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.TH GS 1

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.de TQ

.br

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.TP \\$1

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.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.