Ghostscript 10 07 0

Ghostscript 10.07.0

Overview

Ghostscript is an interpreter for the PostScript® language and PDF files, with additional interpreters for PCL, PXL, and XPS via the GhostPDL framework. Written in C, it provides a graphics library and page description language interpreters that render to dozens of output devices — raster image formats (PNG, JPEG, TIFF, PNM), vector formats (PDF, PostScript, EPS, XPS, DOCX), printer drivers, and display devices.

Key capabilities:

• Format conversion: PDF↔PostScript, PS→EPS, any PDL→raster images
• PDF optimization: compression, image downscaling, font subsetting, color space conversion
• Rasterization: render pages to PNG/JPEG/TIFF at arbitrary DPI with anti-aliasing
• Text extraction: txtwrite device outputs Unicode text from PDF/PS/PCL/XPS
• OCR: convert scanned images to searchable PDF via OCR devices (Tesseract integration)
• Color management: ICC-based workflow with output intents, proof profiles, spot color handling
• SDK/API: embeddable via gsapi C API with Python, C#, and Java bindings

Ghostscript is available under AGPL-3.0 or commercial license from Artifex Software. It runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, and various Unix platforms.

When to Use

• Converting PDF/PostScript/PCL/XPS files to raster images (PNG, JPEG, TIFF)
• Rasterizing individual pages at specific DPI for thumbnails or previews
• Compressing or optimizing PDF files (reducing image quality, downsampling, subsetting fonts)
• Extracting text from PDF/PostScript documents
• Converting between vector formats (PS→PDF, PDF→EPS, PDF→XPS, PDF→DOCX)
• Creating searchable PDFs from scanned images via OCR
• Integrating document processing into applications via the gsapi C API or language bindings
• Color-managed print workflows with ICC profiles and spot color separations
• Building print processors that handle multiple page description languages

Core Concepts

Interpreters

Ghostscript includes interpreters for multiple page description languages:

• PostScript: Level 1, 2, and 3 PostScript including EPS
• PDF: PDF 1.7 and PDF 2.0 via the GhostPDF interpreter (rewritten in C)
• PCL/PXL: PCL 5c/5e/XL via GhostPCL
• XPS: XML Paper Specification via GhostXPS

The GhostPDL framework unifies all interpreters under a single executable and shared graphics library.

Output Devices

Ghostscript renders through "output devices" selected with -sDEVICE=<name>:

• Raster devices: png16m, pnggray, jpeg, tiff24nc, tiffg4, pbmraw, etc.
• Vector (high-level) devices: pdfwrite, ps2write, eps2write, xpswrite, docxwrite
• Text extraction: txtwrite
• Display devices: display, x11alpha
• Printer drivers: various PCL, HP Deskjet, IJS-based drivers

Devices are selected at invocation time. The default device is usually a display device.

Rendering Model

Input is interpreted into low-level graphics primitives, which the selected device either renders to a bitmap (raster devices) or reassembles into high-level page description (vector devices). This means vector-to-vector conversion produces visually equivalent but structurally different output — annotations, bookmarks, and comments may not survive.

Security Mode

-dSAFER restricts file system access and is recommended for processing untrusted documents. Combined with -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE, it enables non-interactive batch processing.

Usage Examples

Convert PDF page to PNG at 300 DPI

gs -dSAFER -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=png16m -r300 \
   -dTextAlphaBits=4 -dGraphicsAlphaBits=4 \
   -sOutputFile=output.png input.pdf

Rasterize all pages to separate JPEG files

gs -dSAFER -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=jpeg -dJPEGQ=90 -r150 \
   -sOutputFile='page-%03d.jpg' document.pdf

Compress a PDF (reduce image quality and downsample)

gs -dSAFER -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=pdfwrite \
   -dPDFSETTINGS=/ebook \
   -sOutputFile=compressed.pdf original.pdf

PDF settings presets: /screen (72 dpi), /ebook (150 dpi), /printer (300 dpi), /prepress (300 dpi, higher quality).

Convert PostScript to PDF

ps2pdf input.ps
# or explicitly:
gs -dSAFER -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=pdfwrite \
   -sOutputFile=output.pdf input.ps

Extract text from a PDF

gs -dSAFER -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=txtwrite \
   -dTextFormat=3 \
   -sOutputFile=output.txt input.pdf

TextFormat values: 0 (XML-escaped Unicode with metadata), 1 (XML with block detection), 2 (UCS-2 layout approximation), 3 (UTF-8, default), 4 (internal format).

Render specific pages only

gs -dSAFER -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=png16m -r200 \
   -dFirstPage=5 -dLastPage=10 \
   -sOutputFile='page-%03d.png' document.pdf

Or with page list syntax:

gs -dSAFER -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=png16m -r200 \
   -sPageList=1,3,5-10,odd \
   -sOutputFile='page-%03d.png' document.pdf

Convert PDF to grayscale PNG

gs -dSAFER -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=pnggray -r150 \
   -dTextAlphaBits=4 -sOutputFile=figure.png figure.pdf

Quick shorthand with -o

The -o option implies -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE:

gs -sDEVICE=jpeg -o out-%d.jpg somefile.ps

Advanced Topics

Command Line Reference: Switches, parameters (-d, -s), environment variables, file searching → Command Line Reference

Output Devices: Raster devices (PNG/JPEG/TIFF/PNM), vector devices (pdfwrite/ps2write/eps2write), device options and resolution control → Output Devices

PDF-Specific Features: PDF switches, page box selection, password handling, annotations, distiller parameters, PDF compression → PDF Features

Building and Installing: ./configure workflow, platform-specific builds (Unix/Windows/macOS), shared library builds, source layout → Build and Install

API and Language Bindings: gsapi C API lifecycle, Python/C#/Java bindings, display device callbacks, embedding Ghostscript in applications → API and Bindings