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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title>Background information for new users of Ghostscript</title>
<!-- $Id$ -->
<!-- Originally: new-user.txt -->
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="gs.css" title="Ghostscript Style">
</head>
<body>
<!-- [1.0 begin visible header] ============================================ -->
<!-- [1.1 begin headline] ================================================== -->
<h1>Background information for new users of Ghostscript</h1>
<!-- [1.1 end headline] ==================================================== -->
<!-- [1.2 begin table of contents] ========================================= -->
<h2>Table of contents</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="#Overview">An overview of Ghostscript</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#Find_Ghostscript">How is Ghostscript licensed? Where can I find it?</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#AFPL_gs">AFPL Ghostscript (formerly Aladdin Ghostscript)</a>
<li><a href="#GNU_gs">GNU Ghostscript</a>
<li><a href="#Commercial_gs">Commercial versions</a>
</ul>
<li><a href="#Third-party_libraries">Libraries obtained from other parties</a>
<li><a href="#Support">What if I want support?</a>
<li><a href="#Commercial_use">What about commercial use?</a>
<li><a href="#Platforms">What platforms does Ghostscript run on?</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#Third-party_platforms">Ports done by users</a>
</ul>
</ul>
<li><a href="#Related_work">Related work</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#Drivers">Drivers</a>
<li><a href="#Previewers">Previewers</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#Previewer_X">Previewers for X Windows</a>
<li><a href="#Previewer_DOS-Win">Previewers for DOS and MS Windows</a>
<li><a href="#Previewer_Linux">A previewer for Linux</a>
</ul>
<li><a href="#Fonts">Fonts</a>
<li><a href="#Related_programs">Related programs</a>
</ul>
<li><a href="#Need_help">If you need help</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#Reporting_problems">Reporting problems</a>
</ul>
<li><a href="#Contacting_us">Contacting Ghostscript headquarters</a>
<li><a href="#How_to_help">How you can help improve Ghostscript</a>
<li><a href="#Acknowledgments">Acknowledgements</a>
</ul>
<!-- [1.2 end table of contents] =========================================== -->
<!-- [1.3 begin hint] ====================================================== -->
<p>For other information, see the <a href="Readme.htm">Ghostscript
overview</a>.
<!-- [1.3 end hint] ======================================================== -->
<hr>
<!-- [1.0 end visible header] ============================================== -->
<!-- [2.0 begin contents] ================================================== -->
<h2><a name="Overview"></a>An overview of Ghostscript</h2>
<p>
Ghostscript is the name of a set of software that provides:
<ul>
<li>An interpreter for the <b>PostScript</b><small><sup>TM</sup></small>
language and the Adobe <b>Portable Document Format</b> (<b>PDF</b> --
sometimes confused with Acrobat, Adobe's PDF browser and editor product);
<li>Input modules (utilities) for reading a variety of raster formats,
including <b>CMYK</b>, <b>GIF</b>, <b>JFIF</b> (<b>JPEG</b>), <b>MIFF</b>,
<b>PBM</b>/<b>PGM</b>/<b>PPM</b>, and <b>PCX</b>;
<li>Output modules (drivers) for a wide variety of window systems (including
X Windows and Microsoft Windows), raster file formats, and printers, as well
as a PDF output module that implements functions similar to Adobe's
Acrobat<small><sup>TM</sup></small> Distiller<small><sup>TM</sup></small>
product; and
<li>The Ghostscript library, a set of procedures to implement the graphics
and filtering capabilities that are primitive operations in the PostScript
language and in PDF.
</ul>
<p>
In simple terms, this means that Ghostscript can read a PostScript or PDF
file and display the results on the screen or convert them into a form you
can print on a non-PostScript printer. Especially together with several
popular <a href="#Previewers">previewers</a>, with Ghostscript you can view
or print an entire document or even isolated pages, even if your computer
doesn't have Display PostScript and your printer doesn't handle PostScript
itself.
<h3><a name="Find_Ghostscript"></a>How is Ghostscript licensed? Where can I find it?</h3>
<p>
Ghostscript is a copyrighted work (artofcode LLC owns the copyright);
it is not shareware or in the public domain. Different versions of it are
distributed with three different licenses:
<h4><a name="AFPL_gs"></a>AFPL Ghostscript (formerly Aladdin
Ghostscript)</h4>
<p>
Versions entitled "AFPL Ghostscript", or older versions called "Aladdin
Ghostscript"), are distributed with a license called the <a
href="Public.htm">Aladdin Free Public License</a> that allows free use,
copying, and distribution by end users, but does not allow commercial
distribution. For information on obtaining the current version of
Ghostscript with this license please visit our website at
<blockquote>
<a href="http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/"
class="offsite">http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/</a>
</blockquote>
<p>
AFPL ghostscript is also available directly from our ftp mirrors as
<blockquote>
<a href="ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/ghost/AFPL/"
class="offsite">ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/ghost/AFPL/</a>gs###/ghostscript#.##
</blockquote>
<p>
where "#.##" and "###" are the version number with and without punctuation, for instance "5.50" and "550",
or under AFS by direct reference to
<blockquote>
/afs/cs.wisc.edu/p/mirror/pub/mirrors/ghost/AFPL/
</blockquote>
<p>
Finally, you can search for other sites, perhaps nearer to your location, that
provide ftp access to Ghostscript using an ftp search
service such as
<blockquote>
<a href="http://ftpsearch.lycos.com/"
class="offsite">http://ftpsearch.lycos.com/</a>
</blockquote>
<p>
General search engines like
<blockquote>
<a href="http://www.google.com/"
class="offsite">http://www.google.com/</a>
<br>
<a href="http://www.altavista.com/"
class="offsite">http://www.altavista.com/</a>
</blockquote>
<p>
may also be useful, but in searching for files they are likely to provide
many unusable references mixed in among the useful ones.
<p>
If you haven't convenient access to the Internet, you can order AFPL
Ghostscript on a CD along with some useful related programs and
documentation. <b>Please note</b> that this is not "commercial licensing":
you are still getting freely redistributable software, with no support and
no warranty. For more information write to <a href="#GSview">Russell
Lang</a> or see
<blockquote>
<a href="http://www.ghostgum.com.au/cd.htm" class="offsite">http://www.ghostgum.com.au/cd.htm</a>
</blockquote>
<h4><a name="GNU_gs"></a>GNU Ghostscript</h4>
<p>
Versions entitled "GNU Ghostscript" are distributed with the GNU <a
href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">General Public License</a>,
which allows free use, and free copying and redistribution under certain
conditions (including, in some cases, commercial distribution). GNU
Ghostscript versions are usually released shortly after the <em>next</em>
AFPL Ghostscript version; for example, GNU Ghostscript 5.10 was released
shortly after Aladdin Ghostscript 5.50. You can always get the current
version of GNU Ghostscript by Internet FTP from
<blockquote>
<a href="ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/ghost/gnu/"
class="offsite">ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/ghost/gnu/</a>
</blockquote>
<p>
or under AFS by direct reference to
<blockquote>
/afs/cs.wisc.edu/p/mirror/pub/mirrors/ghost/gnu/current/
</blockquote>
<p>
or from any of the many GNU distribution sites. The GNU home ftp site is
<blockquote>
<a href="ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/"
class="offsite">ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/</a>
</blockquote>
<p>
For a more complete list of sites, including sites outside the U.S., write
to <a href="mailto:gnu@gnu.org">gnu@gnu.org</a>. The
<a href="Commprod.htm#FSF-address">Free Software Foundation</a> makes GNU
Ghostscript available on tape and CD-ROM.
<p><a name="CTAN"></a>
Both AFPL and GNU versions are also available from sites in the
Comprehensive TeX Archive Network (CTAN), in a tree based at
/tex-archive/support/ghostscript/, which you can find at these principal
CTAN distribution sites ("participating hosts") as of mid-1998:
<blockquote><table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0>
<tr> <td><a
href="ftp://ctan.tug.org/tex-archive/support/ghostscript/"
class="offsite">ftp://ctan.tug.org/tex-archive/support/ghostscript/</a>
<td>
<td>Massachusetts, U.S.A.
<tr> <td><a href="ftp://ftp.dante.de/tex-archive/support/ghostscript/"
class="offsite">ftp://ftp.dante.de/tex-archive/support/ghostscript/</a>
<td>
<td>Deutschland
<tr> <td><a
href="ftp://ftp.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/support/ghostscript/"
class="offsite">ftp://ftp.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/support/ghostscript/</a>
<td>
<td>United Kingdom
</table></blockquote>
<p>
CTAN has more than fifty mirror sites around the world. For information
about CTAN sites, including how to use them over the World Wide Web, visit
<a href="http://www.ctan.org/" class="offsite">ctan.org</a> or get
the file <b><tt>CTAN.sites</tt></b> from any CTAN server, for
instance
<blockquote>
<a href="ftp://ctan.tug.org/tex-archive/CTAN.sites"
class="offsite">ftp://ctan.tug.org/tex-archive/CTAN.sites</a>
</blockquote>
<h4><a name="Commercial_gs"></a>Commercial versions</h4>
<p>
Finally, Ghostscript is also available for commercial licensing. See
"<a href="#Commercial_use">What about commercial use?</a>" for details.
<p>
AFPL Ghostscript and GNU Ghostscript come with <b>NO WARRANTY</b> and
<b>NO SUPPORT</b>. If you have a question or a problem to report, please
see "<a href="#Need_help">If you need help</a>" for information about what
to do.
<hr>
<h3><a name="Third-party_libraries"></a>Libraries obtained from other parties</h3>
<p>
The Ghostscript source code distribution, and the Ghostscript executable
code, include libraries obtained from other parties. All the source files
mentioned in this section are in the Ghostscript and third-party library
source kits. The documentation of <a href="Make.htm">how to build
Ghostscript</a> tells <a href="Make.htm#Acquiring">where to get these
libraries</a> and <a href="Make.htm#Unpack">how to unpack them</a>.
<blockquote><dl>
<dt>The <a href="http://www.ijg.org/" class="offsite">Independent JPEG
Group</a> (IJG)
library
<dd>The executable versions of Ghostscript are based in part on the work of
the Independent JPEG Group. For more information, see
<b><tt>jpeg.mak</tt></b> in the main Ghostscript source directory and
<b><tt>README</tt></b> in the <b><tt>jpeg</tt></b> subdirectory of the
Ghostscript source code
<dt>The <a href="http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/"
class="offsite">Portable Network
Graphics</a> (PNG) library created by Dave Martindale, Guy Eric Schalnat,
Paul Schmidt, and Tim Wegner, of Group 42, Inc.
<dd>For more information, see <b><tt>libpng.mak</tt></b> in the main
Ghostscript source directory, and <b><tt>README</tt></b> and
<b><tt>png.h</tt></b> in the <b><tt>libpng</tt></b> subdirectory of the
Ghostscript source code.
<dt>The <a href="http://www.info-zip.org/pub/infozip/zlib/"
class="offsite">zlib</a> library
created by Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler
<dd>For more information, see <b><tt>zlib.mak</tt></b> in the main
Ghostscript source directory, and <b><tt>README</tt></b> in the
<b><tt>zlib</tt></b> subdirectory of the Ghostscript source code.
</dl></blockquote>
<p>
These libraries do <b>NOT</b> fall under either the GNU License or the
Aladdin Free Public License; they come with their own licenses,
which also allow free use and redistribution under appropriate
circumstances and which appear in the files mentioned just above. These
libraries are entirely original works of their respective authors, and are
provided <strong>AS IS</strong> with <strong>NO WARRANTY</strong> and
<strong>NO SUPPORT</strong>.
<hr>
<h3><a name="Support"></a>What if I want support?</h3>
<p>
Neither artofcode LLC nor any organization known to us currently offers
Ghostscript support for end-users -- that is, for people or companies who
just want to use Ghostscript and not redistribute it as part of a product.
Companies that include Ghostscript in their products under a commercial
license (see next section) may offer support to end-users, but it would be
support for the company's own product, not for Ghostscript <em>per se</em>.
<p>
Nothing in the GNU or AFPL licenses prevents anyone from providing
support for Ghostscript, either free or commercial. We would be happy to
include in the Ghostscript documentation the contact information for anyone
who wants to offer such support.
<hr>
<h3><a name="Commercial_use"></a>What about commercial use?</h3>
<p>
GNU Ghostscript may not be incorporated into commercial products which
forbid copying or for which customers cannot obtain source code for no more
than the cost of reproduction, although it may be distributed ("aggregated")
with commercial products; AFPL Ghostscript may not be incorporated into
commercial products at all, and may be distributed commercially only under
extremely limited circumstances. However, Ghostscript is also available for
commercial licensing, which in addition to the right to incorporate
Ghostscript into commercial products includes support, a limited warranty,
high-quality fonts, and other benefits. For more information about
commercial licensing of Ghostscript, please contact our commercial
distribution partner, the only entity legally authorized to distribute
Ghostscript <em>per se</em> on any terms other than the GNU or AFPL
licenses:
<blockquote><address>
Licensing Information<br>
Artifex Software Inc.<br>
101 Lucas Valley Road, Suite 110<br>
San Rafael, CA 94903 U.S.A.<br>
+1-415-492-9861 Voice<br>
+1-415-492-9862 Fax<br>
<a href="mailto:info@artifex.com">info@artifex.com</a><br>
<a href="http://www.artifex.com/">http://www.artifex.com/</a>
</address></blockquote>
<p>
Artifex does not offer commercial support as a separate service; support is
available only to OEM licensees (that is, licensees who redistribute
Ghostscript in a product).
<hr>
<h3><a name="Platforms"></a>What platforms does Ghostscript run on?</h3>
<p>
Ghostscript is written entirely in C (with some optional assembly-language
accelerators for DOS platforms), with special care taken to make it run
properly on systems of either byte order ("low-endian" and "high-endian")
and of various word lengths. GNU Ghostscript is known to run on the
following platform families:
<ul>
<li>A wide variety of Unix systems using X Windows version 11, releases 4, 5,
and 6, including
<ul compact>
<li>Sun-3, Sun-4, Sun-386i, Sun SPARCStation with SunOS 4 and Solaris 2.[56]
<li>Generic Intel-based systems running Linux, 386/ix, 386BSD, FreeBSD, ISC Unix, SCO Unix, and Solaris
<li>H-P 9000/300 and 9000/800
<li>DECStation 2100, 3100, and 5xxx
<li>Alpha systems running Digital Unix
<li>VAX running Ultrix
<li>Sequent Symmetry
<li>Convex C1 and C2
<li>Tektronix 4300
<li>SGI Iris Indigo
<li>4.4BSD Unix systems (FreeBSD on Intel)
<li>NetBSD on Intel, Sun SPARC, Motorola M68K (Apple, Amiga, Sun, H-P), and VAX
</ul>
<li>Sun workstations running SunView
<li>VAX and Alpha systems running OpenVMS with X11 compiled with
either DEC C or gcc
</ul>
<p>
AFPL Ghostscript is known to run on all of the above, and additionally
on the following platform families:
<ul>
<li>IBM PC and compatibles with EGA, VGA, SuperVGA, or compatible graphics
under MS-DOS 3.1, 3.3, 5.0, or 6.22, and Microsoft Windows 3.1, NT, 95, or
98;
<li>IBM PC and compatibles under DR DOS 6.0;
<li>IBM PC and compatibles under OS/2 2.0, 2.1 and Warp 3.0.
<li>Apple Macintosh with System 7 or later, both Motorola 680x0 and PowerPC
native. For specific information on the Macintosh implementation, see
<blockquote>
<a href="http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/macos/"
class="offsite">http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/macos/</a>
</blockquote>
</ul>
<p>
It is very likely that Ghostscript will run under other versions of DOS,
and other versions of Unix that support X11, but it has not been tested in
these environments. (Ghostscript does not run well on PC-compatibles with
Hercules display cards, since text and graphics output interfere with each
other, but you can work around this by redirecting the text output to a file.)
<h4><a name="Third-party_platforms"></a>Ports done by users</h4>
<p>
Ghostscript has been ported to a number of platforms by users, who are
willing to be contacted about problems on those specific platforms:
<dl>
<dt><b>NeXT</b>
<dd>For information and possibly precompiled binaries for NeXT machines,
contact Alan Barclay in the U.K. at +44-1224-591779 (voice and fax).
</dl>
<dl>
<dt><b>Amiga</b>
<dd>For information on a port to the Amiga, contact Andreas Maschke
<<a href="mailto:epgbc@cluster6.urz.uni-halle.de">epgbc@cluster6.urz.uni-halle.de</a>>.
This port includes drivers by Andreas Heitmann for
<blockquote><table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0>
<tr><td>IFF<td> <td>file format
<tr><td>RETINA<td> <td>graphics board
<tr><td>INTUI<td> <td>Amiga window system
</table></blockquote>
</dl>
<dl>
<dt><b>SMS/QDOS</b>
<dd>For information on a port to the SMS/QDOS operating system, contact
<blockquote><address>
Jonathan R. Hudson<br>
+44-1703-867843 telephone and fax<br>
<a href="mailto:jrh@jrhudson.demon.co.uk">jrh@jrhudson.demon.co.uk</a><br>
http://www.jrhudson.demon.co.uk/
</address></blockquote>
<p>
The Web site has precompiled binaries, and the port includes includes drivers for:
<blockquote><table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0>
<tr> <td>pic:
<td>
<td>native graphics format
<td>
<td>(PIC, 1-, -2, 4-, 8-colour formats)
<tr> <td>qfax:
<td>
<td>fax files
<td>
<td>(1D, 2D normal and fine)
</table></blockquote>
</dl>
<dl>
<dt><b>Plan 9</b>
<dd>For source boddles and precompiled binaries for the operating system
Plan 9 from Bell Labs, contact Nigel Roles
<<a href="mailto:ngr@cotswold.demon.co.uk">ngr@cotswold.demon.co.uk</a>>.
or check
<blockquote>
<a href="http://www.cotswold.demon.co.uk/dist/gs/"
class="offsite">http://www.cotswold.demon.co.uk/dist/gs/</a>
</blockquote>
</dl>
<dl>
<dt><b>MS-DOS</b> <dd>For information on compiling Ghostscript for MS-DOS
with the Watcom C++ compiler and GNU make (which avoids the severe
limitations in Watcom's wmake program), contact Boguslaw Jackowski <<a
href="mailto:B.Jackowski@gust.org.pl">B.Jackowski@gust.org.pl</a>>.
</dl>
<hr>
<h2><a name="Related_work"></a>Related work</h2>
<h3><a name="Drivers"></a>Drivers</h3>
<p>
A number of people have created Ghostscript drivers that they prefer to
distribute directly, rather than including them in the AFPL Ghostscript
distributions. For a current list, please see the Ghostscript home page at
<a
href="http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/"
class="offsite">http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/</a>.
<h3><a name="Previewers"></a>Previewers</h3>
<p>
The Ghostscript user interface is very primitive, so several people have
contributed screen previewers with better user interfaces.
<h4><a name="Previewer_X"></a>Previewers for X Windows</h4>
<p>
We know of three freely available X Windows screen previewers based on
Ghostscript: <b><tt>Ghostview</tt></b>, <b><tt>gv</tt></b>, and
<b><tt>GSPreview</tt></b>. Most users who have expressed an opinion prefer
<b><tt>gv</tt></b> over <b><tt>Ghostview</tt></b>.
<dl>
<dt><b><tt>gv</tt></b>
<dd>gv, which is derived from Ghostview, is available from CTAN sites and
through the site of its author, Johannes Plass
<<a href="mailto:plass@thep.physik.uni-mainz.de">plass@thep.physik.uni-mainz.de</a>>:
<blockquote>
<a href="http://wwwthep.physik.uni-mainz.de/~plass/gv/"
class="offsite">http://wwwthep.physik.uni-mainz.de/~plass/gv/</a>
</blockquote>
A copy of gv (but perhaps not the most recent version)
can also be found at:
<blockquote>
<a href="http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/gv/"
class="offsite">http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/gv/</a><br>
<a href="ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/ghost/gnu/gv/"
class="offsite">ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/ghost/gnu/gv/</a>
</blockquote>
<p>
gv is available for OpenVMS (both VAX and Alpha), called GhostView-VMS or
gv-vms. Some places you can find it are:
<blockquote>
<a href="ftp://axp.psl.ku.dk/decwindows/xaw3d/"
class="offsite">ftp://axp.psl.ku.dk/decwindows/xaw3d/</a><br>
<a href="ftp://ftp.wku.edu/vms/fileserv/x11kit.zip"
class="offsite">ftp://ftp.wku.edu/vms/fileserv/x11kit.zip</a>
</blockquote>
</dl>
<dl>
<dt><b><tt>Ghostview</tt></b>
<dd>For information on Ghostview, contact Tim Theisen
<<a href="mailto:ghostview@cs.wisc.edu">ghostview@cs.wisc.edu</a>>.
You can get Ghostview from
<blockquote>
<a
href="http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/gv/"
class="offsite">http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/gv/</a>
</blockquote>
</dl>
<dl>
<dt><b><tt>GSPreview</tt></b>
<dd>For information on GSPreview, contact Richard Hesketh
<<a href="mailto:rlh@ukc.ac.uk">rlh@ukc.ac.uk</a>>.
</dl>
<h4><a name="Previewer_DOS-Win"></a>Previewers for DOS and MS Windows</h4>
<dl>
<dt><a name="GSview"></a><b><tt>GSview</tt></b>
<dd>GSview, a popular freely available MS Windows and OS/2 screen previewer
based on Ghostscript, is available from
<blockquote>
<a href="http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/gsview/"
class="offsite">http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/gsview/</a>
</blockquote>
<p>
For technical information on GSview for Windows or PM GSview, please contact
Russell Lang <<a
href="mailto:gsview@ghostgum.com.au">gsview@ghostgum.com.au</a>>. These
programs are also available for <a href="#Commercial_use">commercial
licensing</a> from Artifex Software Inc.
</dl>
<dl>
<dt><b><tt>ps_view</tt></b>
<dd>GUST, the Polish TeX Users Group, has created <b><tt>ps_view</tt></b>,
a public-domain DOS package that provides "an interactive environement for
previewing PostScript documents. The current version can drive the current
version of the Ghostscript interpreter; enables scaling, rotating, restart,
on-line help, printing the screen, etc." <b><tt>ps_view</tt></b> is
available from its home site and from CTAN:
<blockquote>
<a href="ftp://ftp.pg.gda.pl/pub/TeX/support/ps_view/"
class="offsite">ftp://ftp.pg.gda.pl/pub/TeX/support/ps_view/</a><br>
<a href="ftp://ftp.dante.de/tex-archive/support/ps_view/"
class="offsite">ftp://ftp.dante.de/tex-archive/support/ps_view/</a>
</blockquote>
<p>
<b><tt>ps_view's</tt></b> authors are Boguslaw Jackowski and Piotr
Pianowsky
<<a href="mailto:P.Pianowski@gust.org.pl">P.Pianowski@gust.org.pl</a>>.
</dl>
<dl>
<dt><b><tt>psv</tt></b>
<dd><b><tt>PSV</tt></b>, another keyboard-based PostScript viewing package
for DOS, appears to be redistributable with no restrictions. It was once
available from
<blockquote>
ftp://puccini.ujf-grenoble.fr/pub/contrib-ps/DOS-PSV/
</blockquote>
</dl>
<h4><a name="Previewer_Linux"></a>A previewer for Linux</h4>
<dl>
<dt><b><tt>BMV</tt></b> <dd>Jan Kybic has created a Ghostscript-based
bitmap previewing program for Linux called <b><tt>BMV</tt></b>, which
doesn't use X Windows but is based on <b><tt>svgalib</tt></b>. He says
there is a port of <b><tt>BMV</tt></b> for SCO Unix by William Bader.
<b><tt>BMV</tt></b> is available from
<blockquote>
<a
href="ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/graphics/viewers/svga/bmv-1.2.tgz"
class="offsite">ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/graphics/viewers/svga/bmv-1.2.tgz</a>
</blockquote>
</dl>
<hr>
<h3><a name="Fonts"></a>Fonts</h3>
<p>
The <a href="Fonts.htm">fonts available for Ghostscript</a>, and how to use
and add fonts in general, are extensively documented. See
<a href="Fonts.htm">that documentation</a> for (almost) all information
about fonts. Nelson Beebe maintains a useful set of information about
PostScript Type 1 fonts, including sources for freely distributable and
commercially licensed fonts and an extensive list of Unix systems and the
fonts available for them:
<blockquote>
<a
href="http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/fonts/postscript-type-1-fonts.html"
class="offsite">http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/fonts/postscript-type-1-fonts.html</a>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<h3><a name="Related_programs"></a>Related programs</h3>
<dl>
<dt><b><tt>genscript</tt></b>
<dd><b><tt>genscript</tt></b> is a free replacement for the
<b><tt>enscript</tt></b> program. <b><tt>genscript</tt></b> converts plain
text files to PostScript and sends the generated PostScript output to the
specified printer or to a file. <b><tt>genscript</tt></b> can be easily
extended to handle different output media, and it has many options which can
be used to customize printouts, including 2-up printing, pagination, complex
headers, and many more. You can find the current version at
<blockquote>
<a href="http://www.iki.fi/~mtr/genscript/"
class="offsite">http://www.iki.fi/~mtr/genscript/</a> (home page)<br>
<a href="ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/"
class="offsite">ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/enscript/</a>enscript-*.tar.gz
</blockquote>
<dt><b><tt>pdf2html</tt></b>
<dd><b><tt>pdf2html</tt></b> is a free utility that converts PDF to PNG
images wrapped in HTML files. It doesn't preserve the text of the PDF, only
the appearance. You can find the current version at
<blockquote>
<a href="ftp://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/pub/local/clock/pdf2html"
class="offsite">
ftp://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/pub/local/clock/pdf2html</a>
</blockquote>
<dt><b><tt>pstotext</tt></b>
<dd>A good free utility <b><tt>pstotext</tt></b> uses Ghostscript to extract
plain text from PostScript files. It is much better than the
<b><tt>ps2ascii</tt></b> utility distributed with Ghostscript. You can read
the <b><tt>pstotext</tt></b> documentation at
<blockquote>
<a
href="http://www.research.digital.com/SRC/virtualpaper/manpages/pstotext.1.html"
class="offsite">http://www.research.digital.com/SRC/virtualpaper/manpages/pstotext.1.html</a>
</blockquote>
<p>
and download the <b><tt>pstotext</tt></b> kit from
<blockquote>
<a href="http://www.research.digital.com/SRC/virtualpaper/pstotext.html"
class="offsite">http://www.research.digital.com/SRC/virtualpaper/pstotext.html</a>
</blockquote>
<p>
<b><tt>pstotext</tt></b> is unsupported, but the authors,
Paul McJones
<<a href="mailto:paul.mcjones@acm.org">paul.mcjones@acm.org</a>>
and Andrew Birrell
<<a href="mailto:birrell@pa.dec.com">birrell@pa.dec.com</a>>, are
happy to have your questions and comments either by e-mail or <a href="http://www.research.digital.com/SRC/virtualpaper/comments.html"
class="offsite">here</a>
<p>
For more information about the authors' Virtual Paper project, which
attempts to make on-line reading of lengthy material (like research
reports, manuals, or entire books) comfortable, read:
<blockquote>
<a href="http://www.research.digital.com/SRC/virtualpaper"
class="offsite">http://www.research.digital.com/SRC/virtualpaper</a>
</blockquote>
<dt><b><tt>PreScript</tt></b>
<dd>This is another good free utility that uses Ghostscript to extract text
from PostScript or PDF files. It can also generate very simple HTML,
keeping some of the formatting. It is unsupported, but is the product of an
active research project. Its home page is:
<blockquote>
<a href="http://www.nzdl.org/html/prescript.html"
class="offsite">http://www.nzdl.org/html/prescript.html</a>
</blockquote>
</dl>
<hr>
<h2><a name="Need_help"></a>If you need help</h2>
<p>
The list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) isn't updated very often, so
it may be somewhat out of date. It's available from
<blockquote>
<a href="http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/doc/faq.htm"
class="offsite">http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/doc/faq.htm</a><br>
<a href="ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/ghost/faq.htm"
class="offsite">ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/ghost/faq.htm</a>
</blockquote>
<p>
or by AFS from
<blockquote>
/afs/cs.wisc.edu/p/mirror/pub/mirrors/ghost/faq.htm
</blockquote>
<p>
CompuServe announced in December 1995 that the Graphics Support Forum offers
Message Section and Library 21, "Ghostscript", for technical assistance with
Ghostscript. Ghostscript is available for downloading in Library 21,
"Ghostscript." To access the Graphics Support Forum, <b><tt>GO
GRAPHSUP</tt></b>. This service has no connection with the main Ghostscript
developers.
<p>
artofcode LLC doesn't respond to questions from users of the freely
available versions of Ghostscript. (Responding to questions and problem
reports is one of the benefits that <a href="#Commercial_use">Artifex
Software</a> provides to commercial users in exchange for the licensing
fee.) If you have problems with Ghostscript and you have access to the
Internet, we suggest to post your question to one of these Usenet
newsgroups:
<dl>
<dt><b><tt><a href="news:gnu.ghostscript.bug">gnu.ghostscript.bug</a></tt></b>
<dd>if your question is about <b>GNU Ghostscript</b> (currently versions
5.10 and below). If you have access to Internet mail, but not Usenet news,
write to <b><tt>bug-ghostscript@gnu.org</tt></b>, which is equivalent to
posting to that newsgroup.
<dt><b><tt><a href="news:comp.lang.postscript">comp.lang.postscript</a></tt></b>
<dd>if your question is about <b>AFPL Ghostscript</b> (currently
versions 5.50 and above). If you have access to Internet mail, but not Usenet
news, write to <b><tt>comp.lang.postscript@aladdin.com</tt></b>, which is
equivalent to posting to that newsgroup. We hope to establish a separate
newsgroup for AFPL Ghostscript in the future, since
<b><tt>comp.lang.postscript</tt></b> was not intended for Ghostscript
discussion <em>per se</em>.
</dl>
<p>
There are hundreds of Ghostscript user sites all over the world, and another
user will often be able to help you. If you have trouble with a specific
device driver, look at <b><tt>devs.mak</tt></b> and
<b><tt>contrib.mak</tt></b> in the Ghostscript source directory to see in
which file the driver is defined. If it's defined in
<b><tt>contrib.mak</tt></b>, the list of contributed drivers, please contact
the author directly: the maintainers of Ghostscript can't help you with
user-maintained drivers.
<h3><a name="Reporting_problems"></a>Reporting problems</h3>
<p>
Please read <a href="Bug-info.htm">Bug-info.htm</a> for information about
reporting problems.
<hr>
<h2><a name="Contacting_us"></a>Contacting Ghostscript headquarters</h2>
<p>
As of mid-September 2000, artofcode LLC is responsible for the future
development of Ghostscript. Please do not contact us if all you want is
help with the freely distributed versions of Ghostscript! Ghostscript is
free, but our time is not. If you call for help, we will tell you politely
that we cannot answer your question. Ghostscript's documentation, while not
of commercial end-user quality, has been adequate for thousands of users
(for many of whom English is a foreign language), so the answer to your
question is very likely in it somewhere.
<p>
Here is our contact information:
<blockquote><address>
Raph Levien<br>
artofcode LLC<br>
940 Tyler St. Studio 6<br>
Benicia, CA 94510<br>
tel/fax +1 707 746 6398<br>
<a href="mailto:raph@artofcode.com">raph@artofcode.com</a>
</address></blockquote>
<h3>Aladdin Enterprises</h3>
<p>
We at Aladdin Enterprises, the original authors of Ghostscript, are no
longer responsible for Ghostscript, but we may be available for small
contract projects. Here is our contact information:
<blockquote><address>
Aladdin Enterprises<br>
203 Santa Margarita Avenue<br>
Menlo Park, CA 94025 U.S.A.<br>
+1-650-322-1734 fax<br>
<a href="mailto:ghost@aladdin.com">ghost@aladdin.com</a><br>
<a href="http://www.ghostscript.com/"
class="offsite">http://www.ghostscript.com/</a>
</address></blockquote>
<p>
If you want help with Ghostscript, or want to report a problem, please do
not contact us. We will not be able to help you.
<hr>
<h2><a name="How_to_help"></a>How you can help improve Ghostscript</h2>
<p>
The most valuable thing you can do to help improve Ghostscript is to help
test it. We make three different grades of release available, each of
which needs a different kind of testing.
<ul>
<li><em>Stable</em> releases are made available about every 9 months, after
a beta test period. Reporting problems as described <a
href="#Reporting_problems">above</a> often results in a fix being posted on
our Web site.
</ul>
<ul>
<li><em>Beta</em> releases are posted starting about 6 weeks before a
planned public release. These are candidates for public release, and need
intensive testing.
</ul>
<ul>
<li><em>Development</em> releases are posted every few weeks. These are not
supposed to be good enough for general use, but testing them is still very
helpful, since it gets problems corrected before the intensive beta test
period.
</ul>
<p>
You can always find the current public release and the current beta or
tester release on our <a href="http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/">Web
site</a>. If you would like to be notified when new beta or tester releases
are posted, please <a href="#Contacting_us">contact us</a>.
<p>
There are also some useful projects that we don't have enough resources to
work on, and with which we would appreciate help. See <a
href="Projects.htm">this list</a> for details.
<hr>
<h2><a name="Acknowledgments"></a>Acknowledgements</h2>
<p>
Ghostscript was originally created, and through the year 2000 was primarily
developed and maintained, by L. Peter Deutsch, President of Aladdin
Enterprises (not to be confused with Peter J. Deutsch, founder of Bunyip
Information Systems Inc.).
<p>
Special thanks are due to Russell Lang, for the
<b><tt>GSview for Windows</tt></b> and
<b><tt>PM GSview</tt></b> programs, and for contributing most of the code for
the Microsoft Windows and OS/2 environments; to Tim Theisen, for the
<b><tt>Ghostview</tt></b> program for X Windows and for major contributions
to, and assistance with support of, the code for the X Windows
environment; to Martin Fong and Mark Lentczner, for the first Macintosh
ports; to Pete Kaiser
<<a href="mailto:kaiser@acm.org">kaiser@acm.org</a>>, for redoing all
of the documentation in HTML;
and to the <a href="http://www.ijg.org/">Independent
JPEG Group</a>, to Group 42, Inc., and to Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler,
for creating the freely available libraries that Ghostscript uses.
<p>
Special thanks are due to URW++ Design and Development Incorporated, of
Hamburg, Germany (<a href="http://www.urwpp.de/">http://www.urwpp.de/</a>)
for making a commercial-quality set of the 35 standard PostScript Type 1
fonts available for free distribution under the GNU and Aladdin licenses,
and for updating them to include Adobe's expanded PostScript 3 character
set.
<p>
Special thanks are due to Richard Stallman and the
<a href="http://www.gnu.org/" class="offsite">Free Software
Foundation</a> for originating
the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html" class="offsite">GNU
General Public
License</a>, for originally motivating Aladdin's interest in creating free
software, and for being the primary distributor of GNU Ghostscript on the
Internet.
<p>
See also the <a href="Helpers.htm">list of the many other people</a> who have
contributed significantly to improving Ghostscript.
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<hr>
<p>
<small>Copyright © 1996, 2000 Aladdin Enterprises. All rights
reserved.</small>
<p>
<small>This file is part of AFPL Ghostscript. See the
<a href="Public.htm">Aladdin Free Public License</a> (the "License") for
full details of the terms of using, copying, modifying, and redistributing
AFPL Ghostscript.</small>
<p>
<small>Ghostscript version 7.02, 22 September 2001
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