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Copyright (C) 1990, 1995 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.doc, describes problems and new features in the current
release of Ghostscript. This file describes version 3.53 of Ghostscript.
For an overview of Ghostscript and a list of the documentation files, see
README.
New features (since release 3.33)
============
This is not a complete list of new features: see NEWS for details.
New switches:
-dFIXEDMEDIA freezes the initial size of the initial window or page;
attempts to change it with setpagedevice will be treated according
to the Policies entry for PageSize. -g (but not -sPAPERSIZE=)
implies -dFIXEDMEDIA.
-dFIXEDRESOLUTION freezes the initial resolution; attempts to change
it with setpagedevice will be ignored. -r implies
-dFIXEDRESOLUTION.
-dLOCALFONTS loads Type 1 fonts into the current VM, for
compatibility with Adobe printers.
-dNOFONTMAP suppresses loading the Fontmap, for environments that
rely entirely on FONTPATH and/or compiled-in fonts.
-dNOPROMPT suppresses the end-of-page prompts (but still waits for
the user to type a newline after each page).
-dSHORTERRORS makes error messages more Adobe-compatible.
-sFONTMAP=filename specifies the name of the Fontmap file.
-sSUBSTFONT=fontname substitutes the given font for all unknown fonts,
rather than using an intelligent substitution algorithm.
-P says look in `.' first for fonts and startup files.
-P- says *don't* look in `.' first for fonts and startup files.
-uname un-defines name (cancelling -d or -s).
New scripts and utilities:
pdf2ps input.pdf output.ps
Converts PDF to PostScript.
pdf2dsc.ps
Converts PDF to fake DSC-compliant PostScript code.
The MS Windows and OS/2 configurations now include the PDF interpreter.
The PDF interpreter now accepts PDF 1.1 files, except for those that use
encryption. PDF to PostScript conversion works properly. The Rotate key in
PDF files is implemented.
The library has a new API that allows feeding strings to the interpreter in
arbitrary chunks. See imain.h for details.
Anti-aliased characters are available under X Windows. Use the x11alpha
device instead of x11.
It is now possible to store band lists in RAM instead of on files. See the
definition of cl_impl in lib.mak.
An experimental RasterOp extension is implemented. See language.doc.
setpagedevice is (finally) mostly implemented.
Changes
=======
Usage
-----
The pgm[raw] and ppm[raw] drivers no longer switch automatically to a more
compact format for pages that don't need gray-scale or color. Use pgnm[raw]
and pnm[raw] instead.
Building
--------
For compiling-in the initialization files, define COMPILE_INITS=1 instead of
adding ccinit.dev to FEATURE_DEVS.
In devs.mak, printer devices must now include page.dev in their
dependencies, and must use $(SETPDEV) rather than $(SETDEV).
There is a new macro XEAUX that defines the executable extension for
auxiliary programs. All references to <some-program>$(XE) must be replaced
by $(<SOME-PROGRAM>_XE), where some-program={$(GS), ansi2knr, echogs,
genarch, genconf, geninit}.
The mergeini.ps program has been replaced by geninit.c.
Internal
--------
The library API for gs_image[mask]_init has changed significantly. See
gsimage.h for details.
The format of the gx_device structure has changed slightly. If you have
drivers that don't use the macros in gxdevice.h and gdevprn.h for defining
the prototype, or that reference the PageSize member of the structure, you
will need to edit them.
Known problems
==============
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, and do not allow
Sum(HS*VS)>10, regardless of the value of the Relax parameter.
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.
Any path building operation (moveto, lineto, curveto) that would generate a
device coordinate larger than +/-2^19 will cause a limitcheck.
setpagedevice recognizes only the following standard keys for all devices:
BeginPage
EndPage
HWResolution
ImagingBBox InputAttributes Install
Margins
NumCopies
OutputAttributes OutputDevice
PageOffset PageSize Policies ProcessColorModel
It uses the following for input attribute matching:
InsertSheet
MediaColor MediaType MediaWeight
PageSize
It uses the following for output attribute matching:
OutputType
Of course, specific devices may add to this list.
Graphics bugs
-------------
The implementation only looks at the PaintType of the font when doing
show, not when doing charpath. Because of this, stroked fonts don't work
correctly with charpath.
arcto gives an error for negative radii.
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.
restore doesn't restore the user parameters.
1 vmreclaim is equivalent to 2 vmreclaim -- there is no separate GC for
local VM.