Ubuntu Manpage: gs - Ghostscript (PostScript and PDF language interpreter and previewer)

Provided by: ghostscript_10.03.1~dfsg1-0ubuntu2_amd64

NAME

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

SYNOPSIS

       gs [ options ] [ files ] ...

DESCRIPTION

The gs 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 and output to an output
device (may be a file or an X11 window preview, see below). 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 information. 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.

If you have installed the ghostscript-x Debian package and are under X, the default device
is an X11 window (previewer), else ghostscript will use the bbox device and print on
stdout the dimension of the postscript file.

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 highest 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 "-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".

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

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

-P Makes Ghostscript to look first in the current directory for library files. By
default, Ghostscript no longer looks in the current directory, unless, of course,
the first explicitly supplied directory is "." in -I. See also the INITIALIZATION
FILES section below, and bundled Use.htm for detailed discussion on search paths
and how Ghostcript finds files.

-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

       -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
              Restricts file operations the job can perform. Now the default mode of operation.

       -dWRITESYSTEMDICT
              Leaves  "systemdict"  writable.   This  is  necessary  when running special utility
              programs, but is strongly discouraged as it  bypasses  normal  Postscript  security
              measures.

       -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.

SAFER MODE

       The -dSAFER option restricts file system accesses to those files and  directories  allowed
       by  the  relevant environment variables (such as GS_LIB) or by the command line parameters
       (see https://ghostscript.com/doc/current/Use.htm for details).

       SAFER mode is now the default mode of operation. Thus when running programs that  need  to
       open  files or set restricted parameters you should pass the -dNOSAFER command line option
       or its synonym -dDELAYSAFER.

       Running with NOSAFER/DELAYSAFER (as the same suggests) loosens the security  and  is  thus
       recommended  ONLY  for  debugging  or  in  VERY  controlled  workflows,  and  strongly NOT
       recommended in any other circumstances.

FILES

       The locations of many Ghostscript run-time files are compiled into the executable when  it
       is  built.   Run "gs -h" to find the location of Ghostscript documentation on your system,
       from which you can get more details. On a Debian system they are in /usr.

       /usr/share/ghostscript/[0-9]*.[0.9]*/*
              Startup files, utilities, and basic font definitions (where  [0-9]*.[0.9]*  is  the
              ghostscript version)

       /usr/share/fonts/type1/gsfonts/*
              More font definitions from the gsfonts package

       /usr/share/doc/ghostscript/examples/*
              Ghostscript demonstration files (if ghostscript-doc package is installed)

       /usr/share/doc/ghostscript/*
              Diverse document files (may need to install ghostscript-doc package)

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), 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.           GS_LIB_DEFAULT          is
           "/usr/share/ghostscript/[0-9]*.[0-9]*/lib"  on  a  Debian system where "[0-9]*.[0-9]*"
           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 ":".

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

BUGS

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

VERSION

       This document was last revised for Ghostscript version 10.03.1.

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.