Ghostscript

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Ghostscript is a suite of software based on an interpreter of the Adobe PostScript and Portable Document Format (PDF) page description languages.

1 Features
2 Variants of Ghostscript
3 Software based on Ghostscript
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Features

Ghostscript is highly configurable and can be used as a:

Raster image processor (RIP) for raster printers, for instance, as an input filter of line printer daemon (lpd).
RIP engine behind PostScript and PDF viewers.
File format converter, such as PostScript to PDF converter; this is often combined with a PostScript printer driver in "virtual printer" PDF creators.
General purpose programming environment.

Ghostscript has been ported to many operating systems, including most Unix and Unix-like systems (including GNU/Linux), Mac OS X, OpenVMS, Windows, OS/2, and Mac OS classic.

Several graphical user interfaces (GUIs) have been written for use with Ghostscript which permit a user to view a PostScript or PDF file on screen, scroll, page forward and backward, and zoom the text as well as print single or multiple pages.

Ghostview runs under Unix/X11. Ghostview has a very interesting and unusual user interface: clicking and dragging the mouse on the image moves the image in the opposite direction to the mouse (that is, the mouse moves the viewport over the image, rather than move the image underneath the viewport). The effect is similar to having invisible scroll bars all over the image and is approximately the opposite of the well-known Google Maps interface.
gv runs under Unix/X11. gv is a visually improved version of Ghostview. Its behaviour is similar to Ghostview. It is the most popular^{[citation needed]} viewer on Unix-like operating systems.
mgv runs under Unix/X11. It is an OSF/Motif based front-end to Ghostscript. It features a more conventional user interface, with regular menus, a toolbar, and scrollbars.
GSView runs under Windows, OS/2, and UNIX-like operating systems. It is best known for its Windows and OS/2 versions. On UNIX it uses the GTK+ toolkit.

Ghostscript was originally written by L. Peter Deutsch for the GNU project, and released under the GNU General Public License; later, Deutsch formed Aladdin Enterprises to license Ghostscript under a proprietary licence. It is currently owned by artofcode LLC, led by Raph Levien, and maintained by the user community and Artifex Software, the exclusive licensing agent for Ghostscript technology.

[edit] Variants of Ghostscript

AFPL Ghostscript and GPL Ghostscript are the two canonical versions available at no cost, which differ primarily in their license. AFPL Ghostscript (formerly named Aladdin Ghostscript) is available under the Aladdin Free Public License, which restricts commercial use. GPL Ghostscript (formerly named GNU Ghostscript) is available under the GNU General Public License (GPL), which is a free software licence. Since July 2006, the two have been based on the same code [1]. Prior to that, new versions were released initially under the AFPL, with the GPL version following a year later.
GNU Ghostscript is part of the GNU project and is based on GPL Ghostscript.
ESP Ghostscript is distributed by Easy Software Products under the GPL. It is based on GPL Ghostscript and contains several modifications to improve compatibility with ESP's Common Unix Printing System.
Ghostscript is the current commercial proprietary version licensed by Artifex Software for inclusion in proprietary/closed-source products.