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
       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, 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".

       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

       -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
       -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/local, 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/local/share/ghostscript/#.##/*
              Startup files, utilities, and basic font definitions

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

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

       /usr/local/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/local/share/ghostscript/#.##:/usr/local/share/ghostscript/fonts"
           where "#.##" 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

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 9.04.

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.



9.04                             5 August 2011                           GS(1)
