MacWorld 1998 March/Macworld (1998-03) (Disk 1).dmg/Shareware World/Info/For Developers/GhostScript 5.10/MacGS-510/doc/new-user.txt

Text File | 1997-11-04 | 25KB | 571 lines

   Copyright (C) 1996, 1997 Aladdin Enterprises.  All rights reserved.

  This file is part of Aladdin Ghostscript.

  Aladdin Ghostscript is distributed with NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND.  No author
  or distributor accepts any responsibility for the consequences of using it,
  or for whether it serves any particular purpose or works at all, unless he
  or she says so in writing.  Refer to the Aladdin Ghostscript Free Public
  License (the "License") for full details.

  Every copy of Aladdin Ghostscript must include a copy of the License,
  normally in a plain ASCII text file named PUBLIC.  The License grants you
  the right to copy, modify and redistribute Aladdin Ghostscript, but only
  under certain conditions described in the License.  Among other things, the
  License requires that the copyright notice and this notice be preserved on
  all copies.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

This file, new-user.txt, provides background information for new users.

For an overview of Ghostscript and a list of the documentation files, see
README.

********
******** An overview of Ghostscript ********
********

Ghostscript is the name of a set of software that provides:

    - An interpreter for the PostScript (TM) language and the Adobe
Portable Document Format (PDF -- sometimes confused with Acrobat, Adobe's
PDF browser/editor product), and

    - A set of C procedures (the Ghostscript library) that implement
the graphics and filtering (data compression / decompression / conversion)
capabilities that appear as primitive operations in the PostScript language
and in PDF.

How is Ghostscript licensed?  Where can I find it?
--------------------------------------------------

Ghostscript is a copyrighted work (Aladdin Enterprises owns the copyright);
it is not shareware or in the public domain.  Different versions of it are
distributed with three different licenses:

    - Versions entitled "Aladdin Ghostscript" are distributed with a
license called the Aladdin Free Public License that allows free use,
copying, and distribution by end users, but does not allow commercial
distribution.  You can always get the current version of Aladdin Ghostscript
with this license by Internet FTP from
    ftp://ftp.cs.wisc.edu/ghost/aladdin/gsNNN/ghostscript*NNNN*
or, if you run AFS, by direct reference to
    /afs/cs.wisc.edu/public/ghost/aladdin/gsNNN/ghostscript*NNNN*
where NNN is the version number without embedded dots (e.g., 503) and NNNN
is the version number with dots (e.g., 5.03).  If you do not have convenient
access to the Internet, you can order Aladdin Ghostscript on a CD-R disk,
along with some useful related programs and documentation: for more
information, see
    http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/cd.html
or send e-mail to Russell Lang (see the e-mail address under "Previewers"
below).  Please note that this is not "commercial licensing"; you are still
getting freely redistributable software, with no support and no warranty.

    - Versions entitled "GNU Ghostscript" are distributed with the GNU
General Public License, which allows free use, and free copying and
redistribution under certain conditions (including, in some cases,
commercial distribution).  GNU Ghostscript versions are released
approximately a year after the corresponding Aladdin Ghostscript version.
You can always get the current version of GNU Ghostscript by Internet FTP
from
    ftp://ftp.cs.wisc.edu/ghost/gnu/gsNNN/ghostscript*NNNN*
or, if you run AFS, by direct reference to
    /afs/cs.wisc.edu/public/ghost/gnu/gsNNN/ghostscript*NNNN*
or from any of the GNU distribution sites, such as ftp.uu.net:/systems/gnu
or gatekeeper.dec.com:/pub/GNU; you can also get GNU Ghostscript on tape
or CD-ROM from the Free Software Foundation.  For a more complete list of
sites, including sites outside the U.S., send e-mail to
[e-mail].

    - Versions of Ghostscript are also available for commercial
licensing.  See the next section for details.

Aladdin Ghostscript and GNU Ghostscript come with NO WARRANTY and NO
SUPPORT.  If you have a question or a bug to report, please see the
section "If you need help" below for information about what to do.

The Ghostscript source code distribution, and the Ghostscript executable
code, include the following libraries obtained from other parties:

    - The Independent JPEG Group (IJG) library.  The executable versions
of Ghostscript are based in part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group.
For more information, please see the file jpeg.mak in the main Ghostscript
source directory, and the README file in the jpeg subdirectory of the
Ghostscript source code.

    - The PNG library created by Dave Martindale, Guy Eric Schalnat,
Paul Schmidt, and Tim Wegner, of Group 42, Inc.  For more information,
please see the libpng.mak file in the main Ghostscript source directory, and
the files readme.txt and png.h in the libpng subdirectory of the Ghostscript
source code.

    - The zlib library created by Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.  For
more information, please see the zlib.mak file in the main Ghostscript
source directory, and the README file in the zlib subdirectory of the
Ghostscript source code.

These libraries do NOT fall under either the GNU License or the Aladdin
Ghostscript Free Public License; they come with their own licenses, which
also allow free use and redistribution under appropriate circumstances and
which appear in the files referenced just above.  These libraries are
entirely original works of their respective authors, and are provided "AS
IS" with NO WARRANTY and NO SUPPORT.

What if I want support?
-----------------------

Neither Aladdin Enterprises nor any organization known to us currently
offers Ghostscript support for end-users -- that is, for people or companies
who just want to use Ghostscript and not redistribute it as part of a
product.  Companies that include Ghostscript in their products under a
commercial license (see next section) may offer support to end-users, but it
would be support for the company's own product, not for Ghostscript per se.

Nothing in the GNU or Aladdin Free licenses prevents anyone from providing
support for Ghostscript, either free or commercial.  Aladdin would be happy
to include in the Ghostscript documentation the contact information for
anyone who wants to offer such support.

What about commercial use?
--------------------------

GNU Ghostscript may not be incorporated into commercial products which
forbid copying or for which customers cannot obtain source code for no more
than the cost of reproduction, although it may be distributed ("aggregated")
with commercial products; Aladdin Ghostscript may not be incorporated into
commercial products at all, and may only be distributed commercially under
extremely limited circumstances.  However, Ghostscript is also available for
commercial licensing, which in addition to the right to incorporate
Ghostscript into commercial products includes support, a limited warranty,
high-quality fonts, and other benefits.  For more information about
commercial licensing of Ghostscript, please contact Aladdin Enterprises'
commercial distribution partner, the only entity legally authorized to
distribute Ghostscript per se on any terms other than the GNU or Aladdin
free licenses:

        Licensing Information
        Artifex Software Inc.
        454 Las Gallinas Ave., suite 108
        San Rafael, CA 94903  U.S.A.
        voice [phone]
        fax [phone]
        e-mail: [e-mail]

Artifex does not offer commercial support as a separate service; support is
available only to OEM licensees (that is, licensees who will be
redistributing Ghostscript in a product).

What platforms does Ghostscript run on?
---------------------------------------

Ghostscript is written entirely in C (with some optional assembly-language
accelerators for MS-DOS platforms), with special care taken to make it run
properly on systems of either byte order and of various word lengths.

GNU Ghostscript is known to run on the following platform families:

    - A wide variety of Unix systems using X Windows version 11, release
      4, 5, and 6, including Sun-3, Sun-4, Sun-386i, and Sun
      SPARCStation; generic 80386/486/Pentium machines running Linux,
      386/ix, FreeBSD, ISC Unix, SCO Unix, and Solaris; H-P 9000/300 and
      9000/800; DECStation 2100 and 3100; VAX running Ultrix and OSF/1;
      Sequent Symmetry; Convex C1 and C2; Tektronix 4300; SGI Iris
      Indigo; 4.4bsd Unix systems (FreeBSD (intel), NetBSD (intel,
      sparc, m68k (apple, amiga, sun & hp) and vax) and 386BSD (intel)).

    - Sun workstations (Sun-3, SPARC, Sun-386i) running SunView;

    - VAX or AXP systems running VMS with X11R4/5 and DEC C or gcc.

Aladdin Ghostscript is known to run on all of the above, and additionally
the following platform families:

    - IBM PC and compatibles with EGA, VGA, SuperVGA, or compatible
      graphics under MS-DOS 3.1, 3.3, 5.0, or 6.22, and Microsoft
      Windows 3.1, NT, or 95;

    - IBM PC and compatibles under DR DOS 6.0;

    - IBM PC and compatibles under OS/2 2.0, 2.1 and Warp 3.0.

        - Macintosh with System 7 or later, both 680x0 and PowerPC native.
          For specific information on the Macintosh implementation, please
          see http://www.glyphic.com/glyphic/projects/macgs.html

It is very likely that Ghostscript will run under other versions of MS-DOS,
and other versions of Unix that support X11, but it has not been tested in
these environments.  (Ghostscript does not run well on PC-compatibles with
Hercules display cards, since text and graphics output interfere with each
other, but you can work around this by redirecting the text output to a file.)

Ghostscript has also been ported to a number of platforms by users, who are
willing to be contacted regarding problems on those specific platforms:

    - For information and possibly precompiled binaries for NeXT
    machines, contact Alan Barclay <[e-mail]>,
    in the U.K. at [phone] (voice & fax).

    - For information on a port to the Amiga, contact Andreas Maschke
    ([e-mail]).  This port includes drivers for
        IFF (file format)
        RETINA (graphics board) and
        INTUI (Amiga Window system)
    by Andreas Heitmann ([e-mail]).

    - For information on a port to the Atari ST, contact Tim
    Gallivan ([e-mail]).

    - For information on a port to the Acorn Archimedes, contact
    David Elworthy ([e-mail]).

********
******** Related work
********

PDF encryption
--------------

A user outside the U.S. has created code that allows processing of encrypted
PDF files.  Unfortunately, current U.S. export control laws don't allow
redistribution of this code from a site in the U.S., even though it's freely
available to anyone anywhere in the world from its author's site, so you'll
have to get this code from:

    http://www.ozemail.com.au/~geoffk/pdfencrypt/pdf_sec.ps

If that doesn't work, try:

    http://www.ozemail.com.au/%7Egeoffk/pdfencrypt/pdf_sec.ps

The patch consists entirely of PostScript code, so it can be added to a
running version of Ghostscript -- you don't have to recompile anything.  It
is a single file that replaces the file pdf_sec.ps in the standard
Ghostscript fileset.

Previewers
----------

The Ghostscript user interface is very primitive, so several people have
contributed screen previewers with better user interfaces.

We know of two freely available X Windows screen previewers based on
Ghostscript: Ghostview and GSPreview.  For information on Ghostview, contact
Tim Theisen ([e-mail]).  For information on GSPreview, contact
Richard Hesketh ([e-mail]).

There is a freely available previewer for OpenVMS (both VAX and AXP) called
GhostView-VMS or gv-vms, derived from Tim Theisen's Ghostview 1.5 by
Johannes Plass ([e-mail]).  Some places you can find
it are:
    WWW:
      http://www.wku.edu/htbin/fileserv?X11KIT
    FTP:
      site:  ftp.wku.edu
      file:  VMS/FILESERV/X11Kit.ZIP
      site:  nic.switch.ch
      file:  mirror/vms/spc/macro32/savesets/x11kit.zip
      site:  ada.cenaath.cena.dgac.fr
      files: DECWINDOWS/XAW3D/
      site:  axp.psl.ku.dk
      files: DECWINDOWS/XAW3D/

There is a freely available MS Windows screen previewer based on
Ghostscript, called GSview, and a similar OS/2 previewer.
GSview is available from
    http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/gsview/
For technical information on GSview for Windows or PM GSview, please contact
Russell Lang ([e-mail]).  (Aladdin provides Lang with a mail alias,
but Lang is not an employee or agent of Aladdin.)  These programs are also
available for commercial licensing from Artifex Software Inc.

Users have created two packages that provide a set of GSview-like commands
that MS-DOS users can enter through the keyboard.  One such package, created
by GUST, the Polish TeX Users Group, is in the public domain.  It is
available from
    ftp.pg.gda.pl:/pub/TeX/GUST/contrib/PS/ps_view/*
and from sites in the CTAN network such as
    ftp.dante.de:/tex-archive/support/ps_view/*
The authors describe the package as follows:
       Fast and easy previewing of PS documents!
       a PostScript preamble providing an interactive environement
       for previewing PostScript documents. The current version
       can drive the current version of the Ghostscript interpreter
       and assumes conformance of the document to the Adobe PostScript
       structuring conventions.
       Batch files provided for MS DOS, however ps_view can be adapted
       to any operating system.
For more information, e-mail to Boguslaw Jackowski <[e-mail]>.

The other keyboard-based viewing package is available from
    puccini.ujf-grenoble.fr:pub/contrib-ps/DOS-PSV/*
and appears to be redistributable with no restrictions.

Another user has created a Ghostscript-based bitmap previewing program for
Linux that doesn't use X Windows, called BMV.

  BMV is a very simple viewer of images in the pbm(5)-raw format
      and front end for GhostScript, based on Svgalib library for Linux

  BMV is distributed under GNU GPL (General Public License),
    you can obtain a copy from many FTP sites if you are interested in details

  Jan Kybic, Prosecka 681, Praha 9, Czech Republic, <[e-mail]>

  There is a port of BMV under SCO Unix by William Bader
  <[e-mail]>. Contact him if you are interested.

BMV is available from
    ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/graphics/viewers/bmv-1.1.tar.gz

Other programs
--------------

Mr. Norio Katayama ([e-mail]) has done some work on making
Ghostscript work well with Kanji fonts.  Please contact him for more
information.

An easy-to-install Kanji font for Ghostscript, with installation
instructions, can be found at
    http://www.cit.ics.saitama-u.ac.jp/~far/howto/gs-ttf.html

An extensive list of Unix systems and the fonts available on them is
available on
    http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/#PostScript-fonts
courtesy of Nelson H. F. Beebe.

Genscript is a free replacement for the enscript program.  Genscript
converts ASCII files to PostScript and spools generated PostScript output to
the specified printer or leaves it to file.  Genscript can be easily
extended to handle different output media and it has many options which can
be used to customize printouts.  You can find the current version on

  ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/genscript-1.3.0.tar.gz

  Genscript home page:    http://www.iki.fi/~mtr/genscript/
            (or http://www.hut.fi/~mtr/genscript/)

There is a good free utility "pstotext" that works with Ghostscript to
extract plain-text from PostScript files.  It is much better than the
ps2ascii utility distributed with Ghostscript.  You can read the pstotext
documentation at:

    http://www.research.digital.com/SRC/virtualpaper/manpages/pstotext.1.html

You can download pstotext from the following URL:

    http://www.research.digital.com/SRC/virtualpaper/pstotext.html

There is no formal technical support for pstotext, but the authors are happy
to receive your questions and comments by e-mail at the following locations:

    http://www.research.digital.com/SRC/virtualpaper/comments.html
    mailto:[e-mail]
    mailto:[e-mail]

For more information about the authors' Virtual Paper project, which
attempts to make on-line reading of lengthy material (like research reports,
manuals, or entire books) comfortable, read:

    http://www.research.digital.com/SRC/virtualpaper

Martin Lottermoser <[e-mail]> has developed a
higher-quality driver for the H-P inkjet printers (currently, DeskJet 500,
500C, 510, 520, 540, 550C, 560C, 850C, 855C).  You can get information about
his driver, called hpdj, from:

    ftp://ftp.pdb.sni.de/pub/utilities/misc/hpdj.html

Uli Wortmann <[e-mail]> has developed a higher-quality driver for
certain H-P inkjet printers (currently, DeskJet 670, 690, and 8xx).  For
more information and downloads, visit:

    http://bonk.ethz.ch/software.html


********
******** If you need help ********
********

There is a Frequently Asked Questions file available for Internet anonymous
FTP from
    ftp://ftp.cs.wisc.edu/ghost/gsfaq.txt
(i.e., FTP to ftp.cs.wisc.edu, file name /ghost/gsfaq.txt)
or, if you run AFS, by direct reference to
    /afs/cs.wisc.edu/public/ghost/gsfaq.txt
and also available by HTTP (World Wide Web) from
    http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/gsfaq.html
It isn't updated very often, so it may be a little out of date.

In December 1995, CompuServe announced that the Graphics Support Forum
offers Message Section and Library 21, "Ghostscript", for technical
assistance with Ghostscript.  Ghostscript is available for downloading in
Library 21, "Ghostscript." To access the Graphics Support Forum, GO
GRAPHSUP.  This service has no connection with Aladdin Enterprises.

Aladdin Enterprises doesn't have the resources to respond to questions from
users of the freely available versions of Ghostscript.  (Responding to
questions and bug reports is one of the benefits that Artifex Software
provides to commercial users in exchange for the licensing fee.)  If you
have problems with Ghostscript, and you have access to the Internet, we
suggest you post your question to one of the following Usenet newsgroups:

    - If your question is about GNU Ghostscript (currently, versions
3.33 and below), post it to the gnu.ghostscript.bug newsgroup.  If you have
access to Internet mail, but not news, send e-mail to
[e-mail], which is equivalent to posting to the
gnu.ghostscript.bug newsgroup.

    - If your question is about Aladdin Ghostscript (currently, versions
above 3.33), post it to the comp.lang.postscript newsgroup.  If you have
access to Internet mail, but not news, send e-mail to
[e-mail], which is equivalent to posting to the
comp.lang.postscript newsgroup.  (We hope to establish a separate newsgroup
for Aladdin Ghostscript in the future, since comp.lang.postscript was not
intended for Ghostscript discussion per se.)

There are hundreds of Ghostscript user sites all over the world, and often
another user will be able to help you. If you are having trouble with
a specific device driver, look in the file devs.mak and see if it is a
user-maintained driver.  If so, please contact the person listed there
directly; please do not contact Aladdin Enterprises regarding
user-maintained drivers.

Aladdin Enterprises does want Ghostscript to be of high quality, so if you
have been running Ghostscript and encounter a problem, we encourage you to
post bugs to the newsgroups mentioned above.  We will consider investigating
problems reported to those newsgroups, or e-mailed directly to
[e-mail], if (and only if) the report meets all the following
criteria:

    - You are using the most recent version of Aladdin Ghostscript.

    - You obtained Ghostscript directly from Aladdin Enterprises, or
    from the FTP or AFS site on the Internet mentioned above (i.e., not
    from a bulletin board system or a commercial system such as
    CompuServe or GEnie).

    - You have installed Ghostscript successfully, and used it
    successfully on other input data.

    - Your problem is reproducible, and you can mail us the input
    data that evokes it (by e-mail, anonymous FTP, or PC diskette).
    (But please do not send anything unless we ask you for it.)

    - You created the bug report using the form in bug-form.txt,
    completely filled out.

Bug reports that include suggested fixes are especially welcome.

As time permits, Aladdin Enterprises may also respond to e-mail from the
following classes of users:

    - Beta testers who have actually given us at least one report on
    some beta version supplied to them.

    - People developing drivers that are for, or applications that
    are based on, Ghostscript and that will be made freely available.

    - People who express serious interest in commercial licensing
    of Ghostscript.

Aladdin Enterprises owns or has access to the following hardware and
software:

    Pentium and 486 PCs with color SuperVGA displays;
      Epson-compatible printer (the printer also is compatible with
      the IBM Proprinter); various H-P printers.  These systems run
      MS-DOS 5.0 and 6.22 and Microsoft Windows 3.1 and 95 with
      Borland C++ 4.0 (and several older versions), Watcom C++ 10.0,
      and Microsoft Visual C++ 4.0, and Linux with gcc.

    SPARCstation, SunOS 4.1, cc and gcc, X11R5 and SunView;
      both monochrome and color displays.

    DECstation, Ultrix.

    IBM RS/6000 and PowerPC, Unix (AIX 3.n).

    DEC AXP (Alpha), OSF/1.

If your problem turns out to be specific to some other hardware or
software configuration, it may take longer to track down, since we
will have to rely on other users to help.

Aladdin's contact information is as follows:

        Aladdin Enterprises
        P.O. box 60264
        Palo Alto, CA 94306
        phone [phone] (8:30 AM - noon, Pacific time)
        fax [phone]
        [e-mail]

Please do not contact us if all you want is help with the freely distributed
versions of Ghostscript!  Ghostscript is free, but our time is not.  If you
call for help, we will tell you politely that we cannot answer your
question.  Ghostscript's documentation, while not of commercial end-user
quality, has been adequate for thousands of users (for many of whom English
is a foreign language), so the answer to your question is very likely in it
somewhere.

********
******** Things you can do to help ********
********

There are some projects that users could do that are somewhat
decoupled from the main body of the code, and that would help improve
Ghostscript:

    - Making Ghostscript work with the free emx/gcc and rsx libraries
would provide an alternative MS-DOS / Windows 95 / Windows NT implementation
that doesn't require any proprietary, commercial compilers.  If someone was
willing to do the work, we would be happy to include this in our list of
supported platforms and to distribute the makefiles.  If interested, please
consult the following URL:
    http://www.leo.org/pub/comp/os/os2/leo/gnu/emx+gcc/index.html
and then contact [e-mail] if you want to do the work.

    - Someone is needed to take responsibility for texinfo and/or man
page documentation for Ghostscript.  What this would involve is updating
this documentation during the beta test period for each release, and
sending it to Aladdin to be included in the final fileset.  (Aladdin would
continue to supply the plain-text documentation as it currently exists.)

    - Adobe has donated the specification of the Display PostScript C
API to the X distribution, as well as the client-side implementation.
Modifying Ghostscript to interface with this code as a substitute for a
Display PostScript server might make Ghostscript a lot more useful, since
it would then be "plug compatible" with Display PostScript in an important
way.  Contact [e-mail] if you would like to help with this.

********
******** Acknowledgements ********
********

Ghostscript was originally created, and is primarily developed and
maintained, by L. Peter Deutsch, President of Aladdin Enterprises.

Special thanks are due to Russell Lang, for the GSview for Windows and PM
GSview programs and for contributing most of the code for the Microsoft
Windows and OS/2 environments; to Tim Theisen, for the Ghostview program for
X Windows and for major contributions to, and ongoing assistance with
support of, the code for the X Windows environment; to Martin Fong, for the
original port of Ghostscript to the Macintosh, and Mark Lentczner, for the
current Macintosh port; and to the Independent JPEG Group, to Group 42,
Inc., and to Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler, for creating the freely
available libraries that Ghostscript uses.

Special thanks are due to URW++ Design and Development Incorporated, of
Hamburg, Germany (http://www.urwpp.de), for making a commercial-quality set
of the 35 standard PostScript Type 1 fonts available for free distribution
under the GNU and Aladdin licenses.

Special thanks are due to Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation
for originating the GNU License, for originally motivating the creation of
Ghostscript, and for being the primary distributor of GNU Ghostscript on
the Internet.

The file helpers.txt contains a list of the many other people who have
contributed significantly to improving Ghostscript.