Ghostscript

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Interpreter for the PostScript language

title: "Ghostscript" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["computer-related-introductions-in-1988", "cross-platform-software", "digital-press", "free-pdf-readers", "postscript", "software-using-the-gnu-affero-general-public-license"] description: "Interpreter for the PostScript language" topic_path: "general/computer-related-introductions-in-1988" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostscript" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Interpreter for the PostScript language ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox software"]

FieldValue
nameGhostscript
logoGhostscript.svg
authorL. Peter Deutsch
developerArtifex Software
released
latest release version
latest release date
latest preview date
programming languageC
operating systemCross-platform
genrePostScript and PDF interpreter
licenseDual-licensed (GNU Affero General Public License + commercial permissive exception)
website
::

| name = Ghostscript | logo = Ghostscript.svg | author = L. Peter Deutsch | developer = Artifex Software | released = | discontinued = | latest release version = | latest release date = | latest preview version = | latest preview date = | programming language = C | operating system = Cross-platform | genre = PostScript and PDF interpreter | license = Dual-licensed (GNU Affero General Public License + commercial permissive exception) | website = Ghostscript is a suite of software based on an interpreter for Adobe Systems' PostScript and Portable Document Format (PDF) page description languages. Its main purposes are the rasterization of documents in these language, the display or printing of document pages, and conversion between PostScript and PDF files.

Features

Ghostscript can be used as a raster image processor (RIP) for raster computer printers—for instance, as an input filter of line printer daemon—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 (png, tiff, jpeg, etc.) converter; this is often combined with a PostScript printer driver in "virtual printer" 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 to many operating systems, including Unix-like systems, classic Mac OS, OpenVMS, Microsoft Windows, Plan 9, MS-DOS, FreeDOS, OS/2, ArcaOS, Atari TOS, RISC OS and AmigaOS.

History

Ghostscript was originally written by L. Peter Deutsch for the GNU Project, and released under the GNU General Public License 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 Ghostscript also under a proprietary license with an own development fork: Aladdin Ghostscript under the Aladdin Free Public License (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.

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. which raised license compatibility questions, for example by Debian.

Starting with release 9.55.0 Ghostscript has two built-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.

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:

The Ghostscript fonts were developed in the PostScript Type 1 format but have been converted into the TrueType format. Finally, multiple open source font projects used glyphs from the Ghostscript fonts, e.g., the Latin characters of GNU FreeFont are based on Nimbus Mono L, Nimbus Roman No9 L, and Nimbus Sans L. 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

References

  1. (July 10, 2002). "Documentation".
  2. "History of Ghostscript versions 1.n".
  3. "Ghostscript and the PostScript language".
  4. Ingo, Henrik. (1 August 2006). "Open Life: The Philosophy of Open Source". Lulu.com.
  5. "ps2pdf: PostScript-to-PDF converter".
  6. "Creating a Free PDF Writer Using Ghostscript".
  7. (2002-11-21). "Recent changes in Ghostscript".
  8. Kraul, Chris. (1989-05-02). "Printing Up a Package for Success: LaserGo Software Offers Cheaper Desktop System". Los Angeles Times.
  9. "Aladdin Free Public License".
  10. "Background information for new users of Ghostscript".
  11. (29 June 2017). "Advogato: Blog for raph".
  12. raph. (2006-06-07). "Ghostscript leading edge is now GPL!".
  13. "Artifex Software Inc.".
  14. Robitaille, Jason. (2009-12-04). "Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Filed Against Palm".
  15. (2009-12-02). "Complaint for Copyright Infringement".
  16. (2011-02-07). "Notice of Voluntary Dismissal With Prejudice".
  17. Liddell, Chris. (2006-02-19). "[gs-devel] Ghostscript 9.07 and GhostPDL 9.07".
  18. "Licensing Information".
  19. Jose Luis Rivas. (2014-05-06). "Re: Ghostscript licensing changed to AGPL".
  20. "Ghostscript : PDFI - The NEW Ghostscript PDF Interpreter is now the default!".
  21. "Ghostscript and the PostScript Language - Scripting the PDF interpreter".
  22. "Debian package - gsfonts".
  23. "Fonts and font facilities supplied with Ghostscript".
  24. (2009-08-15). "Linux fonts (mostly X11)".
  25. "urw-base35-fonts".
  26. "Finally! Good-quality free (GPL) basic-35 PostScript Type 1 fonts.".
  27. "Finally! Good-quality free (GPL) basic-35 PostScript Type 1 fonts.".
  28. (2009-12-19). "Fonts and TeX".
  29. (2007). "Five years after: Report on international TEX font projects".
  30. "doc/pcl/urwfonts (URW fonts in TTF format)".
  31. "GhostPDL License".
  32. "Arch Linux - gimp".
  33. "Arch Linux - graphviz".
  34. "Gnu FreeFont: Design notes".
  35. "The TeX Gyre (TG) Collection of Fonts — GUST Web Presence".
  36. "URW Garamond ttf conversions".

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::

computer-related-introductions-in-1988cross-platform-softwaredigital-pressfree-pdf-readerspostscriptsoftware-using-the-gnu-affero-general-public-license