Aladdin Ghostscript 5.03

Date sent:        Sat Aug 9 1997

From:             "L. Peter Deutsch" <ghost@aladdin.com>

Subject:          Release of Aladdin Ghostscript 5.03

Aladdin Ghostscript 5.03 is now available from

	ftp://ftp.cs.wisc.edu/ghost/aladdin/gs503/

		ghostscript-5.03.tar.gz (source code)

		ghostscript-5.03pc.tar.gz (PC executables and run-time files)

		ghostscript-5.03libpng.tar.gz (libpng 0.96)

		ghostscript-5.03gnu.tar.gz (a few GNU-licensed drivers)

		ghostscript-5.03zlib.tar.gz (zlib 1.0.4)

		ghostscript-5.03jpeg.tar.gz (IJG JPEG 6a)

		ghostscript-fonts-std-5.03.tar.gz

		ghostscript-fonts-other-5.03.tar.gz

Highlights of this release, relative to 4.03, include:

• Support for PDF 1.2 (Acrobat 3.0), including CFF (compressed embedded) fonts.
• Support for CIDFonts and CMap-keyed fonts.
• (Optional) ability to read MS-DOS EPSF files.
• Output in JPEG format.
• Output in PCL XL ("PCL 6") format.
• Distillation of PDF or PostScript to PostScript or EPS (without preview).
• Much improved distillation of PostScript to PDF.
• New, more flexible architecture for color inkjets (uniprint driver).
• Support for in-RAM band lists compressed with zlib, for embedded applications.
• Support for compilation with Microsoft Visual C++ on 32-bit MS Windows platforms.
• Support for GNU make on OpenVMS.
• First-level validation (no crashes or unexpected errors) with the Genoa PostScript Level 2 CET by an independent third party.

We have deliberately dropped the following:

• Support for 16-bit MS-DOS and MS Windows environments.
• The pstoppm.ps file, which has been obsoleted by the p*m drivers for 2 releases.

For the next release, we would also like to support the Cygnus cygwin32 port of gcc, since Cygnus has now made the necessary software available for free redistribution: see http://www.cygnus.com/misc/gnu-win32/. If you would like to help us by porting Ghostscript to this platform, or if you have opinions about what compilers we should support, please let us know at <ghost@aladdin.com>.

We are also planning to drop support for building on OpenVMS using DCL scripts: starting with the next release, you will need to acquire, make a couple of minor patches in, and build GNU make in order to build Ghostscript on OpenVMS. (You won't be required to use gcc to build Ghostscript: you will still have the choice of DEC C, VAX C, or gcc.) If you have opinions about this, please let us know. We considered supporting MMK or MMS, and decided in favor of GNU make primarily because it would mean the least divergence between the VMS makefiles and the ones already used for all other platforms.

Please report problems in the 5.03 release by e-mail to <ghost@aladdin.com> using the bug-form.txt reporting form that you will find in the Ghostscript fileset. We don't promise to investigate every problem, but if you provide us with a fully filled-out reporting form, the chances are much better that we will look into it.

Aladdin is committed to continuing the development of Ghostscript as a fully competitive commercial-quality product as well as an unsupported, freely redistributable package for end users. If you are, or you know someone who might be, a hardware, software, or system OEM interested in licensing Ghostscript for incorporation in a commercial product (either embedded or host-based), please contact our exclusive licensing partner, Artifex Software Inc., at <info@arsoft.com>.

-- 



L. Peter Deutsch         |       Aladdin Enterprises :::: ghost@aladdin.com 203

Santa Margarita Ave.     | tel. +1-415-322-0103 (AM only); fax +1-415-322-1734

Menlo Park, CA 94025     |        http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/index.html

          "Implementation is the sincerest form of flattery."