gs - Unix, Linux Command

The interpreter recognizes many option switches, some of which are described
below. Please see the usage documenation 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 detailed 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, 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 Ghostscript 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 order of precedence for these alternatives from
highest to lowest (Ghostscript uses the device 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".


On Unix and MS Windows systems 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


Note that the ’%’ characters need to be doubled on MS Windows to avoid
mangling by the command interpreter.


You can also send output to standard output:



        -sOutputFile=-

        -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

        -sPAPERSIZE=legal


Most ISO and US paper sizes are recognized. See the usage documenatation 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 example, 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


The locations of many Ghostscript run-time files are compiled into the
executable when it is built.  On Unix these are typically based in
/usr/local, but this may be different on your system.  Under DOS they
are typically based in C:\GS, but may be elsewhere, especially if
you install Ghostscript with GSview.  Run "gs -h" to find the
location of Ghostscript documentation on your system, from which you can
get more details.



        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


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