GS(1)                                                               Ghostscript                                                              GS(1)

NAME

       gs - Ghostscript (PostScript and PDF language interpreter and previewer)

SYNOPSIS

       gs [ options ] [ files ] ... (Unix, VMS)
       gswin32c [ options ] [ files ] ... (MS Windows)
       gswin32 [ options ] [ files ] ... (MS Windows 3.1)
       gsos2 [ options ] [ files ] ... (OS/2)

DESCRIPTION

       The gs (gswin32c, gswin32, 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 Ghostscript programs. After doing this, it reads further input from the
       standard  input  stream (normally the keyboard), interpreting each line separately. The interpreter exits 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 many option switches, some of which are described below. Please see the usage documentation for complete  infor-
       mation.  Switches may appear anywhere in the command line and apply to all files thereafter.  Invoking 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 documentation.

       Ghostscript  may  be  built  to use many different output devices.  To see which devices your executable includes, 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 device, 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.

       Finally, you can specify a default device in the environment variable GS_DEVICE.  The order of precedence for these alternatives from high-
       est to lowest (Ghostscript uses the device defined highest in the list) is:

       Some devices can support 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-density (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 "-sOut-
       putFile=" 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 and MS Windows 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 option

            -sOutputFile=%pipe%lpr

       Note that the '%' characters need to be doubled on MS Windows to avoid mangling by the command interpreter.

       You can also send output to standard output:

            -sOutputFile=-
       or
            -sOutputFile=%stdout%

       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=<paper_size>

       for instance

            -sPAPERSIZE=a4
       or
            -sPAPERSIZE=legal

       Most  ISO  and  US  paper  sizes are recognized. See the usage documentation for a full list, or the definitions in the initialization file
       "gs_statd.ps".

       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.

       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

OPTIONS

       -- filename arg1 ...
              Takes  the  next  argument  as  a  file  name  as  usual, but takes all remaining 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 Ghostscript 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
              program 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
              require (or allow) width and height to be specified.

       -rnumber
       -rnumber1xnumber2
              Equivalent to -dDEVICEXRESOLUTION=number1 and -dDEVICEYRESOLUTION=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 standard 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

       -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.

       -dNOCACHE
              Disables character caching.  Useful only for debugging.

       -dNOBIND
              Disables the "bind" operator.  Useful only for debugging.

       -dNODISPLAY
              Suppresses the normal initialization of the output device.  This may be useful when debugging.

       -dNOPAUSE
              Disables the prompt and pause at the end of each page.  This may be desirable for applications  where  another  program  is  driving
              Ghostscript.

       -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.

       -dSAFER
              Disables the "deletefile" and "renamefile" operators and the ability to open files in any mode other than read-only.  This  strongly
              recommended  for  spoolers, conversion scripts or other sensitive environments where a badly written or malicious PostScript program
              code must be prevented from changing important files.

       -dWRITESYSTEMDICT
              Leaves "systemdict" writable.  This is necessary when running special utility programs such  as  font2c  and  pcharstr,  which  must
              bypass normal PostScript access protection.

       -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.

FILES

       The  locations  of many Ghostscript run-time files are compiled into the executable when it is built.  On Unix these are typically based in
       /usr, 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/share/ghostscript/#.##/*
              Startup files, utilities, and basic font definitions

       /usr/share/ghostscript/fonts/*
              More font definitions

       /usr/share/ghostscript/#.##/examples/*
              Ghostscript demonstration files

       /usr/share/ghostscript/#.##/doc/*
              Diverse document files

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 MS Windows  systems),
       Ghostscript tries directories in this order:

       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 Ghostscript makefile when the executable was built.  When gs is built on
           Unix, GS_LIB_DEFAULT is usually "/usr/share/ghostscript/#.##:/usr/share/ghostscript/fonts" where "#.##" represents the Ghostscript ver-
           sion 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 ":".

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

X RESOURCES

       Ghostscript, or more properly the X11 display device, 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 WidthOfScreen and WidthMMOfScreen).

       yResolution
              The number of y pixels per inch (default is computed from HeightOfScreen 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 following 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

SEE ALSO

       The various Ghostscript document files (above), especially Use.htm.

BUGS

       See http://bugs.ghostscript.com/ and the Usenet news group comp.lang.postscript.

VERSION

       This document was last revised for Ghostscript version 8.70.

AUTHOR

       Artifex Software, Inc. are the primary maintainers of Ghostscript.  Russell J. Lang, gsview at ghostgum.com.au, is the author  of  most  of
       the MS Windows code in Ghostscript.

8.70                                                               31 July 2009                                                              GS(1)