Ghostscript is a processor for PostScript and PDF files. It can rasterize these files to a wide variety of printers, devices for screen preview, and image file formats. Since applications tend to prepare pages for printing in a high-level format such as PostScript, most Unix users with low-level bitmap printers, such as inkjets, use GhostScript as part of the printing process. In addition, Ghostscript is capable of converting PostScript files, functionality comparable to Adobe Acrobat Distiller, but on the command line. In addition, Ghostscript is used for file import and viewing by a great many other applications, including xv, ImageMagick, gimp, and xdvi. Several GUI wrappers for viewing PostScript and PDF files exist, including GSview, ghostview, gv, ggv, and kghostview. This is far from a comprehensive list.
License: GNU General Public License (GPL)
Changes:
Support for multi-threaded rendering using "-dNumRenderingThreads=n" was implemented. Images are now always interpolated in their source colorspace. Support for OpenPrinting Vector devices was upgraded to version 1.0. Two new experimental devices, a cairo output device and the svgwrite device, were added. Several robustness and performance improvements were made for large files, invalid PDF, and font handling.
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