GNU Ghostscript

Ghostscript is the name of a set of software that provides:

• An interpreter for the PostScript language and the PDF file format,
• A set of C procedures (the Ghostscript library) that implement the graphics capabilities that appear as primitive operations in the PostScript language, and
• A wide variety of output drivers for various file formats and printers.

Ghostscript was originally written by Peter Deutsch and is now maintained by a team of programmers; Raph Levien and Ralph Giles are the current main developers. Andy Tai and Didier Link helps maintaining the GNU version of Ghostscript. See ghostscript.com for more information.

Help wanted

We need to add an interface for Emacs to talk to so it can efficiently use one Ghostscript process to display a series of images, and output them into pixmaps specified by Emacs. If you can coding this feature, contact Didier Link

Obtaining GNU Ghostscript

GNU Ghostscript is a copyrighted work (artofcode LLC owns the copyright); it is distributed under the GNU General Public License. You can get the current version of GNU Ghostscript by Internet FTP from ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ghostscript/ from any of the GNU distribution sites; you can also get GNU Ghostscript from the Free Software Foundation (FSF) on the Source Code CD-ROM.

The Ghostscript source code distribution requires a library written by the Independent JPEG Group (IJG), the zlib compression library, and optionally the libpng image format library. These libraries do NOT fall under the GNU License; each comes with its own license, all of which are more permissive than and compatible with the GPL. For more information, please see the README files in the respective library sources. The executable versions of Ghostscript are based in part on the work of these groups.

What platforms does Ghostscript run on?

GNU Ghostscript is known to run on the following platform families:

• A wide variety of Unix systems using X Windows version 11, release 4, 5, and 6, including Sun-3, Sun-4, Sun-386i, and Sun SPARCStation; generic machines running GNU/Linux, 386/ix, ISC Unix, SCO Unix, and Solaris; H-P 9000/300 and 9000/800; DECStation 2100 and 3100; VAX running Ultrix and OSF/1; Sequent Symmetry; Convex C1 and C2; Tektronix 4300; SGI Iris Indigo;
• Sun workstations (Sun-3, SPARC, Sun-386i) running SunView;
• VAX or AXP systems running VMS with X11R4/5 and DEC C or gcc.

Newsgroups for GNU Ghostscript

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

Additional information

• Introduction to GNU Ghostscript
• GV is a freely available X Windows screen previewer based on Ghostscript.

Links to other Ghostscript-related resources

• The project page at wisc.edu has more information on the project