gs - Unix, Linux Command

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

The interpreter recognizes many option switches, some of which are described below. Please see the usage documenation 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=-

        -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

        -sPAPERSIZE=legal

Most ISO and US paper sizes are recognized. See the usage documenatation 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

SPECIAL NAMES

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.

INITIALIZATION FILES

ENVIRONMENT

X RESOURCES

        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

BUGS

VERSION

AUTHOR