Post-release news for Aladdin Ghostscript 5.50


This file contains information about bugs found since the 5.50 release, and workarounds or fixes when available.

All patch files referenced by links below that do not bear any other copyright or license notice are hereby placed in the public domain; in particular, they may be applied to either Aladdin Ghostscript or GNU Ghostscript.

  • (1999-07-15) Building on AIX causes compilation errors
  • (1999-05-24) PDF files with updates may cause errors
  • (1999-03-16) /typecheck in --.image3-- error
  • (1999-03-16) 8-bit gray, 16-bit, and 24-bit X displays may crash
  • (1999-03-16) LanguageLevel 3 gradient fills aren't clipped
  • (1999-02-20) pdf2ps sometimes mangles or omits lines
  • (1999-02-20) pdf2ps doesn't output page size and orientation
  • (1999-02-20) stdin bytesavailable causes a crash on Windows and OS/2
  • (1999-02-20) Referencing an undefined IODevice causes a crash
  • (1999-01-20) Macintosh TrueType fonts cause an invalidfont error
  • (1999-01-20) building with libpng 1.0.2 fails
  • (1999-01-17) ps2pdf -dCompatibilityLevel=1.1 can mangle images
  • (1999-01-15) SPARCprinter driver doesn't switch to 300 dpi
  • (1999-01-15) p[g]nm[raw] drivers may produce black-and-white output
  • (1998-12-22) PDF files with uncolored Patterns get a typecheck error
  • (1998-12-21) rotated images may be garbled at edges
  • (1998-12-20) ps2pdf fails to clip pattern fills
  • (1998-11-08) tar archives not compatible with SunOS 4.1.3
  • (1998-09-29) 5.50 incorrectly identified as "beta"

  • (1999-07-15)

    Problem: Using the cc compiler on AIX systems may produce "type mismatch" errors when compiling szlib*.c.

    Fix: Change the definition of CC in unixansi.mak to xlc before compiling Ghostscript. Note that this will cause the uniprint driver (gdevupd.c) not to compile. If you want to include this driver, please contact the author of the driver for a fix.


    (1999-05-24)

    Problem: If a PDF file has been updated, Ghostscript may print "Wrong generation #" messages and may get /undefined or other errors.

    Fix: Apply this patch (does not require recompiling Ghostscript).


    (1999-03-16)

    Problem: PostScript files containing LanguageLevel 3 data may give a /typecheck in --.image3-- error.

    Workaround, Fix: See below under "Disable LanguageLevel 3 features".


    (1999-03-16)

    Problem: On X Windows displays with 8-bit gray-scale, or 16- or 24-bit color, Ghostscript crashes in the X driver.

    Fix: No fix for 5.50 is available. The problem is fixed starting in development version 5.71: consider running a pre-release version. See ../../tester.html for information about pre-release versions.


    (1999-03-16)

    Problem: In files containing the LanguageLevel 3 'shfill' command, which the most recent applications (such as recent MS Windows PostScript drivers) may produce, shaded (gradient) fills aren't clipped to their proper boundaries.

    Workaround: Disable LanguageLevel 3 features by including the switches -c 2 .setlanguagelevel -f on the command line just before the first file name.

    Fix: In the definition of FEATURE_DEVS in the top-level makefile for your platform, change psl3.dev to psl2.dev and recompile Ghostscript.


    (1999-02-20)

    Problem: The output of pdf2ps sometimes includes strange lines, or occasionally omits a line.

    Fix: Apply this patch (requires recompiling Ghostscript).


    (1999-02-20)

    Problem: pdf2ps doesn't output commands to set the page size or page orientation.

    Fix: Apply this patch (requires recompiling Ghostscript).


    (1999-02-20)

    Problem: On MS Windows and OS/2, invoking the bytesavailable operator on the standard input file (obtained by (%stdin) (r) file) causes a crash.

    Fix: Apply this patch (requires recompiling Ghostscript).


    (1999-02-20)

    Problem: Referencing an undefined IODevice, such as %Engine%, causes a memory access error.

    Fix: Apply this patch (requires recompiling Ghostscript).


    (1999-01-20)

    Problem: PostScript or PDF files containing Macintosh TrueType fonts, which have a "version number" of 'true' instead of the documented value of 0x00010000, cause an invalidfont error.

    Fix: Apply this patch (requires recompiling Ghostscript).


    (1999-01-20)

    Problem: Setting PVERSION=102 or 10002 in the makefile, for building with libpng 1.0.2, causes the build to fail.

    Fix: Apply this patch.


    (1999-01-17)

    Problem: When producing PDF 1.1 (Acrobat 2.x) compatible output, ps2pdf may mangle bitmap images by attempting to compress them, which is a PDF 1.2 feature.

    Fix: Apply this patch (requires recompiling Ghostscript).


    (1999-01-15)

    Problem: Setting the resolution of the SPARCprinter driver to 300 dpi has no effect. (This is not a good idea to begin with, since the SPARCprinter's hardware resolution is 400 dpi and the 300 dpi setting produces uneven output, but the printer supports it and it should work.)

    Fix: Apply this patch (requires recompiling Ghostscript).


    (1999-01-15)

    Problem: The pgnm, pgnmraw, pnm, and pnmraw drivers are supposed to detect whether a page has gray or colored information on it, and choose the most economical p*m output format that can express the content of the page. However, if the bitmap for a full page exceeds the value of the MaxBitmap parameter in the driver (10 Mb by default), a page on which the only non-black-and-white element(s) is/are bitmap images may be output in black-and-white instead of color or grayscale.

    Workaround #1: Don't rely on Ghostscript to choose the correct output format: use pbm[raw] for black-and-white output, pgm[raw] for gray-level output, or ppm[raw] for RGB color output.

    Workaround #2: Increase MaxBitmap by including the switch -dMaxBitmap=N on the command line, where N >= (page width in pixels + 2) x (page height in pixels) x (3 for pnm, 1 for pgnm) + 50K. Of course, to use this workaround, you have to know the page size.


    (1998-12-22)

    Problem: PDF 1.1 or 1.2 files that use uncolored (PaintType 2) Patterns get a "/typecheck in --setcolor--" error.

    Workaround: Apply this patch (does not require recompiling Ghostscript).


    (1998-12-21)

    Problem: When producing output for a printer or a raster file, bitmap images rotated by angles that are almost, but not exactly, multiples of 90 degrees may have garbled output at periodic intervals on the page.

    Workaround: Apply this patch (requires recompiling Ghostscript).


    (1998-12-20)

    Problem: When converting files from PostScript to PDF with ps2pdf, pattern fills sometimes fill a larger region than they should.

    Workaround: Apply this patch (requires recompiling Ghostscript).


    (1998-11-08)

    Problem: The tar program provided with SunOS 4.1.3 can't unpack the Ghostscript 5.50 archives.

    Workaround: Get a more recent version of tar, such as GNU tar.


    (1998-09-29)

    Problem: In the News.htm file, Ghostscript version 5.50 was incorrectly identified as a "beta" version. We apologize for any confusion.


    Last edited by L. Peter Deutsch