may contain no whitespace. -Dname -dname Define a name in "systemdict" with value=null. -Sname=string -sname=string Define a name in "systemdict" with a given string as value. This is different from -d. For example, -dname=35 is equivalent to the pro- gram fragment /name 35 def whereas -sname=35 is equivalent to /name (35) def -q Quiet startup: suppress normal startup messages, and also do the equivalent of -dQUIET. -gnumber1xnumber2 Equivalent to -dDEVICEWIDTH=number1 and -dDEVICEHEIGHT=number2. This is for the benefit of devices (such as X11 windows) that re- quire (or allow) width and height to be specified. -rnumber -rnumber1xnumber2 Equivalent to -dDEVICEXRESOLUTION=number1 and -dDEVICEYRESOLU- TION=number2. This is for the benefit of devices such as printers that support multiple X and Y resolutions. If only one number is given, it is used for both X and Y resolutions. -Idirectories Adds the designated list of directories at the head of the search path for library files. - This is not really a switch, but indicates to Ghostscript that stan- dard input is coming from a file or a pipe and not interactively from the command line. Ghostscript reads from standard input until it reaches end-of-file, executing it like any other file, and then continues with processing the command line. When the command line has been entirely processed, Ghostscript exits rather than going into its interactive mode. Note that the normal initialization file "gs_init.ps" makes "systemdict" read-only, so the values of names defined with -D, -d, -S, or -s cannot be changed (although, of course, they can be superseded by definitions in "userdict" or other dictionaries.) SPECIAL NAMES -dSAFER Disables the "deletefile" and "renamefile" operators and the ability to open files in any mode other than read-only. This is desirable for spoolers or any other environments where a malicious or badly written PostScript program must be prevented from changing important files. -dBATCH Causes Ghostscript to exit after processing all files named on the command line, rather than prompting for further PostScript commands. -dNOPAUSE Disables the prompt and pause at the end of each page. This may be desirable in converting documents or for applications where another program is driving Ghostscript. -sDEVICE=device Selects an alternate initial output device, as described above. -sOutputFile=filename Selects an alternate output file (or pipe) for the initial output device, as described above. -dNODISPLAY Suppresses the normal initialization of the output device. This may be useful when debugging. -dNOCACHE Disables character caching. Useful only for debugging. -dNOBIND Disables the "bind" operator. Useful only for debugging. -dNOPLATFONTS Disables the use of fonts supplied by the underlying platform (for instance X Windows). This may be needed if the platform fonts look undesirably different from the scalable fonts. -dDISKFONTS Causes individual character outlines to be loaded from the disk the first time they are encountered. (Normally Ghostscript loads all the character outlines when it loads a font.) This may allow loading more fonts into RAM, at the expense of slower rendering. -dWRITESYSTEMDICT Leaves "systemdict" writable. This is necessary when running special utility programs such as font2c and pcharstr, which must bypass nor- mal PostScript access protection. FILES The locations of many Ghostscript run-time files are compiled into the exe- cutable when it is built. On Unix these are typically based in /usr/local, but this may be different on your system. Under DOS they are typically based in C:\GS, but may be elsewhere, especially if you install Ghostscript with GSview. Run "gs -h" to find the location of Ghostscript documentation on your system, from which you can get more details. /usr/local/share/ghostscript/#.##/* Startup files, utilities, and basic font definitions /usr/local/share/ghostscript/fonts/* More font definitions /usr/local/share/ghostscript/#.##/examples/* Ghostscript demonstration files /usr/local/share/ghostscript/#.##/doc/* Diverse document files ENVIRONMENT GS_OPTIONS String of options to be processed before the command line options GS_DEVICE Used to specify an output device GS_FONTPATH Path names used to search for fonts GS_LIB Path names for initialization files and fonts TEMP Where temporary files are made SEE ALSO The various Ghostscript document files (above), especially Use.htm. BUGS See the Usenet news group comp.lang.postscript. VERSION This document was last revised for Ghostscript version 7.07. AUTHOR L. Peter Deutsch <ghost@aladdin.com> is the principal author of Ghost- script. Russell J. Lang <rjl@aladdin.com> is the author of most of the MS Windows code in Ghostscript. 7.07 17 May 2003 GS(1)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | INITIALIZATION FILES | X RESOURCES | SWITCHES | SPECIAL NAMES | FILES | ENVIRONMENT | SEE ALSO | BUGS | VERSION | AUTHOR
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