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Name Ghostscript Requires RISC OS 3.1 or higher, 3.5MB of free RAM, filing system with support for >77 files per directory and long filenames

Version 8.54, RISC OS release 1.04 (21-Jun-06) Status Free software (GPL)

Ghostscript is a PostScript^TM interpreter that can turn PostScript and PDF files into raster image files and PostScript files into PDF files. PostScript and PDF are industry-standard page description languages defined by Adobe^TM that describe the appearance of documents with multiple pages containing text, bitmap images and vector graphics.

These new port of Ghostscript 8.54 replaces all previous versions of Ghostscript. The original RISC OS port of Ghostscript was done by Graham Jones (see his Ghostscript for RISC OS page). Most importantly, he has written the RISC OS sprite device that allows you to create sprite files using Ghostscript, which is most useful, in particular in conjunction with the GView front-end, so credits are due to him for doing this work.

The port of Ghostscript 8.54 is fully self-contained and runs on all existing RISC OS platforms. Most notably, it runs under RISC OS 5 on the Iyonix and under Adjust32 on the A9Home. In addition to being 32-bit safe, this new version of Ghostscript has many improvements over the previous port of version 7.03, most notably when rendering PDF documents with transparency and when converting PostScript to PDF.

When using Ghostscript, you are likely to be interested in GView as well: GView is a front-end for Ghostscript. It displays PostScript and PDF documents in RISC OS windows, supports multi-page documents, allows you to go backward and forward in the document, jump to specific pages directly, save Sprite files for pages, convert complete documents to multiple Sprite files and gives you a range of output options.

What about different licences?

Earlier versions of Ghostscript were usually released under two different licences. Each new version was first released under the AFPL (Aladdin Free Public License), which is more restrictive than the GPL, and then, after a few months, released under the GPL as well. Fortunately, this policy has changed and the very latest version of Ghostscript is always available under the GPL licence.

Download section

	Latest version of GPL Ghostscript
		Download the full GPL Ghostscript 8.54 archive, RISC OS release 1.04 (12MB). Please make sure you read the installation instructions!
	ARMv7 compatible version (e.g., for Cortex-A8 in the BeagleBoard)
		Download the full GPL Ghostscript 8.54 archive, RISC OS release 1.05 (12MB). This executable is larger than the original 8.54 release (RISC OS release 1.04), so the original release above should be preferred if ARMv7 compatibility is not required. Please make sure you read the installation instructions!
		Download an upgrade from RISC OS release 1.04 to RISC OS release 1.05 (1.6MB). Only suitable if you already have Ghostscript 8.54 RISC OS release 1.04 installed.

You may want to download GView, too.

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Old downloads

This is the 32-bit safe Ghostscript 7.03 executable. The only reason for using this old version instead of the new 8.50 port is lack of memory. The 8.50 port requires 3.5MB to run whereas version 7.03 is happy with 2MB.

Download Ghostscript 7.03 executable, 32-bit safe version, third release

Installation: You need to download the original Ghostscript 7.03 distribution (all 5 archives), install it and then replace the file !GhostScr.gs by the file gs in this archive.

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