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- Copyright (C) 1990, 1995, 1996, 1997 Aladdin Enterprises. All rights reserved.
-
- This file is part of Aladdin Ghostscript.
-
- Aladdin Ghostscript is distributed with NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. No author
- or distributor accepts any responsibility for the consequences of using it,
- or for whether it serves any particular purpose or works at all, unless he
- or she says so in writing. Refer to the Aladdin Ghostscript Free Public
- License (the "License") for full details.
-
- Every copy of Aladdin Ghostscript must include a copy of the License,
- normally in a plain ASCII text file named PUBLIC. The License grants you
- the right to copy, modify and redistribute Aladdin Ghostscript, but only
- under certain conditions described in the License. Among other things, the
- License requires that the copyright notice and this notice be preserved on
- all copies.
-
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
-
- This file, current.txt, describes problems and new features in the current
- release of Ghostscript. This file describes version 5.03 of Ghostscript.
-
- For an overview of Ghostscript and a list of the documentation files, see
- README.
-
- New features (since release 4.03)
- ============
-
- (This is not a complete list of new features: see NEWS for details.)
-
- PDF 1.2 (the file format from Acrobat 3.0) is now supported, except for Type
- 0 (Japanese/Chinese/Korean) embedded fonts. NOTE: This requires an updated
- version of the decryption patch. See pdf_sec.ps for details.
-
- Local VM garbage collection (1 vmreclaim) is now implemented.
-
- CIDFonts and CMap-keyed composite fonts are now supported, except that
- rearranged fonts, and CMap-keyed composite fonts whose descendant fonts are
- themselves composite, are not implemented.
-
- PDF compressed fonts (CFF) are now supported, except that Multiple Master
- fonts and CID fonts are not yet implemented in this format.
-
- The FontResourceDir, GenericResourceDir, and GenericResourcePathSep system
- parameters, and ResourceFileName for the built-in resource categories, are
- now supported, for Adobe-compatible accessing of file-based resources.
-
- Building with GNU make on OpenVMS is now supported. (We will probably drop
- the DCL scripts in the next release.)
-
- Building with Microsoft Visual C++ (versions 4.n and 5.n), for 32-bit MS
- Windows environments, is now supported.
-
- If you include the optional epsf.dev feature at compile time, the
- interpreter will recognize and handle MS-DOS EPSF files with a binary header
- (by skipping the header and only processing the PostScript part).
-
- The fileset now contains (but doesn't normally use) gcc-compatible floating
- point emulation code, for use on systems that don't have floating point
- hardware.
-
- RAM- rather than file-based band lists, normally using deflate (zlib)
- compression, are now supported.
-
- The PDF writer now recognizes all Distiller 3.0 parameters, although most of
- them don't have any effect.
-
- The pstoppm.ps script has been removed, since the p*m drivers supersede it.
-
- New drivers:
- Displays:
- ali - SuperVGA displays using the Avance Logic chipset
- Printers:
- lp8000 - Epson LP-8000 laser printer
- pxlmono - Black-and-white PCL XL (LaserJet 5 & 6)
- pxlcolor - Color PCL XL (future color LaserJets)
- uniprint - A new driver for many color inkjets, see devices.txt
- Raster file formats:
- jpeg - JPEG (.jpg) files
- pcxcmyk - 4-bit PCX using CMYK color
- psgray - 8-bit gray PostScript (Level 1) bitmap images
- High-level file formats:
- epswrite - High-level EPS "distiller"
- pswrite - High-level PostScript "distiller"
-
- Changes
- =======
-
- There have been no significant user-visible changes.
-
- Known problems
- ==============
-
- (This is not a complete list of known problems: see NEWS for details.)
-
- Usage
- -----
-
- On a MS-DOS system, interrupting the interpreter by typing ^C doesn't
- restore the display mode.
-
- Limitations
- -----------
-
- serialnumber returns the same value in all copies.
-
- User names (a Display PostScript facility) are not implemented.
-
- Some floating point exceptions terminate the interpreter, rather than
- producing a limitcheck error.
-
- The DCTEncode filter disregards the Blend parameter, and uses different
- QuantTables and HuffTables from Adobe's.
-
- The DCT filters do not support nonintegral sample ratios. Also, DCTEncode
- will not create files with Sum(HS*VS)>10 (regardless of the value of the
- Relax parameter) because they violate the JPEG standard; but DCTDecode will
- read such files.
-
- The size of the execution stack cannot be changed dynamically. (However,
- the sizes of the operand and dictionary stacks can be changed.)
-
- Separation color spaces are implemented, but devices that actually produce
- color separations are not supported. The special color separations All and
- None, and the primary separations (Red, Green, etc.), are not supported.
-
- execform and ucache are implemented, but they do not actually do any
- caching; setucacheparams and ucachestatus are dummies. (This only impacts
- performance, not functionality.)
-
- The image operator only honors the Interpolate flag in the image dictionary
- if the combined transformation (ImageMatrix + CTM) doesn't involve rotation,
- skewing, or X-reflection; imagemask doesn't honor Interpolate at all.
-
- Some path building operations that would generate a device coordinate larger
- than +/-2^19 will cause a limitcheck. However, the common ones ([r]moveto,
- [r]lineto, [r]curveto, closepath) will not.
-
- Graphics bugs
- -------------
-
- Opening more than one window device at the same time doesn't work.
- This is the case for both X Windows and Microsoft Windows.
-
- cshow doesn't work with composite fonts.
-
- Non-graphics bugs
- -----------------
-
- The %statementedit pseudo-file is equivalent to %lineedit. As a
- consequence, the interactive interpreter requires that every statement fit
- on a line, i.e., you can't have an unpaired (, {, or <.
-
- The following operators that expect arrays won't accept packed arrays:
- definefont (Subrs (type 1 fonts))
-
- Syntax errors occurring within a binary token do not produce the error
- message specified by the Adobe documentation.
-
- save doesn't save, and restore doesn't restore, the user parameters.
-