1 Copyright (C) 1989, 1992, 1993 Aladdin Enterprises. All rights reserved. 2 3This file is part of Ghostscript. 4 5Ghostscript is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but 6WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY. No author or distributor accepts responsibility 7to anyone for the consequences of using it or for whether it serves any 8particular purpose or works at all, unless he says so in writing. Refer 9to the Ghostscript General Public License for full details. 10 11Everyone is granted permission to copy, modify and redistribute 12Ghostscript, but only under the conditions described in the Ghostscript 13General Public License. A copy of this license is supposed to have been 14given to you along with Ghostscript so you can know your rights and 15responsibilities. It should be in a file named COPYING. Among other 16things, the copyright notice and this notice must be preserved on all 17copies. 18 19- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 20 21***************************************************** 22* This file describes version 2.6.1 of Ghostscript. * 23***************************************************** 24 25******** 26******** An overview of Ghostscript ******** 27******** 28 29Ghostscript is the name of a set of software that provides: 30 31 - An interpreter for the PostScript (TM) language, and 32 33 - A set of C procedures (the Ghostscript library) that 34implement the graphics capabilities that appear as primitive 35operations in the PostScript language. 36 37The primary contact for Ghostscript is: 38 39 Aladdin Enterprises 40 P.O. box 60264 41 Palo Alto, CA 94306 42 voice (415)322-0103 43 fax (415)322-1734 44 ...{uunet,decwrl}!aladdin!ghost 45 ghost@aladdin.com 46 47L. Peter Deutsch, president of Aladdin Enterprises, was the original 48creator, and is the primary developer and maintainer, of Ghostscript. 49Aladdin Enterprises owns the copyright in Ghostscript; Ghostscript is 50distributed with the GNU General Public License, and is also available for 51commercial licensing. 52 53The Ghostscript language interpreter and library are written entirely 54in C, with some assembly-language accelerators for MS-DOS platforms. 55Currently, Ghostscript is known to run on the following platform 56families: 57 58 - IBM PC and compatibles with EGA, VGA, SuperVGA, or compatible 59 graphics under MS-DOS 3.1, 3.3, or 5.0, with or without 60 Microsoft Windows 3.0 or 3.1; 61 62 - IBM PC and compatibles under OS/2 2.0 and 2.1; 63 64 - A wide variety of Unix systems using X Windows version 11, 65 release 3, 4, and 5, including Sun-3, Sun-4, Sun-386i, 66 Sun SPARCStation 1 and 2; generic 80386 machines running 386/ix, 67 ISC Unix, and SCO Unix; H-P 9000/300 and 9000/800; 68 DECStation 2100 and 3100; VAX running Ultrix; Sequent Symmetry; 69 Convex C1 and C2; Tektronix 4300; SGI Iris Indigo; 70 71 - Sun workstations (Sun-3, SPARC, Sun-386i) running SunView; 72 73 - VAX, VMS with X11R3/4/5 and gcc. (Ghostscript currently is 74 not compatible with the DEC C compilers, because they 75 interpret the ANSI C standard in a way different from all 76 other known compilers.) 77 78It is very likely that Ghostscript will run under other versions of 79MS-DOS, and other versions of Unix that support X11, but it has not 80been tested in these environments. Ghostscript does NOT run well on 81PC-compatibles with Hercules display cards: text and graphics output 82interfere with each other. 83 84Other platforms 85--------------- 86 87Ghostscript has also been ported a number of platforms by users, who 88are willing to be contacted regarding problems on those specific 89platforms: 90 91 - For information on a port to the Apple Macintosh, contact 92 Martin Fong (mwfong@nisc.sri.com). (Aladdin Enterprises will be 93 offering a Macintosh port in early 1993.) 94 95 - For information on a port to the Acorn Archimedes, contact 96 David Elworthy (David.Elworthy@cl.cam.ac.uk). 97 98 - For information on two different ports to Win-OS/2, contact 99 Gershon Elber (gershon@gr.cs.utah.edu) and/or Jim Yang 100 (jyang@daedalus.caltech.edu). 101 102 - For information on a port to the Atari ST, contact Tim 103 Gallivan (timg@landau.ph.utexas.edu). 104 105******** 106******** Related work 107******** 108 109There are two freely available X Windows screen previewers based on 110Ghostscript: Ghostview and GSPreview. For information on Ghostview, 111contact Tim Theisen (ghostview@cs.wisc.edu). For information on 112GSPreview, contact Richard Hesketh (rlh2@ukc.ac.uk). 113 114There is a freely available MS Windows screen previewer based on 115Ghostscript, called Ghostview for Windows. For information on Ghostview 116for Windows, contact Russell Lang (rjl@monu1.cc.monash.edu.au). 117 118A set of patches and additions for Kanji capability for Ghostscript 119version 2.4.1 is available for anonymous FTP from 120ftp.cs.titech.ac.jp:GNU/gs241j11.tar.Z. For more information, contact 121Mr. Norio Katayama (katayama@nacsis.ac.jp). 122 123Thomas Wolff (wolff@inf.fu-berlin.de) is working on extending the 124Hershey fonts to include international characters. 125 126******** 127******** Documentation overview ******** 128******** 129 130All the file names mentioned in the documentation, except for README, 131are in lower case, which is the usual convention for Unix systems. 132On MS-DOS systems, all file names are actually upper-case. 133 134When you receive Ghostscript, you should start by reading: 135 136> README - this file. 137 138> readme.doc - information about problems and major changes new 139features in the current release. 140 141If you have used a previous release of Ghostscript, you probably 142should also read any more recent sections of: 143 144> NEWS - a complete, detailed history of changes in the most recent 145Ghostscript releases. 146 147Especially for new users 148------------------------ 149 150If you are a new user of Ghostscript, you should read: 151 152> use.doc - information about to install and use Ghostscript. This 153information is also contained in gs.1 - a `man' page for Ghostscript. 154 155> devices.doc - more detailed information about specific devices that 156Ghostscript knows about. 157 158> ps2epsi.doc, unix-lpr.doc - more detailed information about some of 159the shell scripts and batch files distributed with Ghostscript. 160 161If you are going to compile Ghostscript, rather than just use an 162executable you got from somewhere, you should read: 163 164> make.doc - how to install, compile and link Ghostscript. 165 166If you run into any questions, or if you are going to be using 167Ghostscript extensively, you should at least skim, and probably 168eventually read: 169 170> fonts.doc - information about the fonts distributed with 171Ghostscript, including how to add or replace fonts. 172 173> language.doc - A description of the Ghostscript language, and its 174differences from the documented PostScript language. 175 176> psfiles.doc - information about the .ps files distributed with 177Ghostscript (other than fonts). 178 179Especially for developers 180------------------------- 181 182If you are going to be writing a new driver for Ghostscript, you 183should read: 184 185> drivers.doc - the interface between Ghostscript and device drivers. 186 187> xfonts.doc - the interface between Ghostscript and platform-supplied 188fonts. (Read drivers.doc first.) 189 190If you are considering distributing Ghostscript in conjunction with a 191commercial product, you should read the COPYING license carefully, 192and you should also read: 193 194> commprod.doc - additional clarification of the circumstances under 195which Ghostscript can be distributed with a commercial product. 196 197Other files 198----------- 199 200> ps2epsi.doc - documentation for the PostScript to EPSI conversion 201utility. 202 203> helpers.doc - a note of thanks to all the people who have helped with 204Ghostscript development. 205 206> hershey.doc - information about the Hershey fonts, which are the 207basis of some of the Ghostscript fonts. 208 209> history.doc - a history of changes in older Ghostscript release. 210 211> humor.doc - a humorous comment on Ghostscript contributed by a user. 212 213> lib.doc - information about the Ghostscript library. 214 215> unix-lpr.doc - information about how to integrate Ghostscript with 216Unix printer spooling. 217 218******** 219******** Trouble reporting ******** 220******** 221 222Aladdin Enterprises doesn't have the resources to respond to questions 223from general users of Ghostscript. If you have problems with Ghostscript, 224and you have access to Usenet news, we suggest you post your question to 225gnu.ghostscript.bug. There are hundreds of Ghostscript user sites all 226over the world, and often another user will be able to help you. (If you 227have access to Internet mail, but not news, send e-mail to 228bug-ghostscript@prep.ai.mit.edu.) If you are having trouble with a 229specific device driver, look in the file devs.mak and see if it is a 230user-maintained driver. If so, please contact the person listed there 231directly; please do not contact Aladdin Enterprises regarding 232user-maintained drivers. 233 234Aladdin Enterprises does want Ghostscript to be of high quality, so if you 235have been running Ghostscript and encounter a problem, we will consider 236investigating it if you meet all the following criteria: 237 238 - You are using the most recent version of Ghostscript. 239 240 - You obtained Ghostscript directly from Aladdin Enterprises, 241 or from a GNU distribution site on the Internet (i.e., not from a 242 bulletin board system or a commercial system such as CompuServe or 243 GEnie). 244 245 - You have installed Ghostscript successfully, and used it 246 successfully on other input data. 247 248 - Your problem is reproducible, and you can send us the input 249 data that evokes it (by e-mail, anonymous FTP, or PC diskette). 250 (But please do not send anything unless we ask you for it.) 251 252 - Your bug report tells us what hardware, operating system, 253 window system, and C compiler you are using. 254 255Bug reports that include suggested fixes are especially welcome. 256 257As time permits, Aladdin Enterprises will also respond to e-mail from 258the following classes of users: 259 260 - Beta testers who have actually given us at least one report on 261 some beta version supplied to them. 262 263 - People developing drivers that are for, or applications that 264 are based on, Ghostscript and that will be made freely available. 265 266 - People who express serious interest in commercial licensing 267 of Ghostscript. 268 269 - Commercial licensees. 270 271Given the choice between the Internet and the UUCP address, remember 272that the Internet is not to be used for general commercial traffic: 273if you aren't sure whether you or your organization can use the 274Internet, use UUCP. 275 276Aladdin Enterprises owns or has access to the following hardware and 277software: 278 279 80486 PC, MS-DOS 5.0, Microsoft Windows 3.1; 280 Borland C++ 3.1 (and several older versions); 281 color SuperVGA display; Epson-compatible printer 282 (the printer also is compatible with the IBM Proprinter); 283 various H-P printers; Canon BubbleJet. 284 285 SPARCstation, SunOS 4.1, cc and gcc, X11R5 and SunView; 286 both monochrome and color displays. 287 288 DECstation, Ultrix. 289 290If your problem turns out to be specific to some other hardware or 291software configuration, it may take longer to track down, since we 292will have to rely on other users to help. 293 294If you call on the phone, you will usually be talking to an answering 295machine. In this case, please leave a message with your name and 296phone number and the best time for us to return the call. 297 298******** 299******** Things you can do to help ******** 300******** 301 302There are some projects that users could do that are somewhat 303decoupled from the main body of the code, and that would help improve 304Ghostscript: 305 306 - Since Aladdin Enterprises doesn't have ready access to Unix 307systems, someone else is needed to take responsibility for texinfo and/or 308man page documentation for Ghostscript. What this would involve is 309updating this documentation during the beta test period for each release, 310and sending it to Aladdin to be included in the final fileset. (Aladdin 311would continue to supply the plain-text documentation as it currently 312exists.) 313 314 - Ghostscript needs some good, free, Type 1 (outline) fonts. Karl 315Berry is working on this, but it might go faster if he got some 316knowledgeable assistance. Contact karl@cs.umb.edu if you want to help 317with this. 318 319 - Adobe has donated the specification of the Display PostScript C 320API to the X distribution. Implementing this API for Ghostscript might 321make Ghostscript a lot more useful, since it would then be "plug 322compatible" with Display PostScript in an important way. Contact 323ghost@aladdin.com if you would like to help with this. 324 325 - On gray-scale displays, it might be worthwhile implementing 326anti-aliased fonts. To do this, one would modify the renderer so that it 327cached a high-resolution bitmap, and then did the anti-aliasing as it 328copied the bitmap to the device. This would allow simulating 329fractional-pixel positioning, which is one of the great benefits of 330anti-aliased fonts. Contact ghost@aladdin.com if this is of interest to 331you. 332 333 - Ghostscript currently runs on Microsoft Windows 3.0 and 3.1 on 334top of MS-DOS, but does not yet run on Windows NT. If you are interested 335in helping port Ghostscript to run on Windows NT (presumably by getting it 336to run using Win32/Win32s), please contact ghost@aladdin.com. 337 338******** 339******** Authors ******** 340******** 341 342Ghostscript was originally created, and is primarily developed and 343maintained, by L. Peter Deutsch, President of Aladdin Enterprises. 344 345Special thanks are due to Russell Lang, for the gsview (Ghostview for 346Microsoft Windows) program and for contributing most of the code for the 347Microsoft Windows environment, and to Tim Theisen, for the Ghostview 348program for X Windows and for major contributions to the code for the X 349Windows environment. 350 351The file helpers.doc contains a list of all the many other people who have 352contributed significantly to improving Ghostscript. 353 354- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 355 356PostScript is a trademark of Adobe Systems, Incorporated. 357