gs262/README

This file is part of Ghostscript.

Ghostscript is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY. No author or distributor accepts responsibility to anyone for the consequences of using it or for whether it serves any particular purpose or works at all, unless he says so in writing. Refer to the Ghostscript General Public License for full details.
Everyone is granted permission to copy, modify and redistribute Ghostscript, but only under the conditions described in the Ghostscript General Public License. A copy of this license is supposed to have been given to you along with Ghostscript so you can know your rights and responsibilities. It should be in a file named COPYING. Among other things, the copyright notice and this notice must be preserved on all copies.


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* This file describes version 2.6.1 of Ghostscript. *
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******** An overview of Ghostscript ********
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Ghostscript is the name of a set of software that provides:

- A set of C procedures (the Ghostscript library) that

implement the graphics capabilities that appear as primitive operations in the PostScript language.

The primary contact for Ghostscript is:

ghost@aladdin.com

L. Peter Deutsch, president of Aladdin Enterprises, was the original creator, and is the primary developer and maintainer, of Ghostscript.
Aladdin Enterprises owns the copyright in Ghostscript; Ghostscript is distributed with the GNU General Public License, and is also available for commercial licensing.

The Ghostscript language interpreter and library are written entirely in C, with some assembly-language accelerators for MS-DOS platforms. Currently, Ghostscript is known to run on the following platform families:

- IBM PC and compatibles with EGA, VGA, SuperVGA, or compatible graphics under MS-DOS 3.1, 3.3, or 5.0, with or without Microsoft Windows 3.0 or 3.1; - IBM PC and compatibles under OS/2 2.0 and 2.1; - A wide variety of Unix systems using X Windows version 11, release 3, 4, and 5, including Sun-3, Sun-4, Sun-386i, Sun SPARCStation 1 and 2; generic 80386 machines running 386/ix, ISC Unix, and SCO Unix; H-P 9000/300 and 9000/800; DECStation 2100 and 3100; VAX running Ultrix; Sequent Symmetry; Convex C1 and C2; Tektronix 4300; SGI Iris Indigo; - Sun workstations (Sun-3, SPARC, Sun-386i) running SunView; - VAX, VMS with X11R3/4/5 and gcc. (Ghostscript currently is not compatible with the DEC C compilers, because they interpret the ANSI C standard in a way different from all other known compilers.)

It is very likely that Ghostscript will run under other versions of MS-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: text and graphics output interfere with each other.

Other platforms

Ghostscript has also been ported a number of platforms by users, who are willing to be contacted regarding problems on those specific platforms:

	- For information on a port to the Apple Macintosh, contact
	Martin Fong (mwfong@nisc.sri.com).  (Aladdin Enterprises will be
	offering a Macintosh port in early 1993.)

	- For information on a port to the Acorn Archimedes, contact
	David Elworthy (David.Elworthy@cl.cam.ac.uk).

	- For information on two different ports to Win-OS/2, contact
	Gershon Elber (gershon@gr.cs.utah.edu) and/or Jim Yang
	(jyang@daedalus.caltech.edu).

	- For information on a port to the Atari ST, contact Tim
	Gallivan (timg@landau.ph.utexas.edu).

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******** Related work
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There are two freely available X Windows screen previewers based on Ghostscript: Ghostview and GSPreview. For information on Ghostview, contact Tim Theisen (ghostview@cs.wisc.edu). For information on GSPreview, contact Richard Hesketh (rlh2@ukc.ac.uk).

There is a freely available MS Windows screen previewer based on Ghostscript, called Ghostview for Windows. For information on Ghostview for Windows, contact Russell Lang (rjl@monu1.cc.monash.edu.au).

A set of patches and additions for Kanji capability for Ghostscript version 2.4.1 is available for anonymous FTP from ftp.cs.titech.ac.jp:GNU/gs241j11.tar.Z. For more information, contact Mr. Norio Katayama (katayama@nacsis.ac.jp).

Thomas Wolff (wolff@inf.fu-berlin.de) is working on extending the Hershey fonts to include international characters.

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******** Documentation overview ********
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All the file names mentioned in the documentation, except for README, are in lower case, which is the usual convention for Unix systems. On MS-DOS systems, all file names are actually upper-case.

When you receive Ghostscript, you should start by reading:

> README - this file.

> readme.doc - information about problems and major changes new features in the current release.

If you have used a previous release of Ghostscript, you probably should also read any more recent sections of:

> NEWS - a complete, detailed history of changes in the most recent Ghostscript releases.

Especially for new users

If you are a new user of Ghostscript, you should read:

> use.doc - information about to install and use Ghostscript. This information is also contained in gs.1 - a `man' page for Ghostscript.

> devices.doc - more detailed information about specific devices that Ghostscript knows about.

>> ps2epsi.doc, unix-lpr.doc - more detailed information about some of the shell scripts and batch files distributed with Ghostscript.

If you are going to compile Ghostscript, rather than just use an executable you got from somewhere, you should read:

<>> make.doc - how to install, compile and link Ghostscript.

If you run into any questions, or if you are going to be using Ghostscript extensively, you should at least skim, and probably eventually read:

> fonts.doc - information about the fonts distributed with Ghostscript, including how to add or replace fonts.

> language.doc - A description of the Ghostscript language, and its differences from the documented PostScript language.

> psfiles.doc - information about the .ps files distributed with Ghostscript (other than fonts).

Especially for developers

If you are going to be writing a new driver for Ghostscript, you should read:

> drivers.doc - the interface between Ghostscript and device drivers.

> xfonts.doc - the interface between Ghostscript and platform-supplied fonts. (Read drivers.doc first.)

If you are considering distributing Ghostscript in conjunction with a commercial product, you should read the COPYING license carefully, and you should also read:

> commprod.doc - additional clarification of the circumstances under which Ghostscript can be distributed with a commercial product.

Other files

> ps2epsi.doc - documentation for the PostScript to EPSI conversion utility.

> helpers.doc - a note of thanks to all the people who have helped with Ghostscript development.

> hershey.doc - information about the Hershey fonts, which are the basis of some f the Ghostscript fonts.

> history.doc - a history of changes in older Ghostscript release.

> humor.doc - a humorous comment on Ghostscript contributed by a user.

> lib.doc - information about the Ghostscript library.

> unix-lpr.doc - information about how to integrate Ghostscript with Unix printer spooling.

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******** Trouble reporting ********
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Aladdin Enterprises doesn't have the resources to respond to questions from general users of Ghostscript. If you have problems with Ghostscript, and you have access to Usenet news, we suggest you post your question to gnu.ghostscript.bug. There are hundreds of Ghostscript user sites all over the world, and often another user will be able to help you. (If you have access to Internet mail, but not news, send e-mail to bug-ghostscript@prep.ai.mit.edu.) If you are having trouble with a specific device driver, look in the file devs.mak and see if it is a user-maintained driver. If so, please contact the person listed there directly; please do not contact Aladdin Enterprises regarding user-maintained drivers.

Aladdin Enterprises does want Ghostscript to be of high quality, so if you have been running Ghostscript and encounter a problem, we will consider investigating it if you meet all the following criteria:

- You obtained Ghostscript directly from Aladdin Enterprises, or from a GNU distribution site on the Internet (i.e., not from a bulletin board system or a commercial system such as CompuServe or GEnie).

- You have installed Ghostscript successfully, and used it successfully on other input data.

- Your problem is reproducible, and you can send us the input data that evokes it (by e-mail, anonymous FTP, or PC diskette). (But please do not send anything unless we ask you for it.)

- Your bug report tells us what hardware, operating system, window system, and C compiler you are using.

Bug reports that include suggested fixes are especially welcome.

As time permits, Aladdin Enterprises will also respond to e-mail from the following classes of users:

- People developing drivers that are for, or applications that are based on, Ghostscript and that will be made freely available.

- People who express serious interest in commercial licensing of Ghostscript.

- Commercial licensees.

Given the choice between the Internet and the UUCP address, remember that the Internet is not to be used for general commercial traffic: if you aren't sure whether you or your organization can use the Internet, use UUCP.

Aladdin Enterprises owns or has access to the following hardware and software:

	80486 PC, MS-DOS 5.0, Microsoft Windows 3.1;
	  Borland C++ 3.1 (and several older versions);
	  color SuperVGA display; Epson-compatible printer
	  (the printer also is compatible with the IBM Proprinter);
	  various H-P printers; Canon BubbleJet.

	SPARCstation, SunOS 4.1, cc and gcc, X11R5 and SunView;
	  both monochrome and color displays.

	DECstation, Ultrix.

If your problem turns out to be specific to some other hardware or software configuration, it may take longer to track down, since we will have to rely on other users to help.

If you call on the phone, you will usually be talking to an answering machine. In this case, please leave a message with your name and phone number and the best time for us to return the call.

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******** Things you can do to help ********
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There are some projects that users could do that are somewhat decoupled from the main body of the code, and that would help improve Ghostscript:

- Since Aladdin Enterprises doesn't have ready access to Unix systems, someone else is needed to take responsibility for texinfo and/or man page documentation for Ghostscript. What this would involve is updating this documentation during the beta test period for each release, and sending it to Aladdin to be included in the final fileset. (Aladdin would continue to supply the plain-text documentation as it currently exists.)

- Ghostscript needs some good, free, Type 1 (outline) fonts. Karl Berry is working on this, but it might go faster if he got some knowledgeable assistance. Contact karl@cs.umb.edu if you want to help with this.

- Adobe has donated the specification of the Display PostScript C API to the X distribution. Implementing this API for Ghostscript might make Ghostscript a lot more useful, since it would then be "plug compatible" with Display PostScript in an important way. Contact karl@cs.umb.edu if you would like to help with this.

- On gray-scale displays, it might be worthwhile implementing anti-aliased fonts. To do this, one would modify the renderer so that it cached a high-resolution bitmap, and then did the anti-aliasing as it copied the bitmap to the device. This would allow simulating fractional-pixel positioning, which is one of the great benefits of anti-aliased fonts. Contact ghost@aladdin.com if this is of interest to you.

- Ghostscript currently runs on Microsoft Windows 3.0 and 3.1 on top of MS-DOS, but does not yet run on Windows NT. If you are interested in helping port Ghostscript to run on Windows NT (presumably by getting it to run using Win32/Win32s), please contact ghost@aladdin.com.

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******** Authors ********
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Ghostscript was originally created, and is primarily developed and maintained, by L. Peter Deutsch, President of Aladdin Enterprises.

Special thanks are due to Russell Lang, for the gsview (Ghostview for Microsoft Windows) program and for contributing most of the code for the Microsoft Windows environment, and to Tim Theisen, for the Ghostview program for X Windows and for major contributions to the code for the X Windows environment.

The file helpers.doc contains a list of all the many other people who have contributed significantly to improving Ghostscript.

PostScript is a trademark of Adobe Systems, Incorporated.