11 gs 2 gs - GPL Ghostscript interpreter/previewer 3! $Id: gs-vms.hlp 10732 2010-02-10 18:17:48Z giles $ 4! Ghostscript version 8.71, 10 February 2010 5 Usage: 6 $ gs [options] [file ...] 7 8 Ghostscript is an implementation of Adobe Systems' PostScript (tm) 9 and Portable Document Format (PDF) languages. Gs reads files in sequence 10 and executes them as Ghostscript programs. After doing this, it reads 11 further input from the standard input stream (normally the keyboard). 12 Each line is interpreted separately. To exit from the interpreter, 13 enter the `quit' command. The interpreter also exits gracefully if it 14 encounters end-of-file. Typing the interrupt character (e.g. Control-C) 15 is also safe. 16 172 Description 18 The interpreter recognizes several switches described below, which 19 may appear anywhere in the command line and apply to all files 20 thereafter. 21 22 You can get a help message by invoking Ghostscript with the -h 23 or -? option. This message also lists the available devices. 24 25 Ghostscript may be built with multiple output devices. Ghostscript 26 normally opens the first one and directs output to it. To use 27 device xyz as the initial output device, include the switch 28 "-sDEVICE=xyz" 29 in the command line. Note that this switch must precede the first 30 .ps file, and only its first invocation has any effect. For example, 31 for printer output in a normal configuration that includes an Epson 32 printer driver, you might use the command 33 gs "-sDEVICE=epson" myfile.ps 34 instead of just 35 gs myfile.ps 36 Alternatively, you can type 37 (epson) selectdevice 38 (myfile.ps) run 39 All output then goes to the printer instead of the display until 40 further notice. You can switch devices at any time by using the 41 selectdevice procedure, e.g., 42 (vga) selectdevice 43 or 44 (epson) selectdevice 45 As yet a third alternative, you can define a logical name GS_DEVICE 46 as the desired default device name. The order of precedence for these 47 alternatives, highest to lowest, is: 48 selectdevice 49 (command line) 50 GS_DEVICE 51 (first device in build list) 52 53 To select the density on a printer, use 54 gs "-sDEVICE=<device>" -r<xres>x<yres> 55 For example, on a 9-pin Epson-compatible printer, you can get the 56 lowest-density (fastest) mode with 57 gs "-sDEVICE=epson" -r60x72 58 and the highest-density mode with 59 gs "-sDEVICE=epson" -r240x72. 60 61 If you select a printer as the output device, Ghostscript also 62 allows you to control where the device sends its output. Normally, 63 output goes directly to a scratch file on Unix and VMS systems. To 64 send the output to a series of files foo1.xyz, foo2.xyz, ..., use 65 the switch 66 "-sOutputFile=foo%d.xyz" 67 The %d is a printf format specification; you can use other formats 68 like %02d. Each file will receive one page of output. Alternatively, 69 to send the output to a single file foo.xyz, with all the pages con- 70 catenated, use the switch 71 "-sOutputFile=foo.xyz" 72 73 To find out what devices are available, type 74 devicenames == 75 after starting up Ghostscript. Alternatively, you can use the -h or -? 76 switch in the command line; the help message also lists the available 77 devices. 78 79 To select a different paper size, use the command line switch 80 "-sPAPERSIZE=a_known_paper_size" 81 e.g., 82 "-sPAPERSIZE=a4" 83 or 84 "-sPAPERSIZE=legal" 85 86 As of this printing, the known paper sizes, defined in gs_statd.ps, are: 87 88 PAPERSIZE X" Y" X cm Y cm 89 ____________________________________________________ 90 11x17 11" 17" 27.94 43.18 91 a0 33.0556" 46.7778" 83.9611 118.816 92 a10 1.02778" 1.45833" 2.61056 3.70417 93 a1 23.3889" 33.0556" 59.4078 83.9611 94 a2 16.5278" 23.3889" 41.9806 59.4078 95 a3 11.6944" 16.5278" 29.7039 41.9806 96 a4 8.26389" 11.6944" 20.9903 29.7039 97 a5 5.84722" 8.26389" 14.8519 20.9903 98 a6 4.125" 5.84722" 10.4775 14.8519 99 a7 2.91667" 4.125" 7.40833 10.4775 100 a8 2.05556" 2.91667" 5.22111 7.40833 101 a9 1.45833" 2.05556" 3.70417 5.22111 102 archA 9" 12" 22.86 30.48 103 archB 12" 18" 30.48 45.72 104 archC 18" 24" 45.72 60.96 105 archD 24" 36" 60.96 91.44 106 archE 36" 48" 91.44 121.92 107 b0 39.3889" 55.6667" 100.048 141.393 108 b1 27.8333" 39.3889" 70.6967 100.048 109 b2 19.6944" 27.8333" 50.0239 70.6967 110 b3 13.9167" 19.6944" 35.3483 50.0239 111 b4 9.84722" 13.9167" 25.0119 35.3483 112 b5 6.95833" 9.84722" 17.6742 25.0119 113 flsa 8.5" 13" 21.59 33.02 114 flse 8.5" 13" 21.59 33.02 115 halfletter 5.5" 8.5" 13.97 21.59 116 ledger 17" 11" 43.18 27.94 117 legal 8.5" 14" 21.59 35.56 118 letter 8.5" 11" 21.59 27.94 119 note 7.5" 10" 19.05 25.4 120 121 Note that the B paper sizes are ISO sizes: for information about using 122 JIS B sizes, see `Use.htm'. 123 1242 Initialization_files 125 When looking for the initialization files (gs_*.ps), the files related 126 to fonts, or the file for the `run' operator, Ghostscript first tries 127 opening the file with the name as given (i.e., using the current 128 working directory if none is specified). If this fails, and the file 129 name doesn't specify an explicit directory or drive, Ghostscript will 130 try directories in the following order: 131 132 1. The directory/ies specified by the -I switch(es) in the command 133 line (see below), if any; 134 2. The directory/ies specified by the GS_LIB logical, if any; 135 3. The directory/ies specified by the GS_LIB_DEFAULT macro in the 136 Ghostscript makefile. 137 138 Each of these (GS_LIB_DEFAULT, GS_LIB, and -I parameter) may be either 139 a single directory, or a list of directories separated by a `:'. 140 1412 X_resources 142 Ghostscript looks for the following resources under the program name 143 `Ghostscript': 144 145 borderWidth 146 The border width in pixels (default = 1). 147 148 borderColor 149 The name of the border color (default = black). 150 151 geometry 152 The window size and placement, WxH+X+Y (default is NULL). 153 154 xResolution 155 The number of x pixels per inch (default is computed from 156 WidthOfScreen and WidthMMOfScreen). 157 158 yResolution 159 The number of y pixels per inch (default is computed from 160 HeightOfScreen and HeightMMOfScreen). 161 162 useBackingPixmap 163 Determines whether backing store is to be used for saving display 164 window (default = true). 165 166 See the file `Use.htm' for a more complete list of resources. 167 168 To set these resources, put them in a file (such as 169 SYS$Login:ghostscript.dat) in the following form: 170 171 Ghostscript*geometry: 612x792-0+0 172 Ghostscript*xResolution: 72 173 Ghostscript*yResolution: 72 174 1752 Options 176 Note that VMS will convert all command line arguments to lower case 177 if they are not within quotes. Therefore, if a certain command does 178 not work, try again but with quotes around it. 179 180 -- filename arg1 ... 181 Takes the next argument as a file name as usual, but takes all 182 remaining arguments (even if they have the syntactic form of switches) 183 and defines the name ARGUMENTS in userdict (not systemdict) as an 184 array of those strings, before running the file. When Ghostscript 185 finishes executing the file, it exits. 186 187 -Dname=token 188 -dname=token 189 Define a name in systemdict with the given definition. The token must 190 be exactly one token (as defined by the `token' operator) and must not 191 contain any whitespace. 192 193 -Dname 194 -dname 195 Define a name in systemdict with value=null. 196 197 -Sname=string 198 -sname=string 199 Define a name in systemdict with a given string as value. This is 200 different from -d. For example, -dname=35 is equivalent to the 201 program fragment 202 /name 35 def 203 whereas -sname=35 is equivalent to 204 /name (35) def 205 206 -q 207 Quiet startup - suppress normal startup messages, and also do the 208 equivalent of -dQUIET. 209 210 -gnumber1Xnumber2 211 Equivalent to -dDEVICEWIDTH=number1 and -dDEVICEHEIGHT=number2. This is 212 for the benefit of devices (such as X11 windows) that require (or allow) 213 width and height to be specified. 214 215 -rnumber 216 -rnumber1Xnumber2 217 Equivalent to -dDEVICEXRESOLUTION=number1 and -dDEVICEYRESOLUTION=number2 218 This is for the benefit of devices (such as printers) that support 219 multiple X and Y resolutions. (If only one number is given, it is used 220 for both X and Y resolutions.) 221 222 -Idirectories 223 Adds the designated list of directories at the head of the search path 224 for library files. 225 226 Note that gs_init.ps makes systemdict read-only, so the values of names 227 defined with -D/d/S/s cannot be changed (although, of course, they can 228 be superseded by definitions in userdict or other dictionaries.) 229 2302 Special_names 231 232 -dDISKFONTS 233 Causes individual character outlines to be loaded from the disk the 234 first time they are encountered. (Normally Ghostscript loads all the 235 character outlines when it loads a font.) This may allow loading more 236 fonts into RAM, at the expense of slower rendering. 237 238 -dNOCACHE 239 Disables character caching. Only useful for debugging. 240 241 -dNOBIND 242 Disables the `bind' operator. Only useful for debugging. 243 244 -dNODISPLAY 245 Suppresses the normal initialization of the output device. This may be 246 useful when debugging. 247 248 -dNOPAUSE 249 Disables the prompt and pause at the end of each page. This may be 250 desirable for applications where another program is `driving' 251 Ghostscript. 252 253 -dNOPLATFONTS 254 Disables the use of fonts supplied by the underlying platform (e.g. 255 X Windows). This may be needed if the platform fonts look undesirably 256 different from the scalable fonts. 257 258 -dSAFER 259 Disables the deletefile and renamefile operators, and the ability to 260 open files in any mode other than read-only. This may be desirable 261 for spoolers or other sensitive environments. 262 263 -dWRITESYSTEMDICT 264 Leaves systemdict writable. This is necessary when running special 265 utility programs such as font2c and pcharstr, which must bypass normal 266 PostScript access protection. 267 268 -sDEVICE=device 269 Selects an alternate initial output device, as described above. 270 271 -sOutputFile=filename 272 Selects an alternate output file for the initial output device, as 273 described above. 274 2752 Files 276!!! Change 277 GS_Root:[Ghostscript.gs4_0] 278 Startup-files, utilities, and basic font definitions. 279 280 GS_Root:[Ghostscript.Fonts4_0] 281 Additional font definitions. 282 283 GS_Root:[Ghostscript.gs4_0.Examples] 284 Demo Ghostscript files. 285 286 GS_Root:[Ghostscript.gs4_0.Doc] 287 Assorted document files. 288!!! Change 2892 See_also 290 The various Ghostscript document files (above). 291 2922 Bugs 293 See the network news group comp.lang.postscript. 294