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Text File | 1996-01-10 | 49.9 KB | 1,246 lines

Copyright (C) 1989, 1995 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, use.doc, describes how to use the Ghostscript language interpreter. For an overview of Ghostscript and a list of the documentation files, see README. ******** ******** How to install Ghostscript ******** ******** To run Ghostscript, you need the executable program, and also some external initialization files: gs_*.ps (see psfiles.doc for the full list), unless Ghostscript was compiled using the "compiled initialization files" option pdf_*.ps if you want to interpret PDF files. Fontmap, unless you plan to always invoke Ghostscript with the -dNOFONTMAP switch The file name of the executable program depends on the environment; see the instructions for the specific platforms below. The Ghostscript fileset includes a set of fonts (.gsf files); you should have them on line as well, unless you have a complete set of other fonts (such as ATM or Display PostScript fonts) and are using a Fontmap and/or GS_FONTPATH that references them. The fonts distributed with Ghostscript are of low quality, because we couldn't find any better ones that were free. If you have an H-P PostScript printer, you can get better fonts by calling H-P at (303)-339-7009. The driver set to ask for is Adobe Type Manager V2.51, and the disk set number is MP210en3. Please note that mentioning anything other than Microsoft Windows when you ask for the driver set will probably lead to great confusion on the other end (but the fonts will work with Ghostscript on any platform, not just MS Windows). VMS --- Installing Ghostscript on a VMS system requires compiling it first. The name of the executable is GS.EXE. You should install all the files, including the fonts, in the same directory as the executable and initialization files. By default, this is the directory in which you did the compilation. Consult the command file (VMS*.MAK) for more details. If you have DECWindows/Motif installed, you may wish to replace the FONTMAP file with the file FONTMAP.VMS. Read the comment at the beginning of the latter file for more information. MS-DOS ------ There are two MS-DOS executables in the standard Ghostscript distribution: - GS.EXE runs on any MS-DOS machine, but is limited to 640K. - GS386.EXE runs on any 386 or 486 machine, and will use all available extended (not expanded) memory. You should install all the files except the fonts in C:\GS, and the fonts in C:\GS\FONTS. If you have Adobe Type Manager fonts installed on your system, and you wish to use them with Ghostscript, you may wish to replace the FONTMAP file with FONTMAP.ATM, and to add to the environment variable GS_LIB the name of the directory where the fonts are located (see below for more information about GS_LIB). Before you do this, please read carefully the license that accompanies the ATM fonts; Aladdin Enterprises takes no responsibility for any possible violations of such licenses. Similarly, if you have Adobe Type Basics, you may wish to replace FONTMAP with FONTMAP.ATB. MS Windows ---------- The name of the executable is GSWIN.EXE. Ghostscript probably requires Windows 3.1, and you must run Windows in 386 Enhanced or Standard (not Real) mode. Since Ghostscript is a large program, you will need to run Windows in Enhanced mode (so that it can provide virtual memory) unless you have at least 6 Mb of RAM. You should install all the files except the fonts in C:\GS, and the fonts in C:\GS\FONTS. See under "MS-DOS" above for information about using Adobe Type Manager fonts with Ghostscript. The files COMMDLG.DLL and SHELL.DLL supplied with Ghostscript are only for use with Windows 3.0. If you have Windows 3.1, delete these files, since Windows itself provides versions of them. If your system uses TrueType fonts, you can get them converted to a Ghostscript-compatible format at the time you select your "printer" by doing the following: 1) Open control panel and double click on the printers icon. 2) Select your Postscript Printer. 3) Choose Setup. 4) Choose Options. 5) Choose Advanced. 6) At the top of the Dialog Box you will see TrueType Fonts Send to Printer As: <drop down menu> Choose Adobe Type 1. 7) Uncheck Use Printer Fonts for All TrueType Fonts and Use Substitution Table. 8) OK. 9) OK etc. That's it! Your TrueType fonts will automatically be downloaded in your PostScript file for Ghostscript to use. For printer devices, the default output is: the default printer (Win95 or WinNT) OR prompt for a printer port (Win16 or Win32s). This can be modified as follows. -sOutputFile="LPT1:" Output to named port. -sOutputFile="\\spool\printer name" (Win95 or WinNT only) Output to named printer. -sOutputFile="\\spool" (Win95 or WinNT only) Prompt for printer name. Local printers only are supported. For Win32s, make sure that gs16spl.exe is in the same directory as gswin32.exe. OS/2 2.x -------- The Ghostscript OS/2 implementation is designed for OS/2 2.1. A few people have used it successfully under OS/2 2.0, but it has had very little testing. The name of the executable is GSOS2.EXE. This is a text application that will run windowed or full screen. The default device is "os2pm" which displays output in a Presentation Manager window using the external driver GSPMDRV.EXE. GSPMDRV.EXE must be located in the same directory as GSOS2.EXE or on the PATH. GSOS2.EXE and GSPMDRV.EXE are compiled using EMX/GCC 0.9b. You must have the EMX DLL's on your LIBPATH. These are available from ftp://hobbes.nmsu.edu/os2/unix/emx09b/emxrt.zip The system menu of the Ghostscript Image window includes a "Copy" command to copy the currently displayed bitmap to the Clipboard. OS/2 comes with some Adobe Type Manager fonts. If you wish to use these with Ghostscript, you should replace the FONTMAP file with FONTMAP.OS2, and add to the environment variable GS_LIB the name of the directory where the fonts are located, usually c:\psfonts. (see below for more information about GS_LIB). Before you do this, please read carefully the license that accompanies the ATM fonts; Aladdin Enterprises takes no responsibility for any possible violations of such licenses. Since GSOS2.EXE is not a PM application, it cannot determine the depth of the PM display. You must provide this information using the -dBitsPerPixel option. The default is 8 bits/pixel. Valid values are 1, 4, 8, 16 & 24. For monochrome VGA use -dBitsPerPixel=1 For standard VGA screen use -dBitsPerPixel=4 For 256 colour SVGA use -dBitsPerPixel=8 A command file gspm.cmd containing the following line may be useful: @c:\gs\gsos2.exe -Ic:/gs;c:/gs/fonts;c:/psfonts -sDEVICE=os2pm -dBitsPerPixel=8 -sPAPERSIZE=a4 %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 While drawing, the os2pm driver updates the display every 5 seconds. On slow computers this is undesirable and a different interval can be specified in milliseconds with the -dUpdateInterval option. The default is -dUpdateInterval=5000; to disable update use -dUpdateInterval=0. Standard VGA is very slow due to double buffering to avoid bugs and due to 1 plane to 4 plane conversion. Use a 256 color display driver by preference. Many display drivers have bugs which cause 1 bit/pixel bitmaps to be displayed incorrectly. GSOS2.EXE and GSPMDRV.EXE will stay in memory for the number of minutes specified in the environment variable GS_LOAD. Ghostscript can also be run in a DOS box. Please read the MS-DOS notes, since they apply to this environment as well. If you run GS386 in the OS/2 2.0 or 2.1 DOS Box, you must select the "ENABLED" setting for the DPMI_DOS_API option of the DOS Box. GS386 will not run with the "AUTO" setting. For printer devices, output goes to the default queue. To print to a specified queue, use -sOutputFile=\\spool\NullLPT1 where NullLPT1 is the queue physical name. Unix ---- Installing Ghostscript on a Unix system requires compiling it first: please read the Unix section(s) in make.doc for more information, especially regarding how to decide which makefile to use and how you may need to edit it. The name of the executable is gs. The makefile installs all the files, except the fonts, in /usr/local or various subdirectories thereof. The fonts should be installed in /usr/local/lib/ghostscript/fonts. Consult the makefile for more details. ******** ******** Shell scripts for Ghostscript ******** The Ghostscript distribution includes several Unix shell scripts for driving Ghostscript in different environments. These are all user-contributed code: please contact the user identified in the file, not Aladdin Enterprises, if you have questions. > pv.sh - preview a specified page of a dvi file in an X window. > sysvlp.sh - System V 3.2 lp interface for parallel printer. > pj-gs.sh - printing on an H-P PaintJet under HP-UX. > unix-lpr.sh - queue filter for lpr under Unix. > lprsetup.sh - setup for unix-lpr.sh. If one of these serves your needs, you may be able to skip most of the rest of this document. ******** ******** How to use Ghostscript ******** ******** To invoke the interpreter, give the command gs <filename1> ... <filenameN> The interpreter will read in the files in sequence and execute them. After doing this, it reads further input from the primary input stream (normally the keyboard). Each line (i.e. characters up to a <return>) is interpreted separately. To exit from the interpreter, type quit<return>. The interpreter also exits gracefully if it encounters end-of-file. Typing the interrupt character, e.g., control-C, is also safe. The interpreter recognizes several switches described below, which may appear anywhere in the command line and apply to all files thereafter. You can get a brief help message by invoking Ghostscript with gs -h or gs -? This message also lists the available devices. For a little more information about available devices, a one-line description of each device appears near the beginning of the file devs.mak. Choosing the output device -------------------------- Ghostscript may be built with multiple output devices. Ghostscript normally opens the first one and directs output to it. To use device xyz as the initial output device, include the switch -sDEVICE=xyz in the command line. Note that this switch must precede the first .ps file, and only its first invocation has any effect. For example, for printer output in a normal configuration that includes an Epson printer driver, you might use the shell command gs -sDEVICE=epson myfile.ps instead of just gs myfile.ps Alternatively, once you are inside Ghostscript, you can type (epson) selectdevice (myfile.ps) run All output then goes to the printer instead of the display until further notice. You can switch devices at any time by using the selectdevice procedure, e.g., (vga) selectdevice or (epson) selectdevice As yet a third alternative, you can define an environment variable GS_DEVICE as the desired default device name. The order of precedence for these alternatives, highest to lowest, is: selectdevice (command line) GS_DEVICE (first device in build list) To select the resolution on a printer, use the shell command gs -sDEVICE=<device> -r<xres>x<yres> For example, on a 9-pin Epson-compatible printer, you can get the lowest-resolution (fastest) mode with gs -sDEVICE=epson -r60x72 and the highest-resolution mode with gs -sDEVICE=epson -r240x72. On a 24-pin printer, the lowest resolution is gs -sDEVICE=epson -r60x60 and the highest-resolution 24-pin mode is gs -sDEVICE=epson -r360x180 If you select a printer as the output device, Ghostscript also allows you to control where the device sends its output. Normally, output goes directly to the printer (PRN) on MS-DOS systems, and to a scratch file on Unix or VMS systems. To send the output to a series of files foo1.xyz, foo2.xyz, ..., use the switch -sOutputFile=foo%d.xyz (For compatibility with older versions of Ghostscript, -sOUTPUTFILE= also works.) The %d is a printf format specification; you can use other formats like %02d. Each file will receive one page of output. Alternatively, to send the output to a single file foo.xyz, with all the pages concatenated, use the switch -sOutputFile=foo.xyz On Unix systems, you can send the output directly to a pipe. For example, to pipe the output to the command `lpr' (which, on many Unix systems, is the command that spools output for a printer), use the switch -sOutputFile=\|lpr You can also send output to stdout for piping with the switch -sOutputFile=- In this case you must also use the -q switch, to prevent Ghostscript from writing messages to stdout. File formats like PCX and PBM are also 'devices'. When you select a file format as the 'device', you must also specify an output file, e.g., gs -sDEVICE=pcxmono -sOutputFile=xyz.pcx To find out what devices are available, type devicenames == after starting up Ghostscript. Alternatively you can use the -h or -? switch in the command line, as described above. Choosing paper size ------------------- Ghostscript is normally configured to expect U.S. letter paper. To select a different paper size as the default, find the line in gs_init.ps that says % Optionally choose a default paper size other than U.S. letter. The next line begins % (a4) To select A4 as the default paper size, remove the % but do not change anything else. To select a different default paper size, remove the % and replace the word a4 with the name of the desired paper size. You can use any paper size listed in the table at the beginning of gs_statd.ps. (Individual documents can also specify a paper size, which will take precedence over the one specified on the command line.) Alternatively, to select a different paper size for a single invocation of Ghostscript, you can use the command line switch -sPAPERSIZE=a_known_paper_size e.g., -sPAPERSIZE=a4 or -sPAPERSIZE=legal Finally, most (but not all) of Ghostscript's printer drivers can be configured at compile time to use A4 paper as the default by including -DA4 in the CFLAGS switches in the makefile. See make.doc for more details. File searching -------------- When looking for initialization files (gs_*.ps, pdf_*.ps), font files, the Fontmap file, and files for the 'run' operator, Ghostscript first checks whether the file name specifies an explicit directory or drive (i.e., doesn't begin with '/' on Unix systems; doesn't begin with a '/' or '\' or contain ':' as the second character on MS-DOS systems; doesn't contain a ':' or a square bracket on VMS systems). If it does, Ghostscript simply tries to open the file using the given name. Otherwise, Ghostscript will try directories in the following order: - The current directory; - The directory/ies specified by the -I switch(es) in the command line (see below), if any; - The directory/ies specified by the GS_LIB environment variable, if any; - The directory/ies specified by the GS_LIB_DEFAULT macro in the Ghostscript makefile, if any. Each of these (GS_LIB_DEFAULT, GS_LIB, and -I parameter) may be either a single directory, or a list of directories separated by a character appropriate for the operating system (':' on Unix systems, ';' on VMS systems, ';' on MS-DOS systems). We think that trying the current directory first is a very bad idea -- it opens serious security loopholes and can lead to very confusing errors if one has more than one version of Ghostscript in one's environment -- but when we attempted to change it, users insisted that we change it back. When Ghostscript starts up, it also looks at the GS_FONTPATH environment variable, which is also a list of directories. It goes to those directories and looks for all files that appear to contain PostScript fonts; it then effectively adds all those files and fonts to its internal copy of the Fontmap (the catalog of fonts and the files that contain them). If you are using one of the following types of computer, you may wish to set GS_FONTPATH to the indicated value so that Ghostscript will automatically acquire all the installed Type 1 fonts: System type GS_FONTPATH ----------- ----------- DEC OSF/1 /usr/lib/X11/fonts/Type1Adobe DEC Ultrix /usr/lib/DPS/outline/decwin HP-UX 9 /usr/lib/X11/fonts/type1.st/typefaces IBM AIX /usr/lpp/DPS/fonts/outlines " /usr/lpp/X11/lib/X11/fonts/Type1 " /usr/lpp/X11/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/DPS NeXT /NextLibrary/Fonts/outline SGI IRIX /usr/lib/DPS/outline/base " /usr/lib/X11/fonts/Type1 Sun SunOS 4.x /usr/openwin/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/outline " (NeWSprint only) newsprint_2.5/SUNWsteNP/reloc/$BASEDIR/NeWSprint/small_openwin/lib/fonts Sun Solaris 2 /usr/openwin/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/outline VMS SYS$COMMON:[SYSFONT.XDPS.OUTLINE] These paths may not be exactly right for your installation; if the indicated directory doesn't contain files whose names are familiar font names like Courier and Helvetica, you may wish to ask your system administrator where to find these fonts. NOTE: On Solaris systems simply setting GS_FONTPATH may not work, because for some reason some versions of Ghostscript can't seem to find any of the Type1 fonts in /usr/openwin/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/outline. It says: "15 files, 15 scanned, 0 new fonts". See Fontmap.Solaris instead. Temporary files --------------- By default, Ghostscript creates temporary files named _temp_XX.XXX in the current directory on MS-DOS and VMS systems, gsXXXXXX in the current directory on OS/2 systems, and gs_XXXXX in the /tmp directory on Unix systems. You can change the directory in which Ghostscript will create these files by setting the TEMP environment variable to the name of the directory. Ghostscript currently doesn't do a very good job of deleting temporary files when it exits; you may have to delete them manually from time to time. Environment variable summary ---------------------------- GS_DEVICE Defines the default output device. Described above. GS_FONTPATH Specifies a list of directories that should be scanned for fonts at startup. Described above. GS_LIB Provides a search path for initialization files and fonts. Described above. GS_OPTIONS Defines a list of command line arguments to be processed before the ones actually specified on the command line. For example, setting GS_DEVICE to xxx is equivalent to setting GS_OPTIONS to -sDEVICE=xxx. The contents of GS_OPTIONS are not limited to switches; they may include actual file names or even @file arguments. TEMP Defines a directory name for temporary files. Described above. ******** ******** Using Ghostscript and Ghostview with PDF files ******** Ghostscript is normally configured (except on 16-bit MS-DOS platforms) so that it can interpret both PostScript and PDF files (the latter are sometimes incorrectly called "Acrobat files"). It examines each file to determine automatically whether it is a PDF file or a PostScript file. All the normal switches and procedures for interpreting PostScript files also apply to PDF files, with a few exceptions noted below. In addition, there is a shell script pdf2ps input.pdf output.ps that converts PDF to (Level 2) PostScript. Switches not applicable to PDF files ------------------------------------ You cannot use the `-' switch to provide PDF input from stdin or a pipe. The PDF language, unlike the PostScript language, inherently requires random access to the file. Added switches for PDF files ---------------------------- -dFirstPage=pagenumber Starts interpreting on the given page of the document. -dLastPage=pagenumber Stops interpreting after the given page of the document. Ghostview and PDF files ----------------------- Since Ghostview pipes PostScript files to Ghostscript, you cannot view Ghostscript files with Ghostview just by saying ghostview file.pdf Instead there are two options: 1. Tanmoy Bhattacharya has written some patches for Ghostview 1.5 that allow it to read and display PDF files. These are available from: ftp://gita.lanl.gov/people/tanmoy/hypertex/gv1.5gs3.33hack.tar.gz 2. Start Ghostview as follows: ghostview -arguments file.pdf quit.ps This will allow you to display a PDF file, but you won't be able to jump to particular pages. Use Tanmoy's code if you want that facility. ******** ******** Notes on specific platforms ******** ******** VMS --- On VMS systems, the last character of each "directory" name indicates what sort of entity the "directory" references. If the "directory" name ends with a colon, it is taken as referring to a logical device, e.g.: $ DEFINE GHOSTSCRIPT_DEVICE DUA1:[GHOSTSCRIPT_14] $ DEFINE GS_LIB GHOSTSCRIPT_DEVICE: If the "directory" name ends with a closing square bracket, it is taken as referring to a real directory, e.g.: $ DEFINE GS_LIB DUA1:[GHOSTSCRIPT] To run Ghostscript with switches, you must type a command like $ gs "-dNODISPLAY" because the C run time library will convert the command parameters/arguments to lowercase unless you enclose them in double quotes which preserves the case. If you are on an X Windows display (for which gs is built), you can do $ set display/create/node="domain-name"/transport=tcpip For example, $ set display/create/node="doof.city.com"/transport=tcpip and then run Ghostscript $ gs If you write printer output to a file and then want to print the file later, use the "/PASSALL" qualifier to the PRINT command. In order to get PDF files (or PostScript files that use the setfileposition operator) to work properly on VMS systems, you must ensure that they are "stream LF" type files. (**NOTE**: This only applies if you are using DEC C to compile Ghostscript; there is no known way to get these files to work properly with the old VAX C compiler.) If you transfer files by FTP, you probably need to do one of the following two things after the transfer: 1. If FTP'd in text/ASCII mode then do: $ CONVERT/FDL=STREAMLF.FDL input-file output-file where the contents of the file STREAMLF.FDL are given below. 2. Otherwise, if FTP'd in binary mode do $ SET FILE/ATTRIBUTE=(RFM:STMLF) The contents of the STREAMLF.FDL file are shown between, and exclusive of, the dashed lines: ------------------------------------------------- FILE ORGANIZATION sequential RECORD BLOCK_SPAN yes CARRIAGE_CONTROL carriage_return FORMAT stream_lf ------------------------------------------------- MS-DOS ------ Ghostscript supports many SuperVGA displays directly, most of them with more than 16 colors. The complete list is in the file devs.mak, which is part of the Ghostscript source code. (If you got Ghostscript under the Aladdin Ghostscript Free Public License, the person or place from which you got it is also required to make the source code available to you; if you got it under the GNU License, see the GNU License for more information.) If you have a SuperVGA display that supports a 16-color mode with 800x600 pixels, and you know the display mode number for this mode, you can select it by using the command line switches -sDEVICE=svga16 -dDisplayMode=NNN where NNN is the display mode number in decimal. The modes for some popular display chipsets are as follows: Acumos AVGA2, AVGA3 88 (0x58) Advance Logic AL2101 43 (0x2B) Ahead V5000 113 (0x71) ATI VGAWONDER, Graphics Ultra etc. 84 (0x54) Chips and Technologies 106 (0x6A) Cirrus Logic CL-GD 500/600 100 (0x64) Cirrus Logic GD 5422 88 (0x58) Compaq VGA 89 (0x59) CTI 106 (0x6A) * Genoa 5xxx, Sigma VGA 41 (0x29) Genoa 6xxx 106 (0x6A) MXIC MX 68010 85 (0x55) NCR 77C22 88 (0x58) OAK Technologies OTI-067, OTI-077, OTI037C 82 (0x52) OAK Technologies OTI037C w/ NEL BIOS 91 (0x5B) * Orchid Prodesigner 41 (0x29) Paradise 88 (0x58) Poach 106 (0x6A) Primus 42 (0x2A) Realtek RT 3106 31 (0x1F) Tecmar 22 (0x16) Trident 8900 91 (0x5B) * Tseng ET-3000, ET-4000 41 (0x29) * VEGA 41 (0x29) Video 7 SVGA 98 (0x62) WD90C11 92 (0x5C) Western Digital 88 (0x58) The ones marked * are the default (they all use the same value.) If your card's chipset doesn't appear on this list, or if you try the value here and it doesn't work, please e-mail the chipset and correct display mode to ghost@aladdin.com for inclusion in future releases. If you are running Ghostscript on a MS-DOS machine with a display that is not EGA/VGA compatible, you must use the Borland compiler. You must build Ghostscript with the BGI driver as the default, and you will need the appropriate .BGI file from the Borland Turbo C library. (Ghostscript includes the EGA/VGA driver in the executable.) If you are using the BGI driver, two additional environment variables become relevant: BGIPATH - defines the directory where Ghostscript will look for the appropriate BGI driver. If BGIPATH is not defined, Ghostscript will look in the directory defined as BGIDIR in the makefile. In either case, if no driver is found in the designated directory, Ghostscript will look in the current directory. BGIUSER - a string of the form nn.dname, where nn is a hexadecimal number giving a display mode and dname is the name of a file containing a user-supplied BGI driver. If BGIUSER is defined and the BGI device is selected, Ghostscript will supply nn as the display mode and will obtain the driver from the file named dname. Some applications, such as Microsoft Word, require a prologue in front of the PostScript files they output. In the case of Word, this is one of the *.ini files included with the Word distribution. Other applications may require other prologues. These may be specified on the Ghostscript command line, e.g., gs prologue.ini myfile.ps X Windows --------- Ghostscript looks for the following resources under the program name "ghostscript" and class name "Ghostscript": Name Class Default ---- ----- ------- background Background white foreground Foreground black borderColor BorderColor black borderWidth BorderWidth 1 geometry Geometry NULL xResolution Resolution ** yResolution Resolution ** useExternalFonts UseExternalFonts true useScalableFonts UseScalableFonts true logExternalFonts LogExternalFonts false externalFontTolerance ExternalFontTolerance 10.0 palette Palette Color maxGrayRamp MaxGrayRamp 128 maxRGBRamp MaxRGBRamp 5 maxDynamicColors MaxDynamicColors 256 useBackingPixmap UseBackingPixmap true useXPutImage UseXPutImage true useXSetTile UseXSetTile true regularFonts RegularFonts see below symbolFonts SymbolFonts see below dingbatFonts DingbatFonts see below ** Calculated from display metrics. Notes on Resources: Ghostscript doesn't look at the default system background and foreground colors; if you want to change the background or foreground color, you must set them explicitly for Ghostscript. (This is a deliberate choice, so that PostScript documents will display correctly -- with white = white and black = black -- by default, even if text windows use other colors.) The geometry resource only affects window placement. Resolution is given in pixels per inch. The font tolerance gives largest acceptable difference in height of the screen font. The tolerance is expressed as a percentage of the height of the desired font. The palette resource can be used to restrict ghostscript to using a grayscale or monochrome palette. The maxRGBRamp and maxGrayRamp control the maximum number of colors that ghostscript allocates ahead of time for the dither cube/ramp. Ghostscript will never preallocate more than half of the cells in a colormap. maxDynamicColors controls the maximum number of colors that Ghostscript will allocate dynamically in the colormap. The use... resources exist primarily to work around bugs in X servers. In particular, many versions of DEC's X server (DECwindows) have bugs that require setting useXPutImage or useXSetTile to false. Some servers do not implement backing pixmaps properly, or do not have enough memory for them. If you get strange behavior or "out of memory" messages, try setting useBackingPixmap to false. Some servers do not implement tiling properly. This will show up as broad bands of color where dither patterns should appear. If this happens, try setting useXSetTile to false. Some servers do not implement bitmap/pixmap displaying properly. This may show up as white or black rectangles where characters should appear, or characters may appear in "inverse video" (e.g., white on a black rectangle). If this happens, try setting useXPutImage to false. To use native X11 fonts, Ghostscript must map PostScript font names to the XLFD font names. The regularFonts, symbolFonts, and dingbatFonts resources give the name mapping for different encodings. The XLFD font name in the mapping must contain seven dashes. The X driver adds the additional size and encoding fields to bring the total number of dashes in the font name to 14. Here are the default font mappings: Regular Fonts: (Fonts available in standard or ISO-Latin-1 encoding) AvantGarde-Book:-Adobe-ITC Avant Garde Gothic-Book-R-Normal--\n\ AvantGarde-BookOblique:-Adobe-ITC Avant Garde Gothic-Book-O-Normal--\n\ AvantGarde-Demi:-Adobe-ITC Avant Garde Gothic-Demi-R-Normal--\n\ AvantGarde-DemiOblique:-Adobe-ITC Avant Garde Gothic-Demi-O-Normal--\n\ Bookman-Demi:-Adobe-ITC Bookman-Demi-R-Normal--\n\ Bookman-DemiItalic:-Adobe-ITC Bookman-Demi-I-Normal--\n\ Bookman-Light:-Adobe-ITC Bookman-Light-R-Normal--\n\ Bookman-LightItalic:-Adobe-ITC Bookman-Light-I-Normal--\n\ Courier:-Adobe-Courier-Medium-R-Normal--\n\ Courier-Bold:-Adobe-Courier-Bold-R-Normal--\n\ Courier-BoldOblique:-Adobe-Courier-Bold-O-Normal--\n\ Courier-Oblique:-Adobe-Courier-Medium-O-Normal--\n\ Helvetica:-Adobe-Helvetica-Medium-R-Normal--\n\ Helvetica-Bold:-Adobe-Helvetica-Bold-R-Normal--\n\ Helvetica-BoldOblique:-Adobe-Helvetica-Bold-O-Normal--\n\ Helvetica-Narrow:-Adobe-Helvetica-Medium-R-Narrow--\n\ Helvetica-Narrow-Bold:-Adobe-Helvetica-Bold-R-Narrow--\n\ Helvetica-Narrow-BoldOblique:-Adobe-Helvetica-Bold-O-Narrow--\n\ Helvetica-Narrow-Oblique:-Adobe-Helvetica-Medium-O-Narrow--\n\ Helvetica-Oblique:-Adobe-Helvetica-Medium-O-Normal--\n\ NewCenturySchlbk-Bold:-Adobe-New Century Schoolbook-Bold-R-Normal--\n\ NewCenturySchlbk-BoldItalic:-Adobe-New Century Schoolbook-Bold-I-Normal--\n\ NewCenturySchlbk-Italic:-Adobe-New Century Schoolbook-Medium-I-Normal--\n\ NewCenturySchlbk-Roman:-Adobe-New Century Schoolbook-Medium-R-Normal--\n\ Palatino-Bold:-Adobe-Palatino-Bold-R-Normal--\n\ Palatino-BoldItalic:-Adobe-Palatino-Bold-I-Normal--\n\ Palatino-Italic:-Adobe-Palatino-Medium-I-Normal--\n\ Palatino-Roman:-Adobe-Palatino-Medium-R-Normal--\n\ Times-Bold:-Adobe-Times-Bold-R-Normal--\n\ Times-BoldItalic:-Adobe-Times-Bold-I-Normal--\n\ Times-Italic:-Adobe-Times-Medium-I-Normal--\n\ Times-Roman:-Adobe-Times-Medium-R-Normal--\n\ ZapfChancery-MediumItalic:-Adobe-ITC Zapf Chancery-Medium-I-Normal-- Symbol Fonts: (using Symbol encoding) Symbol: -Adobe-Symbol-Medium-R-Normal-- Dingbat Fonts: (using Dingbat encoding) ZapfDingbats: -Adobe-ITC Zapf Dingbats-Medium-R-Normal-- For X11/NeWS, one can use the OpenWindows scalable fonts instead, which will give good quality output for any point size. In this environment, the relevant section of the resource file should look like this: Ghostscript.regularFonts: \ AvantGarde-Book: -itc-avantgarde-book-r-normal-- \n\ AvantGarde-BookOblique: -itc-avantgarde-book-o-normal-- \n\ AvantGarde-Demi: -itc-avantgarde-demi-r-normal-- \n\ AvantGarde-DemiOblique: -itc-avantgarde-demi-o-normal-- \n\ Bembo: -monotype-bembo-medium-r-normal-- \n\ Bembo-Bold: -monotype-bembo-bold-r-normal-- \n\ Bembo-BoldItalic: -monotype-bembo-bold-i-normal-- \n\ Bembo-Italic: -monotype-bembo-medium-i-normal-- \n\ Bookman-Demi: -itc-bookman-demi-r-normal-- \n\ Bookman-DemiItalic: -itc-bookman-demi-i-normal-- \n\ Bookman-Light: -itc-bookman-light-r-normal-- \n\ Bookman-LightItalic: -itc-bookman-light-i-normal-- \n\ Courier: -itc-courier-medium-r-normal-- \n\ Courier-Bold: -itc-courier-bold-r-normal-- \n\ Courier-BoldOblique: -itc-courier-bold-o-normal-- \n\ Courier-Oblique: -itc-courier-medium-o-normal-- \n\ GillSans: -monotype-gill-medium-r-normal-sans- \n\ GillSans-Bold: -monotype-gill-bold-r-normal-sans- \n\ GillSans-BoldItalic: -monotype-gill-bold-i-normal-sans- \n\ GillSans-Italic: -monotype-gill-normal-i-normal-sans- \n\ Helvetica: -linotype-helvetica-medium-r-normal-- \n\ Helvetica-Bold: -linotype-helvetica-bold-r-normal-- \n\ Helvetica-BoldOblique: -linotype-helvetica-bold-o-normal-- \n\ Helvetica-Narrow: -linotype-helvetica-medium-r-narrow-- \n\ Helvetica-Narrow-Bold: -linotype-helvetica-bold-r-narrow-- \n\ Helvetica-Narrow-BoldOblique: -linotype-helvetica-bold-o-narrow-- \n\ Helvetica-Narrow-Oblique: -linotype-helvetica-medium-o-narrow-- \n\ Helvetica-Oblique: -linotype-helvetica-medium-o-normal-- \n\ LucidaBright: -b&h-lucidabright-medium-r-normal-- \n\ LucidaBright-Demi: -b&h-lucidabright-demibold-r-normal-- \n\ LucidaBright-DemiItalic: -b&h-lucidabright-demibold-i-normal-- \n\ LucidaBright-Italic: -b&h-lucidabright-medium-i-normal-- \n\ LucidaSans: -b&h-lucida-medium-r-normal-sans- \n\ LucidaSans-Bold: -b&h-lucida-bold-r-normal-sans- \n\ LucidaSans-BoldItalic: -b&h-lucida-bold-i-normal-sans- \n\ LucidaSans-Italic: -b&h-lucida-medium-i-normal-sans- \n\ LucidaSans-Typewriter: -b&h-lucidatypewriter-medium-r-normal-sans- \n\ LucidaSans-TypewriterBold: -b&h-lucidatypewriter-bold-r-normal-sans- \n\ NewCenturySchlbk-BoldItalic: -linotype-new century schoolbook-bold-i-normal-- \n\ NewCenturySchlbk-Bold: -linotype-new century schoolbook-bold-r-normal-- \n\ NewCenturySchlbk-Italic: -linotype-new century schoolbook-medium-i-normal-- \n\ NewCenturySchlbk-Roman: -linotype-new century schoolbook-medium-r-normal-- \n\ Palatino-Bold: -linotype-palatino-bold-r-normal-- \n\ Palatino-BoldItalic: -linotype-palatino-bold-i-normal-- \n\ Palatino-Italic: -linotype-palatino-medium-i-normal-- \n\ Palatino-Roman: -linotype-palatino-medium-r-normal-- \n\ Rockwell: -monotype-rockwell-medium-r-normal-- \n\ Rockwell-Bold: -monotype-rockwell-bold-r-normal-- \n\ Rockwell-BoldItalic: -monotype-rockwell-bold-i-normal-- \n\ Rockwell-Italic: -monotype-rockwell-medium-i-normal-- \n\ Times-Bold: -linotype-times-bold-r-normal-- \n\ Times-BoldItalic: -linotype-times-bold-i-normal-- \n\ Times-Italic: -linotype-times-medium-i-normal-- \n\ Times-Roman: -linotype-times-medium-r-normal-- \n\ Utopia-Bold: -adobe-utopia-bold-r-normal-- \n\ Utopia-BoldItalic: -adobe-utopia-bold-i-normal-- \n\ Utopia-Italic: -adobe-utopia-regular-i-normal-- \n\ Utopia-Regular: -adobe-utopia-regular-r-normal-- \n\ ZapfChancery-MediumItalic: -itc-zapfchancery-medium-i-normal-- \n Ghostscript.dingbatFonts: \ ZapfDingbats: -itc-zapfdingbats-medium-r-normal-- Ghostscript.symbolFonts: \ Symbol: --symbol-medium-r-normal-- Users who switch regularly between different X servers may wish to use the '*' wild card in place of the foundry name (itc, monotype, linotype, b&h, or adobe); users who do not switch X servers should leave the explicit foundry in the name, since it speeds up font accessing. To set these resources, put them in a file (such as ~/.Xdefaults) in the following form: Ghostscript*geometry: -0+0 Ghostscript*xResolution: 72 Ghostscript*yResolution: 72 Then load the defaults into the X server: % xrdb -merge ~/.Xdefaults Ghostscript will take advantage of the "HP XLFD Enhancements," if available, to use native X11 fonts for fonts that are anamorphically scaled, rotated, or mirrored. If the user has installed these changes to their X or font server, they will automatically be used when appropriate. SCO Unix -------- Because of bugs in the SCO Unix kernel, Ghostscript will not work if you select direct screen output (gdevsco.c) and also allow it to write messages on the console. If you are using direct screen output, redirect Ghostscript's terminal output to a file. ******** ******** Switches ******** Unless otherwise noted, these apply to all platforms. Normal switches --------------- @filename Causes Ghostscript to read filename and treat its contents the same as the command line. (This is intended primarily for getting around MS-DOS's 128-character limit on the length of a command line.) Switches or file names in the file may be separated by any amount of white space (space, tab, line break); there is no limit on the size of the file. -- filename arg1 ... -+ 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. -@ filename arg1 ... Does the same thing as -- and -+, but expands @filename arguments. -c tokens ... Interprets arguments, up to the next argument that begins with - followed by a non-digit or with @, as PostScript code. For example, if the file quit.ps contains just the word `quit', the following are equivalent: quit.ps and -c quit Each argument must be exactly one token, as defined by the `token' operator. -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 must not contain any whitespace. -Dname -dname Define a name in systemdict with value=true. -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 -uname Un-define a name, cancelling -d or -s. -q Quiet startup -- suppress normal startup messages, and also do the equivalent of -dQUIET. -ffilename Execute the given file, even if its name begins with a - or an @. -f alone does nothing, but it provides a convenient way to terminate the list of tokens for the -c switch. -gnumber1xnumber2 Equivalent to -dDEVICEWIDTH=number1 and -dDEVICEHEIGHT=number2. This is for the benefit of devices (such as X11 windows and VESA displays) 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. -Idirectories Adds the designated list of directories at the head of the search path for library files. -P Makes Ghostscript look first in the current directory for library files. This is currently the default. -P- Makes Ghostscript *not* look first in the current directory for library files (unless, of course, the first explicitly supplied directory is `.'). - This is not really a switch. It indicates to Ghostscript that the standard input is coming from a file or a pipe. Ghostscript reads from stdin until reaching end-of-file, executing it like any other file, and then continues processing the command line. At the end of the command line, Ghostscript exits rather than going into its interactive mode. NOTE: this switch works only for PostScript, not for PDF. Note that gs_init.ps makes systemdict read-only, so the values of names defined with -D/d/S/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. -dFIXEDMEDIA causes the media size to be fixed after initialization, which causes pages of other sizes or orientations to be rotated or scaled automatically. (This switch is something of a hack; when all the drivers have been updated to report correct values for their available media, the switch will be removed.) -g automatically sets -dFIXEDMEDIA, but -sPAPERSIZE= does not. -dFIXEDRESOLUTION causes the media resolution to be fixed similarly. -r automatically sets -dFIXEDRESOLUTION. -dLOCALFONTS causes Type 1 fonts to be loaded into the current VM, which is normally local VM, instead of always being loaded into global VM. Only useful for compatibility with Adobe printers for loading some obsolete fonts. -dNOBIND disables the 'bind' operator. Only useful for debugging. -dNOCACHE disables character caching. Only useful for debugging. -dNOCIE substitutes DeviceGray and DeviceRGB for CIEBasedA and CIEBasedABC color spaces respectively. Only useful on very slow systems where color accuracy is less important. -dNODISPLAY suppresses the normal initialization of the output device. This may be useful when debugging. -dNOFONTMAP suppresses the normal loading of the Fontmap file. This may be useful in environments without a file system. -dNOGC disables the garbage collector in Level 2 systems. Only useful for 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 (X Windows or Microsoft Windows). This may be needed if the platform fonts look undesirably different from the scalable fonts. -dNOPROMPT disables only the prompt, but not the pause, at the end of each page. This may be useful on PC displays that get confused if a program attempts to write text to the console while the display is in a graphics mode. -dORIENT1 indicates that the file uses a value of 1 to indicate portrait orientation to setpage[params] rather than the default orientation of 0. This is needed for some files produced by badly designed applications that 'know' that the output will be printed on certain roll-media printers. -dSAFER disables the deletefile and renamefile operators, and the ability to open files in any mode other than read-only. This may be desirable for spoolers or other sensitive environments. -dSHORTERRORS makes certain error and information messages more Adobe-compatible. -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. -sFONTMAP=filename specifies an alternate name for the Fontmap file. -sOutputFile=filename selects an alternate output file (or pipe) for the initial output device, as described above. -sSUBSTFONT=fontname causes the given font to be substituted for all unknown fonts, instead of using the normal intelligent substitution algorithm. Debugging switches ------------------ The -Z switch only applies if the interpreter was built for a debugging configuration (DEBUG=1 or -DDEBUG selected at compile time). -A Fill empty storage with a distinctive bit pattern for debugging. Equivalent to -Z@. -E Turn on tracing of error returns from operators. Equivalent to -Z#. -Mn Force the interpreter's allocator to acquire additional memory in units of nK, rather than the default (currently 20K on MS-DOS systems, 50K on Unix). n is a positive decimal integer (not exceeding 63 on MS-DOS systems). -Nn Allocate space for nK names, rather than the default (normally 64K). n > 64 is only allowed if the interpreter was compiled with EXTEND_NAMES defined. -Zxxx Turn on debugging printout. Each of the xxx characters selects an option. Case is significant. 0 = garbage collector, minimal detail 1 = type 1 font interpreter (type1addpath) 2 = curve subdivider/rasterizer 3 = curve subdivider/rasterizer, detail 4 = garbage collector (strings) 5 = garbage collector (strings, detail) 6 = garbage collector (chunks, roots) 7 = garbage collector (objects) 8 = garbage collector (refs) 9 = garbage collector (pointers) a = allocator (large blocks only) A = allocator (all calls) b = bitmap image processor B = bitmap images, detail c = color/halftone mapper d = dictionary put/undef D = dictionary lookups e = external (OS-related) calls f = fill algorithm (summary) F = fill algorithm (detail) g = gsave/grestore[all] h = halftone renderer H = halftones, every pixel i = interpreter, just names I = interpreter, everything j = (Japanese) composite fonts k = character cache & xfonts K = character cache, every access l = command lists, bands L = command lists, everything m = makefont and font cache n = name lookup (new names only) o = outliner (stroke) O = stroke detail p = path tracer q = clipping r = arc renderer s = streams S = scanner t = tiling algorithm u = undo saver (for save/restore), finalization U = undo saver, more detail v = rectangle fill V = device-level output w = compression encoder/decoder x = transformations y = Type 1 hints Y = Type 1 hints, every access z = trapezoid fill # = operator error returns ~ = math functions The following switches select debugging options other than printout. $ = set unused parts of object references to identifiable garbage values + = use minimum-size stack blocks . = use small-memory table sizes even on large-memory machines ? = validate pointers before, during and after GC, also before and after save and restore @ = fill newly allocated, garbage-collected, and freed storage with a marker (a1, c1, and f1 respectively) ******** ******** Frequently Asked Questions ******** Q: The spacing of characters / words / margins on the display is wrong, what can I do? A: This is almost always caused by differences between the character widths that were used to format the document and the character widths of the fonts installed in your system. (This only affects the display, and only with window systems, not with MS-DOS.) If this happens, invoke Ghostscript with the -dNOPLATFONTS switch, or (on X Windows) set Ghostscript*useExternalFonts: false in your X resource file. For more information about fonts on the display, please read the first sections of fonts.doc. Q: On my H-P LaserJet, why do I only get a partial page of output, or a single page gets split across two sheets? A: Printing on a Hewlett-Packard LaserJet at full resolution (300 DPI) requires a printer with at least 1.5 Mb of memory. 150 DPI printing requires only .5 Mb. You can select 150 DPI printing with the command line switch -r150 (This is not necessary on DeskJet printers.) Q: On my MS-DOS system using GS.EXE (Borland compiler), why do I get a `limitcheck in setdevice' or `VMerror in setdevice' error message? A: On MS-DOS systems using the Borland compiler, if Ghostscript gives you a 'limitcheck in setdevice' error, it may mean Ghostscript's standard buffer size wasn't large enough. Likewise, if Ghostscript gives you a 'VMerror in setdevice' error, it means the buffer size was too large. You can use the -dBufferSpace= switch to set the buffer size to a different value, e.g., -dBufferSpace=50000 The default value is 25000; the smallest value Ghostscript accepts is 10000; the largest valid value is 65000.