Ghostscript FAQ

Changes since the last version are marked with a '|' in the table of contents and in the sections in the text-only format of the FAQ.

This is a collection of common questions posted to the gnu.ghostscript.bug newsgroup. This FAQ is very old and is not being maintained.

This latest version of this FAQ should be available from the Ghostscript WWW page http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/index.html and also from ftp://ftp.cs.wisc.edu/ghost/gsfaq.txt

Table of Contents

Subject: 1 General Questions
Subject: 2 Platform specific Questions
Subject: 3 Device specific Questions

Subject: 1.1 What is Ghostscript
Subject: 1.2 What is the current version of Ghostscript?
Subject: 1.3 What is the difference between Aladdin Ghostscript and GNU Ghostscript.
Subject: 1.4 Where can I get Ghostscript?
|Subject: 1.5 Where can I find a list of post-release problems?
Subject: 1.6 Where can I get patches for Ghostscript ?
Subject: 1.7 Which USENET newsgroups are relevant to Ghostscript?
Subject: 1.8 Why do my fonts look ugly at larger point sizes?
Subject: 1.9 How do I display a particular page?
Subject: 1.10 ZapfDingbats gives "/invalidfont in -dicttype" with gs 2.6.1.
Subject: 1.11 Without FTP access to the Internet. How can I get Ghostscript?
Subject: 1.12 Why won't Aladdin Ghostscript read piped PDF files?
|Subject: 1.13 How do you display PDF files with Ghostview?

Ghostscript is a software package that interprets Adobe's PostScript (TM) language, including a few additional features. For further information read the file language.doc from the current Ghostscript distribution.

For informations on PostScript read the comp.lang.postscript FAQ. It is available by anonymous ftp to
ftp://wilma.cs.brown.edu/pub/comp.lang.postscript/FAQ.txt
in ASCII, and there are also LaTeX, DVI, and PostScript formats.

There are two versions of Ghostscript currently available.

The current Aladdin Ghostscript version is 5.10.

The current GNU Ghostscript version is 3.33.

Aladdin Ghostscript is distributed with a license called the Aladdin Ghostscript Free Public License that allows free use, copying, and distribution by end users, but does not allow commercial distribution.

GNU Ghostscript is distributed with the GNU General Public License, which allows free use, and free copying and redistribution under certain conditions (including, in some cases, commercial distribution).

You can get GNU Ghostscript from ftp.cs.wisc.edu (128.105.2.15) from the directory ghost/gnu or from prep.ai.mit.edu. Please try first one of the usual mirrors (for example: germany.eu.net). The URL is ftp://ftp.cs.wisc.edu/ghost/gnu

You can get Aladdin Ghostscript from ftp://ftp.cs.wisc.edu/ghost/aladdin or from any CTAN mirror in /support/ghostscript/aladdin

For a list of problems, fixes and workarounds for a given release, see http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/aladdin/relnotes/

If there are patches, you can get them from ftp.cs.wisc.edu (128.105.2.15) from the directory ghost or from prep.ai.mit.edu.

Discussion about Aladdin Ghostscript and GSview can be found in the USENET newsgroup comp.lang.postscript

Discussion about GNU Ghostscript and Ghostview can be found in the USENET newsgroup gnu.ghostscript.bug

Older versions of Ghostscript came with fonts that look ugly (jagged text), when you use them at larger sizes. Fonts downloaded as part of the postscript file look fine. This is because the fonts coming with old versions of Ghostscript are overworked bitmapped fonts. The solution is to get high quality fonts, for example the Adobe Type Manager fonts. Also third-party Type 1 fonts from Bitstream, URW, Soft Horizons and many other suppliers work. Please read your corresponding font licences.

Aladdin Ghostscript 4.0 and later come with a set of high quality fonts, made available by URW.

You need a previewer based on Ghostscript. These are described in the Ghostscript README. Some previewers are:

Ghostview 1.5 (X11):
ftp://ftp.cs.wisc.edu/ghost/gnu/ghostview/ghostview-1.5.tar.gz

GSview (Windows and OS/2) 2.5.
ftp://ftp.cs.wisc.edu/ghost/rjl/gsview25.zip

The file gs_dbt_e.ps was not copied to the library directory, due to an error in the ghostscript installation procedure. Copy this file manually to the library directory. (I.e. where the rest of the *.ps files for ghostscript are.)

GNU Ghostscript is included in the GNU distribution from the Free Software Foundation; e-mail to gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu for information on ordering their tapes, floppies, or CD-ROMs. Ghostscript is generally included in less-commercial Unix systems such as Linux and BSDI, and also appears on some freeware CD-ROMs. Some commercial services like Compuserve and Genie, and many privately run bulletin board systems (BBSs), make Ghostscript available for downloading, but their copies are likely to be incomplete or obsolete.

If you do not have convenient access to the Internet, you can order Aladdin Ghostscript on a CD-R disc, along with some useful related programs and documentation: for more information, see

	http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/cd.html

Portable Document Format is a file format which contains forward and backward links. It is not a stream format like PostScript. You cannot pipe PDF files to the stdin of Ghostscript. Instead you must either give the PDF filename on the command line, or use it as the argument of the Ghostscript run command.

Since Ghostview pipes PostScript files to Ghostscript, you cannot start Ghostview as

          ghostview file.pdf

Instead there are several options:

1. Tanmoy Bhattacharya has written some patches for Ghostview 1.5 that allow it to read and display PDF files. These are available from: ftp://gita.lanl.gov/people/tanmoy/hypertex/gv1.5gs3.33hack.tar.gz

2. Start Ghostview as follows:

          ghostview -arguments file.pdf quit.ps

This will allow you to display a PDF file, but you won't be able to jump to particular pages. Use Tanmoy's code if you want that facility.

3. With ghostscript 3.53 or later, create an `index file' by saying

          pdf2dsc file.pdf file.pdx
          ghostview file.pdx

4. Use GV, a modified version of Ghostview available from http://wwwthep.physik.uni-mainz.de/~plass/gv/

Subject: 2.1 HPUX
Subject: 2.2 DEC ALPHA AX
Subject: 2.3 UnixWare 1.0
Subject: 2.4 SCO Unix (ODT3.0)
Subject: 2.5 X Windows
Subject: 2.6 DOS
Subject: 2.7 MS Windows

On HP 9000/700 (and other), the HP C-compiler has a bug that is fatal for gs. You must have the latest C compiler patch to compile gs. The patch is PHSS_3015, which results in the following 'what /bin/cc':
/bin/cc:
HP92453-01 A.09.34 HP C Compiler

Further you need the patches PHSS_2199 and PHSS_3537.

When you run Ghostscript on AXP (Alpha) machines, text does not appear properly (or does not appear at all) on the screen. Versions of Ghostscript through 2.6.1 have a number of bugs that prevent them from working properly on 64-bit architectures. Versions starting with 3.0 will work properly on 64-bit machines.

There is a chance that you can not link gs, because your enviroment is not big enough. You can change the enviroment size with a kernel variable: ARG_MAX. Change this with /etc/conf/idtune and rebuild the kernel. For further reference read the manpages.

There is a chance that you can not link gs, because your enviroment is not big enough. You can change the enviroment size with a parameter in the file /usr/include/sys/param.h and a kernel rebuilt.

Tom Kelly about building gs 2.6.1 for SCO ODT 3.0:

I have patches for the makefile that allow it to be built without modifying the kernel. The modified makefile can be obtained from ftp://ftp.sco.com/Skunk/src/Tools/gs261/unix-ansi.mak

Subject: 2.5.1 Why do I get a "Malformed color property" message under X Windows?
Subject: 2.5.2 Why do I get "Can't allocate backing pixmap" messages?
Subject: 2.5.3 Why do I get white or black rectangles where characters should appear?

This is a Ghostscript bug that was fixed by a patch released separately from Ghostscript 2.6.1. See section 1.5 for information about patches. This bug is fixed in GNU Ghostscript 2.6.2.

Some servers do not implement backing pixmaps properly, or do not have enough memory for them. If you get strange behavior or "out of memory" messages, try setting the useBackingPixmap resource to false.

Some servers do not implement bitmap/pixmap displaying properly. This may show up as white or black rectangles where characters should appear, or characters may appear in "inverse video" (e.g., white on a black rectangle). If this happens, try setting the useXPutImage resource to false.

Subject: 2.6.1 On my DOS system using GS.EXE (Borland compiler), why do I get a `limitcheck in setdevice' or `VMerror in setdevice' error message?
Subject: 2.6.2 Watcom C 9.0x, I can't compile gs, wmake has a memory size problem. Is the makefile too big?

On DOS systems using the Borland compiler, if Ghostscript gives you a 'limitcheck in setdevice' error, it may mean Ghostscript's standard buffer size wasn't large enough. Likewise, if Ghostscript gives you a 'VMerror in setdevice' error, it means the buffer size was too large. You can use the -dBufferSpace= switch to set the buffer size to a different value, e.g.,

     -dBufferSpace=50000 

wmake.exe is a normal DOS application with a 64K limit. You should ask Watcom for an enhanced mode version, or update to a newer Watcom C version, this problem is fixed there.

Subject: 2.7.1 MS Windows GSview cannot execute GSWIN.
Subject: 2.7.2 MS Windows GSWIN fails with exit code -13 or -15.

The most common problem is that you have not set up your ghostscript command line correctly in the "Options | Ghostscript Command" menu item. The GSWIN command should look like:

     D:\GS\GSWIN -ID:\GS;D:\GS\GSFONTS

Subject: 3.1 Why isn't GIF supported in Ghostscript?
Subject: 3.2 The spacing of characters / words / margins on the display is wrong, what can I do?
Subject: 3.3 On my H-P LaserJet, why do I only get a partial page of output, or a single page gets split across two sheets?

L. Peter Deutsch of Aladdin Enterprises writes:

Because of actions by CompuServe and Unisys related to a patent that claims to cover the data compression method used in GIF, anyone who distributes any new GIF software (even readers, but definitely software that creates GIF files) after January 1, 1995 may be subject to legal action if they do not get a license from Unisys, and/or unpredictable payment requirements if they do get such a license. I cannot run the risk of having this happen. If you wish to run this risk, you may extract the GIF software (gdevgif.c and a small part of devs.mak) from Aladdin Ghostscript 3.12, which was originally released in 1994.

This is almost always caused by differences between the character widths that were used to format the document and the character widths of the fonts installed in your system. (This only affects the display, and only with window systems, not with DOS.) If this happens, invoke Ghostscript with the -dNOPLATFONTS switch, or (on X Windows) set

     Ghostscript*useExternalFonts: false

For more information about fonts on the display, please read the first sections of fonts.doc.

Printing on a Hewlett-Packard LaserJet at full resolution (300 DPI) requires a printer with at least 1.5 Mb of memory. 150 DPI printing requires only .5 Mb. You can select 150 DPI printing with the command line switch

     -r150 

PostScript (TM) Adobe