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Manual: ghostscript

GS(1) Ghostscript GS(1)

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 en‐
counters 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 documenta‐
tion 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 documenta‐
tion.

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 (pre‐
viewer), 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 ef‐
fect.

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:

setpagedevice
(command line)
GS_DEVICE
(first device in build list)

Some devices can support different resolutions (densities). To specify the resolution on such a device, use the "-r"
switch:

gs -sDEVICE= -rx

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 out‐
put -- 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=

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 in‐
formation.

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 syn‐
tactic 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 X11). 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 dis‐
couraged 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 de‐
tails).

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 name suggests) loosens the security and is thus recommended ONLY for debug‐
ging 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 sys‐
tem 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 /fI~/.Xresources/fR 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. On Debian you may need to install ghostscript-
doc before reading the documentation.

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

VERSION
This document was last revised for Ghostscript version 10.04.0.

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.

10.04.0 18 Sept 2024 GS(1)

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Manual: ghostscript

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