Ghostscript is a suite of software based on an interpreter for

Adobe Systems Adobe Inc. ( ), originally called Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American multinational computer software company incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in San Jose, California. It has historically specialized in software for the crea ...

PostScript PostScript (PS) is a page description language in the electronic publishing and desktop publishing realm. It is a dynamically typed, concatenative programming language. It was created at Adobe Systems by John Warnock, Charles Geschke, Doug Br ...

and

Portable Document Format Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

(PDF)

page description language In digital printing, a page description language (PDL) is a computer language that describes the appearance of a printed page in a higher level than an actual output bitmap (or generally raster graphics). An overlapping term is printer control la ...

s. Its main purposes are the

rasterization In computer graphics, rasterisation (British English) or rasterization (American English) is the task of taking an image described in a vector graphics format (shapes) and converting it into a raster image (a series of pixels, dots or lines, whi ...

or rendering of such page description language files, for the display or printing of document pages, and the conversion between PostScript and PDF files.

Features

Ghostscript can be used as a

raster image processor A raster image processor (RIP) is a component used in a printing system which produces a raster image also known as a bitmap. Such a bitmap is used by a later stage of the printing system to produce the printed output. The input may be a page de ...

(RIP) for raster computer printers—for instance, as an input filter of

line printer daemon The Line Printer Daemon protocol/Line Printer Remote protocol (or LPD, LPR) is a network printing protocol for submitting print jobs to a remote printer. The original implementation of LPD was in the Berkeley printing system in the BSD UNIX oper ...

—or as the RIP engine behind PostScript and PDF viewers. It can also be used as a file format converter, such as PostScript to PDF converter. The ps2pdf conversion program comes with the Ghostscript distribution. Ghostscript can also serve as the back-end for PDF to

raster image upright=1, The Smiley, smiley face in the top left corner is a raster image. When enlarged, individual pixels appear as squares. Enlarging further, each pixel can be analyzed, with their colors constructed through combination of the values for ...

(png, tiff, jpeg, etc.) converter; this is often combined with a PostScript printer driver in "

virtual printer In computing a virtual printer is a simulated device whose user interface and API resemble that of a printer driver, but which is not connected with a physical computer printer. When a document is "printed" by a virtual printer, instead of phys ...

" PDF creators. As it takes the form of a language interpreter, Ghostscript can also be used as a general purpose programming environment. Ghostscript has been

ported In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally desi ...

to many operating systems, including

Unix-like A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X or *nix) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-li ...

systems, classic Mac OS, OpenVMS,

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

, Plan 9,

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

FreeDOS FreeDOS (formerly Free-DOS and PD-DOS) is a free software operating system for IBM PC compatible computers. It intends to provide a complete MS-DOS-compatible environment for running legacy software and supporting embedded systems. FreeDOS can ...

OS/2 OS/2 (Operating System/2) is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci. As a result of a feud between the two companies over how to position OS/2 ...

, ArcaOS,

Atari TOS TOS (The Operating System) is the operating system of the Atari ST range of computers. This range includes the 520ST and 1040ST, their STF/M/FM and STE variants and the Mega ST/STE. Later, 32-bit machines ( TT, Falcon030) were developed using a ...

RISC OS RISC OS is a computer operating system originally designed by Acorn Computers Ltd in Cambridge, England. First released in 1987, it was designed to run on the ARM chipset, which Acorn had designed concurrently for use in its new line of Archi ...

and

AmigaOS AmigaOS is a family of proprietary native operating systems of the Amiga and AmigaOne personal computers. It was developed first by Commodore International and introduced with the launch of the first Amiga, the Amiga 1000, in 1985. Early versions ...

History

Ghostscript was originally written by

L. Peter Deutsch L Peter Deutsch (born Laurence Peter Deutsch on August 7, 1946, in Boston, Massachusetts) is the founder of Aladdin Enterprises and creator of Ghostscript, a free software PostScript and Portable Document Format, PDF interpreter. Deutsch's othe ...

for the

GNU Project The GNU Project () is a free software, mass collaboration project announced by Richard Stallman on September 27, 1983. Its goal is to give computer users freedom and control in their use of their computers and computing devices by collaborat ...

, and released under the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the Four Freedoms (Free software), four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was th ...

in 1988. At the time of the initial release there was a similar commercial software product named GoScript from LaserGo. Later, Deutsch formed ''Aladdin Enterprises'' to

dual-license Multi-licensing is the practice of distributing software under two or more different sets of terms and conditions. This may mean multiple different software licenses or sets of licenses. Prefixes may be used to indicate the number of licenses ...

Ghostscript also under a

proprietary license Proprietary software is software that is deemed within the free and open-source software to be non-free because its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner exercises a legal monopoly afforded by modern copyright and inte ...

with an own development

fork In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from la, furca 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tine (structural), tines with which one ...

: ''Aladdin Ghostscript'' under the

Aladdin Free Public License The Aladdin Free Public License, abbreviated AFPL, is a license written by L. Peter Deutsch for his Ghostscript PostScript language interpreter. History The license was derived from the GNU General Public License, but differs on two key points ...

(which, despite the name, is not a free software license, as it forbids commercial distribution) and ''GNU Ghostscript'' distributed with the ''GNU General Public License''. With version 8.54 in 2006, both development branches were merged again, and dual-licensed releases were still provided.''"I have some great news to report. The leading edge of Ghostscript development is now under GPL license, as is the latest release, Ghostscript 8.54."'' Ghostscript is currently owned by Artifex Software and maintained by Artifex Software employees and the worldwide user community. According to Artifex, as of version 9.03, the commercial version of Ghostscript can no longer be freely distributed for commercial purposes without purchasing a license, though the (A)GPL variant allows commercial distribution provided all code using it is released under the (A)GPL. In February 2013, with version 9.07, Ghostscript changed its license from GPLv3 to

GNU AGPL The GNU Affero General Public License (GNU AGPL) is a free, copyleft license published by the Free Software Foundation in November 2007, and based on the GNU General Public License, version 3 and the Affero General Public License. The Free S ...

. which raised

license compatibility License compatibility is a legal framework that allows for pieces of software with different software licenses to be distributed together. The need for such a framework arises because the different licenses can contain contradictory requirement ...

questions, for example by Debian. Starting with release 9.55.0 Ghostscript has two build-in PDF interpreters. Until spring 2022, up to Ghostscript version 9.56.1, the default PDF interpreters implementation itself was coded in PostScript. The new default PDF interpreter has been rewritten in C entirely, and is faster and more secure than its predecessor, while its interface and graphics library have not changed. Scripting the new C written PDF interpreter from PostScript is still possible.

Front ends

Ghostscript

graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

s (GUIs) view PostScript or PDF files on screens, scroll, page forward, page backward, zoom text, and print pages. Such GUIs include

Evince Evince (), also known as GNOME Document Viewer, is a free and open source document viewer supporting many document file formats including PDF, PostScript, DjVu, TIFF, XPS and DVI. It is designed for the GNOME desktop environment. The develo ...

IrfanView IrfanView () is an image viewer, editor, organiser and converter program for Microsoft Windows. It can also play video and audio files, and has some image creation and painting capabilities. IrfanView is free for non-commercial use; commercial u ...

Inkscape Inkscape is a free and open-source vector graphics editor used to create vector images, primarily in Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format. Other formats can be imported and exported. Inkscape can render primitive vector shapes (e.g. rec ...

and

PDF24 Creator PDF24 Creator is an application software by Geek Software GmbH for the creation of PDF files from any application and for converting files to the PDF format. The application is released under a proprietary freeware license. The software has been ...

Virtual printer In computing a virtual printer is a simulated device whose user interface and API resemble that of a printer driver, but which is not connected with a physical computer printer. When a document is "printed" by a virtual printer, instead of phys ...

s can also create PDF files.

Free fonts

There are several sets of free fonts supplied for Ghostscript, intended to be metrically compatible with common fonts attached with the PostScript standard. These include: * Contributed by German foundry URW++ in 1996 under the

GPL The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general u ...

and

AFPL The Aladdin Free Public License, abbreviated AFPL, is a license written by L. Peter Deutsch for his Ghostscript PostScript language interpreter. History The license was derived from the GNU General Public License, but differs on two key points ...

, this collection includes 35 font styles from 10 typeface families and is therefore commonly called the URW Base 35 fonts or URW Core 35 fonts. The collection is similar to the 35 fonts defined by Adobe in PostScript Level 2: Bookman L ( Bookman), Century Schoolbook L (

New Century Schoolbook Century is a family of serif type faces particularly intended for body text. The family originates from a first design, Century Roman, cut by American Type Founders designer Linn Boyd Benton in 1894 for master printer Theodore Low De Vinne, for u ...

), Chancery L (

Zapf Chancery ITC Zapf Chancery is a family of script typefaces designed by the type designer Hermann Zapf and marketed by the International Typeface Corporation. It is one of the three typefaces designed by Zapf that are shipped with computers running Apple's ...

), Dingbats (

Zapf Dingbats ITC Zapf Dingbats is one of the more common dingbat typefaces. It was designed by the typographer Hermann Zapf in 1978 and licensed by International Typeface Corporation. History In 1977, Zapf created about 1000 (or over 1200 according to Lino ...

), Gothic L ( Avant Garde),

Nimbus Mono L Nimbus Mono is a monospaced typeface created by URW Studio in 1984, and eventually released under the GPL and AFPL (as Type 1 font for Ghostscript) in 1996 and LPPL in 2009. In 2017, the font, alongside other Core 35 fonts, has been additionall ...

(

Courier A courier is a person or organisation that delivers a message, package or letter from one place or person to another place or person. Typically, a courier provides their courier service on a commercial contract basis; however, some couriers are ...

Nimbus Roman No9 L Nimbus Roman is a serif typeface created by URW Studio in 1982. Nimbus Roman No. 9 L is a serif typeface created by URW Studio in 1987, and eventually released under the GPL and AFPL (as Type 1 font for Ghostscript) in 1996 and LPPL i ...

(

Times Time is the continued sequence of existence and events, and a fundamental quantity of measuring systems. Time or times may also refer to: Temporal measurement * Time in physics, defined by its measurement * Time standard, civil time speci ...

Nimbus Sans L Nimbus Sans is a sans-serif typeface created by URW++, based on Helvetica. Nimbus Sans It is a version using URW++ font source. The family supports Western Europe, East Europe, Turkish, Baltic, and Romanian languages. The font names ending with ...

(

Helvetica Helvetica (originally Neue Haas Grotesk) is a widely used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann. Helvetica is a neo-grotesque design, one influenced by the famous 19th century (1890s) ...

), Palladio L (

Palatino Palatino is the name of an old-style serif typeface designed by Hermann Zapf, initially released in 1949 by the Stempel foundry and later by other companies, most notably the Mergenthaler Linotype Company. Named after the 16th-century Italian ...

), Standard Symbols L (

Symbol A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise very different conc ...

), in Type1, TrueType, and OpenType formats. *The GhostPDL package (including Ghostscript as well as companion implementations of HP PCL and Microsoft XPS) includes additional fonts under the AFPL which bars commercial use. It includes URW++ versions of

Garamond Garamond is a group of many serif typefaces, named for sixteenth-century Parisian engraver Claude Garamond, generally spelled as Garamont in his lifetime. Garamond-style typefaces are popular and particularly often used for book printing and bo ...

(Garamond No. 8),

Optima Optima is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Hermann Zapf and released by the D. Stempel AG foundry, Frankfurt, West Germany in 1958. Though classified as a sans-serif, Optima has a subtle swelling at the terminals suggesting a glyphic s ...

(URW Classico),

Arial Arial (also called Arial MT) is a sans-serif typeface and set of computer fonts in the neo-grotesque style. Fonts from the Arial family are included with all versions of Microsoft Windows from Windows 3.1 on, some other Microsoft software ap ...

(A030),

Antique Olive Antique Olive is a humanist sans-serif typeface ("antique" being equivalent to sans-serif in French typographic conventions). Along the lines of Gill Sans, it was designed in the early 1960s by French typographer Roger Excoffon, an art director a ...

, and

Univers Univers () is a large sans-serif typeface family designed by Adrian Frutiger and released by his employer Deberny & Peignot in 1957. Classified as a neo-grotesque sans-serif, one based on the model of nineteenth-century German typefaces such a ...

(U001), Clarendon,

Coronet A coronet is a small crown consisting of ornaments fixed on a metal ring. A coronet differs from other kinds of crowns in that a coronet never has arches, and from a tiara in that a coronet completely encircles the head, while a tiara doe ...

Letter Gothic Letter Gothic is a monospaced sans-serif typeface. It was created between 1956 and 1962 by Roger Roberson for IBM in their Lexington, Kentucky, plant, and was inspired by the original drawings for Optima. It was initially intended to be used in ...

, as well as URW Mauritius and a modified form of

Albertus Albertus Magnus (c. 1200 – 15 November 1280), also known as Saint Albert the Great or Albert of Cologne, was a German Dominican friar, philosopher, scientist, and bishop. Later canonised as a Catholic saint, he was known during his li ...

known as A028. Combined with the base set, they represent a little more than half of the standard PostScript 3 font complement. * A miscellaneous set including

Cyrillic , bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця , fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs , fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic , fam3 = Phoenician , fam4 = G ...

kana The term may refer to a number of syllabaries used to write Japanese phonological units, morae. Such syllabaries include (1) the original kana, or , which were Chinese characters (kanji) used phonetically to transcribe Japanese, the most p ...

, and fonts derived from the free Hershey fonts, with improvements by Thomas Wolff (such as adding accented characters). The Ghostscript fonts were developed in the PostScript Type 1 format but have been converted into the TrueType format. As a result, a user can install and use the Ghostscript fonts via most modern software. Furthermore, the Ghostscript fonts are used as parts of various open source applications, e.g., the Linux version of GIMP depends on

Graphviz Graphviz (short for ''Graph Visualization Software'') is a package of open-source tools initiated by AT&T Labs Research for drawing graphs specified in DOT language scripts having the file name extension "gv". It also provides libraries for ...

which in turn depends on the Ghostscript fonts. Finally, multiple open source font projects used glyphs from the Ghostscript fonts, e.g., the Latin characters of

GNU FreeFont GNU FreeFont (also known as Free UCS Outline Fonts) is a family of free OpenType, TrueType and WOFF vector fonts, implementing as much of the Universal Character Set (UCS) as possible, aside from the very large CJK Asian character set. The p ...

are based on

, and

. The TeX Gyre fonts are also based on 8 out of the 10 original Ghostscript typeface families. The Garamond font has additionally been improved upon.

References

External links