Windows PowerShell command on Get-command gs

Manual Pages for UNIX Operating System command usage for man gs

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 pro-

grams. 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 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 documentation.

Ghostscript may be built to use many different output dev-

ices. 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

8.64 Last change: 3 February 2009 1 Ghostscript GS(1) 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= -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 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 8.64 Last change: 3 February 2009 2 Ghostscript GS(1)

-sOutputFile=%pipe%lpr

Note that the '%' characters need to be doubled on MS Win-

dows to avoid mangling by the command interpreter. You can also send output to standard output:

-sOutputFile=-

-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

-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 infor-

mation. 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 "ARGU-

MENTS" in "userdict" (not "systemdict") as an array of

those strings, before running the file. When

Ghostscript finishes executing the file, it exits back 8.64 Last change: 3 February 2009 3 Ghostscript GS(1) to the shell.

-Dname=token

-dname=token

Define a name in "systemdict" with the given defini-

tion. 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

-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. 8.64 Last change: 3 February 2009 4 Ghostscript GS(1)

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. (Nor-

mally 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 debug-

ging.

-dNODISPLAY

Suppresses the normal initialization of the output dev-

ice. 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 8.64 Last change: 3 February 2009 5 Ghostscript GS(1) described above.

-sOutputFile=filename

Selects an alternate output file (or pipe) for the ini-

tial output device, as described above. FILES

The locations of many Ghostscript run-time files are com-

piled 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 com-

mand 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 8.64 Last change: 3 February 2009 6 Ghostscript GS(1) 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 sav-

ing 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 8.64 Last change: 3 February 2009 7 Ghostscript GS(1) 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 8.64. 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. 8.64 Last change: 3 February 2009 8