ref: 2417e3f61def0443d8f75bcc5003a63e02fe880b
dir: /sys/man/1/gs/
.TH GS 1 .\" This file is an edited version of /sys/src/cmd/gs/man/gs.1, to .\" document the local installation and remove needless background. .de TQ .br .ns .TP \\$1 .. .SH NAME gs \- Aladdin Ghostscript (PostScript and PDF language interpreter) .SH SYNOPSIS .B gs [ .I options ] [ .I files ] ... .br .SH DESCRIPTION Ghostscript is a programming language similar to Adobe Systems' PostScript and PDF languages, which are in turn similar to Forth. .I Gs reads .I files in sequence and executes them as Ghostscript programs. After doing this, it reads further input from the standard input. If the .I file .B - is named, however, it represents the standard input, which is read in order and not after the files on the command line. Each line is interpreted separately. The `quit' command, or end-of-file, exits the interpreter. .PP The interpreter recognizes several switches described below, which may appear anywhere in the command line and apply to all files thereafter. .PP The .B -h or .B -? options give help and list the available devices; the default is .BR plan9 , which produces compressed image files suitable for viewing with .IR page (1) (but note that .IR page (1) will invoke .I gs automatically; see its manual). .PP Ghostscript may be built with multiple output devices. Ghostscript normally opens the first one and directs output to it. To use device xyz as the initial output device, include the switch .EX -sDEVICE=xyz .EE in the command line. This switch must precede the first PostScript file and only its first invocation has any effect. Output devices can also be selected by the word .B selectdevice in the input language, or by setting the environment variable .BR GS_DEVICE . The order of precedence for these alternatives, highest to lowest, is: .EX selectdevice \f1(command line)\fP GS_DEVICE plan9 .EE .PP Normally, output goes directly to a scratch file. To send the output to a series of files .BR foo1.xyz , .BR foo2.xyz , etc., use the switch .EX -sOutputFile=foo%d.xyz .EE The %d may be any .I printf (see .IR fprintf (2)) format specification. Each file will receive one page of output. If the file name begins with a pipe character, the output will be sent as standard input to the following pipeline. For example, .EX -sOutputFile=|lp .EE Specifying the file .B - will send the files to standard output; this also requires enabling the .B -q option. .SS "Initialization files" When looking for the initialization files .RB ( gs_*.ps ), the files related to fonts, or the file for the .B run operator, Ghostscript first looks for the file (if it doesn't start with a slash) in the current directory, then in these directories in the following order: .TP 1. Any directories specified by .B -I switches in the command line (see below); .TP 2. Any directories specified by the .B GS_LIB environment variable; .TP 3. The directories .BR /sys/lib/ghostscript , .BR /sys/lib/ghostscript/font , and .BR /sys/lib/postscript/font . .PP The .B GS_LIB or .B -I parameters may be a single directory or a colon-separated list. .SS Options .TP .BI -- " filename arg1 ..." Take the next argument as a file name as usual, but take all remaining arguments (even if they have the syntactic form of switches) and define the name ARGUMENTS in userdict (not systemdict) as an array of those strings, .I before running the file. When Ghostscript finishes executing the file, it exits back to the shell. .TP .BI -D name = token .TQ .BI -d name = token Define a name in systemdict with the given definition. The token must be exactly one token (as defined by the `token' operator) and must not contain any white space. .TP .BI -D name .TQ .BI -d name Define a name in systemdict with value=null. .TP .BI -S name = string .TQ .BI -s name = string Define a name in systemdict with a given string as value. This is different from .BR -d . For example, .B -dname=35 is equivalent to the program fragment .EX /name 35 def .EE whereas .B -sname=35 is equivalent to .EX /name (35) def .EE .TP .B -q Quiet startup: suppress normal startup messages, and also do the equivalent of .BR -dQUIET . .TP .BI -g number1 x number2 Equivalent to .BI -dDEVICEWIDTH= number1 and .BI -dDEVICEHEIGHT= number2\f1. This is for the benefit of devices, such as windows, that allow width and height to be specified. .TP .BI -r number .TQ .BI -r number1 x number2 Equivalent to .BI -dDEVICEXRESOLUTION= number1 and \fL-dDEVICE\%YRESOLUTION= \f2\%number2\f1. 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. .TP .BI -I directories Adds the designated list of directories at the head of the search path for library files. .PP Note that gs_init.ps makes systemdict read-only, so the values of names defined with -D/d/S/s cannot be changed (although, of course, they can be superseded by definitions in userdict or other dictionaries.) .SS "Special names" .TP .B -dBATCH Exit after the last file has been processed. This is equivalent to listing .I quit.ps at the end of the list of files. .TP .B -dDISKFONTS Causes individual character outlines to be loaded from the disk the first time they are encountered. (Normally 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. .TP .B -dNOCACHE Disables character caching. Only useful for debugging. .TP .B -dNOBIND Disables the `bind' operator. Only useful for debugging. .TP .B -dNODISPLAY Suppresses the normal initialization of the output device. This may be useful when debugging. .TP .B -dNOPAUSE Disables the prompt and pause at the end of each page. This may be desirable for applications where another program (e.g. .IR page (1)) is `driving' Ghostscript. .TP .B -dSAFER Disables the .B deletefile and .B renamefile operators, and the ability to open files in any mode other than read-only. This may be desirable for spoolers or other sensitive environments. Files in the .B /fd directory may still be opened for writing. .TP .B -dWRITESYSTEMDICT Leaves systemdict writable. This is necessary when running special utility programs such as font2c and pcharstr, which must bypass normal PostScript access protection. .TP .BI -sDEVICE= device Selects an alternate initial output device, as described above. .TP .BI -sOutputFile= filename Selects an alternate output file (or pipe) for the initial output device, as described above. .SH FILES .TP .B /sys/lib/ghostscript/* Startup-files, utilities, examples, and basic font definitions. .TP .B /sys/lib/ghostscript/fonts/* Additional font definitions. .SH SOURCE .B /sys/src/cmd/gs .SH "SEE ALSO" .IR page (1), .IR ps2pdf (1) .br The Ghostscript document files in .B doc and .B man subdirectories of the source directory. .SH BUGS The treatment of standard input is non-standard.