GS(1)                                      Ghostscript                                      GS(1)

NAME
       gs - Ghostscript (PostScript and PDF language interpreter and previewer)

SYNOPSIS
       gs [ options ] [ files ] ...

DESCRIPTION
       The  gs  command  invokes Ghostscript, an interpreter of Adobe Systems' PostScript(tm) and
       Portable Document Format (PDF) languages.  gs reads "files" in sequence and executes  them
       as  Ghostscript programs. After doing this, it reads further input from the standard input
       stream (normally the keyboard), interpreting each line separately and output to an  output
       device  (may  be a file or an X11 window preview, see below). The interpreter exits grace‐
       fully when it encounters the "quit" command (either in a file or from  the  keyboard),  at
       end-of-file, or at an interrupt signal (such as Control-C at the keyboard).

       The interpreter recognizes many option switches, some of which are described below. Please
       see the usage documentation 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 de‐
       tailed 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.

       If you have installed the ghostscript-x Debian package and are under X, the default device
       is  an X11 window (previewer), else ghostscript will use the bbox device and print on std‐
       out the dimension of the postscript file.

       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  Ghost‐
       script 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 or‐
       der of precedence for these alternatives from highest to lowest (Ghostscript uses the  de‐
       vice 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".

       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

       You can also send output to standard output:

            -sOutputFile=-
       or
            -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
       or
            -sPAPERSIZE=legal

       Most ISO and US paper sizes are recognized. See the usage documentation 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 ex‐
       ample, 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
       -- filename arg1 ...
              Takes  the next argument as a file name as usual, but takes all remaining arguments
              (even if they have the syntactic form of switches) and defines the name "ARGUMENTS"
              in  "userdict"  (not "systemdict") as an array of those strings, before running the
              file.  When Ghostscript finishes executing the file, it exits back to the shell.

       -Dname=token
       -dname=token
              Define a name in "systemdict" with the given definition.  The token must be exactly
              one token (as defined by the "token" operator) and may contain no whitespace.

       -Dname
       -dname Define a name in "systemdict" with value=null.

       -Sname=string
       -sname=string
              Define a name in "systemdict" with a given string as value.  This is different from
              -d.  For example, -dname=35 is equivalent to the program fragment
                   /name 35 def
              whereas -sname=35 is equivalent to
                   /name (35) def

       -P     Makes Ghostscript to look first in the current directory for library files.  By de‐
              fault, Ghostscript no longer looks in the current directory, unless, of course, the
              first explicitly supplied directory is "." in  -I.   See  also  the  INITIALIZATION
              FILES  section  below,  and bundled Use.htm for detailed discussion on search paths
              and how Ghostcript finds files.

       -q     Quiet startup: suppress normal startup messages, and  also  do  the  equivalent  of
              -dQUIET.

       -gnumber1xnumber2
              Equivalent  to  -dDEVICEWIDTH=number1  and -dDEVICEHEIGHT=number2.  This is for the
              benefit of devices (such as X11 windows) that require (or allow) width  and  height
              to be specified.

       -rnumber
       -rnumber1xnumber2
              Equivalent to -dDEVICEXRESOLUTION=number1 and -dDEVICEYRESOLUTION=number2.  This is
              for the benefit of devices such as printers that support multiple X and  Y  resolu‐
              tions.  If only one number is given, it is used for both X and Y resolutions.

       -Idirectories
              Adds  the designated list of directories at the head of the search path for library
              files.

       -      This is not really a switch, but indicates to Ghostscript that  standard  input  is
              coming  from  a file or a pipe and not interactively from the command line.  Ghost‐
              script reads from standard input until it reaches end-of-file,  executing  it  like
              any other file, and then continues with processing the command line.  When the com‐
              mand line has been entirely processed, Ghostscript exits rather than going into its
              interactive mode.

       Note that the normal initialization file "gs_init.ps" makes "systemdict" read-only, so the
       values of names defined with -D, -d, -S, or -s cannot be  changed  (although,  of  course,
       they can be superseded by definitions in "userdict" or other dictionaries.)

SPECIAL NAMES
       -dNOCACHE
              Disables character caching.  Useful only for debugging.

       -dNOBIND
              Disables the "bind" operator.  Useful only for debugging.

       -dNODISPLAY
              Suppresses the normal initialization of the output device.  This may be useful when
              debugging.

       -dNOPAUSE
              Disables the prompt and pause at the end of each page.  This may be  desirable  for
              applications where another program is driving Ghostscript.

       -dNOPLATFONTS
              Disables  the use of fonts supplied by the underlying platform (for instance X Win‐
              dows). This may be needed if the platform fonts look undesirably different from the
              scalable fonts.

       -dSAFER
              Restricts  file operations the job can perform.  Strongly recommended for spoolers,
              conversion scripts or other sensitive environments where a badly written  or  mali‐
              cious PostScript program code must be prevented from changing important files.

       -dWRITESYSTEMDICT
              Leaves  "systemdict" writable.  This is necessary when running special utility pro‐
              grams, but is strongly discouraged as it bypasses normal Postscript  security  mea‐
              sures.

       -sDEVICE=device
              Selects an alternate initial output device, as described above.

       -sOutputFile=filename
              Selects  an  alternate  output file (or pipe) for the initial output device, as de‐
              scribed above.

SAFER MODE
       The -dSAFER option disables the "deletefile"  and  "renamefile"  operators  and  prohibits
       opening piped commands ("%pipe%cmd"). Only "%stdout" and "%stderr" can be opened for writ‐
       ing. It also disables reading from files, except for "%stdin", files given  as  a  command
       line  argument, and files contained in paths given by LIBPATH and FONTPATH or specified by
       the system params /FontResourceDir and /GenericResourceDir.

       This mode also sets the .LockSafetyParams parameter of the initial output device  to  pro‐
       tect  against  programs that attempt to write to files using the OutputFile device parame‐
       ter. Since the device parameters specified on the command line, including OutputFile,  are
       set prior to SAFER mode, use of "-sOutputFile=..." on the command line is unrestricted.

       SAFER mode prevents changing the /GenericResourceDir, /FontResourceDir, /SystemParamsPass‐
       word, and /StartJobPassword.

       While SAFER mode is not the default, it is the default for many wrapper  scripts  such  as
       ps2pdf  and  may be the default in a subsequent release of Ghostscript.  Thus when running
       programs that need to open  files  or  set  restricted  parameters  you  should  pass  the
       -dNOSAFER command line option or its synonym -dDELAYSAFER.

       When running with -dNOSAFER it is possible to perform a "save" followed by ".setsafe", ex‐
       ecute a file or procedure in SAFER mode, and then use "restore" to return to NOSAFER mode.
       In  order to prevent the save object from being restored by the foreign file or procedure,
       the ".runandhide" operator should be used to hide the save object from the restricted pro‐
       cedure.

FILES
       The  locations of many Ghostscript run-time files are compiled into the executable when it
       is built.  Run "gs -h" to find the location of Ghostscript documentation on  your  system,
       from which you can get more details. On a Debian system they are in /usr.

       /usr/share/ghostscript/[0-9]*.[0.9]*/*
              Startup  files,  utilities,  and basic font definitions (where [0-9]*.[0.9]* is the
              ghostscript version)

       /usr/share/fonts/type1/gsfonts/*
              More font definitions from the gsfonts package

       /usr/share/doc/ghostscript/examples/*
              Ghostscript demonstration files (if ghostscript-doc package is installed)

       /usr/share/doc/ghostscript/*
              Diverse document files (may need to install ghostscript-doc package)

INITIALIZATION FILES
       When looking for the initialization files "gs_*.ps", the files related to  fonts,  or  the
       file  for  the  "run"  operator, Ghostscript first tries to open the file with the name as
       given, using the current working directory if no directory is specified.  If  this  fails,
       and  the  file  name doesn't specify an explicit directory or drive (for instance, doesn't
       contain "/" on Unix systems), Ghostscript tries directories in this order:

       1.  the directories specified by the -I switches in the command line (see below), if any;

       2.  the directories specified by the GS_LIB environment variable, if any;

       3.  the directories specified by the GS_LIB_DEFAULT macro in the Ghostscript makefile when
           the     executable     was     built.      GS_LIB_DEFAULT     is    "/usr/share/ghost‐
           script/[0-9]*.[0-9]*/lib" on a Debian  system  where  "[0-9]*.[0-9]*"  represents  the
           Ghostscript version number

       Each  of these (GS_LIB_DEFAULT, GS_LIB, and -I parameter) may be either a single directory
       or a list of directories separated by ":".

ENVIRONMENT
       GS_OPTIONS
              String of options to be processed before the command line options

       GS_DEVICE
              Used to specify an output device

       GS_FONTPATH
              Path names used to search for fonts

       GS_LIB Path names for initialization files and fonts

       TEMP   Where temporary files are made

X RESOURCES
       Ghostscript, or more properly the X11 display device, looks for  the  following  resources
       under the program name "Ghostscript":

       borderWidth
              The border width in pixels (default = 1).

       borderColor
              The name of the border color (default = black).

       geometry
              The window size and placement, WxH+X+Y (default is NULL).

       xResolution
              The number of x pixels per inch (default is computed from WidthOfScreen and WidthM‐
              MOfScreen).

       yResolution
              The number of y pixels per  inch  (default  is  computed  from  HeightOfScreen  and
              HeightMMOfScreen).

       useBackingPixmap
              Determines whether backing store is to be used for saving display window (default =
              true).

       See the usage document for a more complete list of resources.  To set these  resources  on
       Unix, put them in a file such as "~/.Xresources" in the following form:

            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
       The  various  Ghostscript  document  files (above), especially Use.htm.  On Debian you may
       need to install ghostscript-doc before reading the documentation.

BUGS
       See http://bugs.ghostscript.com/ and the Usenet news group comp.lang.postscript.

VERSION
       This document was last revised for Ghostscript version 9.27.

AUTHOR
       Artifex Software, Inc. are the primary  maintainers  of  Ghostscript.   Russell  J.  Lang,
       gsview at ghostgum.com.au, is the author of most of the MS Windows code in Ghostscript.

9.27                                       4 April 2019                                     GS(1)

GPL Ghostscript 9.27 (2019-04-04)
Copyright (C) 2018 Artifex Software, Inc.  All rights reserved.
Usage: gs [switches] [file1.ps file2.ps ...]
Most frequently used switches: (you can use # in place of =)
 -dNOPAUSE           no pause after page   | -q       `quiet', fewer messages
 -g<width>x<height>  page size in pixels   | -r<res>  pixels/inch resolution
 -sDEVICE=<devname>  select device         | -dBATCH  exit after last file
 -sOutputFile=<file> select output file: - for stdout, |command for pipe,
                                         embed %d or %ld for page #
Input formats: PostScript PostScriptLevel1 PostScriptLevel2 PostScriptLevel3 PDF
Default output device: bbox
Available devices:
   alc1900 alc2000 alc4000 alc4100 alc8500 alc8600 alc9100 ap3250 atx23
   atx24 atx38 bbox bit bitcmyk bitrgb bitrgbtags bj10e bj10v bj10vh bj200
   bjc600 bjc800 bjc880j bjccmyk bjccolor bjcgray bjcmono bmp16 bmp16m
   bmp256 bmp32b bmpgray bmpmono bmpsep1 bmpsep8 ccr cdeskjet cdj1600 cdj500
   cdj550 cdj670 cdj850 cdj880 cdj890 cdj970 cdjcolor cdjmono cdnj500 cfax
   chp2200 cif cljet5 cljet5c cljet5pr coslw2p coslwxl cups declj250 deskjet
   devicen dfaxhigh dfaxlow display dj505j djet500 djet500c dl2100 dnj650c
   epl2050 epl2050p epl2120 epl2500 epl2750 epl5800 epl5900 epl6100 epl6200
   eplcolor eplmono eps2write eps9high eps9mid epson epsonc escp escpage
   faxg3 faxg32d faxg4 fmlbp fmpr fpng fs600 gdi gprf hl1240 hl1250 hl7x0
   hpdj1120c hpdj310 hpdj320 hpdj340 hpdj400 hpdj500 hpdj500c hpdj510
   hpdj520 hpdj540 hpdj550c hpdj560c hpdj600 hpdj660c hpdj670c hpdj680c
   hpdj690c hpdj850c hpdj855c hpdj870c hpdj890c hpdjplus hpdjportable ibmpro
   ijs imagen inferno ink_cov inkcov itk24i itk38 jetp3852 jj100 jpeg
   jpegcmyk jpeggray la50 la70 la75 la75plus laserjet lbp310 lbp320 lbp8
   lex2050 lex3200 lex5700 lex7000 lips2p lips3 lips4 lips4v lj250 lj3100sw
   lj4dith lj4dithp lj5gray lj5mono ljet2p ljet3 ljet3d ljet4 ljet4d
   ljet4pjl ljetplus ln03 lp1800 lp1900 lp2000 lp2200 lp2400 lp2500 lp2563
   lp3000c lp7500 lp7700 lp7900 lp8000 lp8000c lp8100 lp8200c lp8300c
   lp8300f lp8400f lp8500c lp8600 lp8600f lp8700 lp8800c lp8900 lp9000b
   lp9000c lp9100 lp9200b lp9200c lp9300 lp9400 lp9500c lp9600 lp9600s
   lp9800c lps4500 lps6500 lq850 lxm3200 lxm5700m m8510 md1xMono md2k
   md50Eco md50Mono md5k mgr4 mgr8 mgrgray2 mgrgray4 mgrgray8 mgrmono miff24
   mj500c mj6000c mj700v2c mj8000c ml600 necp6 npdl nullpage oce9050 oki182
   oki4w okiibm oprp opvp paintjet pam pamcmyk32 pamcmyk4 pbm pbmraw pcl3
   pclm pcx16 pcx24b pcx256 pcxcmyk pcxgray pcxmono pdfimage24 pdfimage32
   pdfimage8 pdfwrite pdfwrite pdfwrite pgm pgmraw pgnm pgnmraw photoex
   picty180 pj pjetxl pjxl pjxl300 pkm pkmraw pksm pksmraw plan plan9bm
   planc plang plank planm plib plibc plibg plibk plibm png16 png16m png256
   png48 pngalpha pnggray pngmono pngmonod pnm pnmraw ppm ppmraw pr1000
   pr1000_4 pr150 pr201 ps2write psdcmyk psdcmyk16 psdcmykog psdrgb psdrgb16
   pwgraster pxlcolor pxlmono r4081 rinkj rpdl samsunggdi sj48 spotcmyk
   st800 stcolor t4693d2 t4693d4 t4693d8 tek4696 tiff12nc tiff24nc tiff32nc
   tiff48nc tiff64nc tiffcrle tiffg3 tiffg32d tiffg4 tiffgray tifflzw
   tiffpack tiffscaled tiffscaled24 tiffscaled32 tiffscaled4 tiffscaled8
   tiffsep tiffsep1 txtwrite uniprint xcf xes xpswrite
Search path:
   /usr/share/ghostscript/9.27/Resource/Init :
   /usr/share/ghostscript/9.27/lib :
   /usr/share/ghostscript/9.27/Resource/Font :
   /usr/share/ghostscript/fonts : /var/lib/ghostscript/fonts :
   /usr/share/cups/fonts : /usr/share/ghostscript/fonts :
   /usr/local/lib/ghostscript/fonts : /usr/share/fonts
Ghostscript is also using fontconfig to search for font files
For more information, see /usr/share/doc/ghostscript/Use.htm.
On debian system you may need to install ghostscript-doc package.
Please report bugs to bugs.ghostscript.com.