Ghostscript Devices

Below is a list of output devices available in Ghostscript. Many of the devices listed are not available in the standard configurations. To find out what devices are supported by your copy of Ghostscript, type gs -h from the command line or from within Ghostscript:

 GS> devicenames ==
If the device you need is not listed, but does appear in the list below, you will need to recompile Ghostscript. If you want a printer device that is not listed, look carefully for an alternate device that may work with your printer. If all else fails, you may have to modify an existing device to suit your printer.

User-contributed drivers marked with + are maintained outside the ghostscript source tree. Please contact the original authors with any questions about these drivers.

Drivers marked with a * are maintained by with the assistance of users, since the core developers do not have access to necessary hardware or software for testing these.

It is possible to build configurations with an arbitrary collection of device drivers, although some drivers are supported only on a subset of the target platforms. The currently available drivers are:

MS-DOS displays (note: not usable with Desqview/X):

   MS-DOS EGA and VGA:
       ega     EGA (640x350, 16-color)
       vga     VGA (640x480, 16-color)
   MS-DOS SuperVGA:
 *     ali     SuperVGA using Avance Logic Inc. chipset, 256-color modes
 *     atiw    ATI Wonder SuperVGA, 256-color modes
 *     cirr    SuperVGA using Cirrus Logic CL-GD54XX chips, 256-color modes
 *     s3vga   SuperVGA using S3 86C911 chip (e.g., Diamond Stealth board)
       svga16  Generic SuperVGA in 800x600, 16-color mode
 *     tseng   SuperVGA using Tseng Labs ET3000/4000 chips, 256-color modes
 *     tvga    SuperVGA using Trident chipset, 256-color modes
   ****** NOTE: The vesa device does not work with the Watcom (32-bit MS-DOS)
   ****** compiler or executable.
       vesa    SuperVGA with VESA standard API driver

Other displays:

   MS Windows:
       mswindll  Microsoft Windows 3.1 DLL  [MS Windows only]
       mswinprn  Microsoft Windows 3.0, 3.1 DDB printer  [MS Windows only]
       mswinpr2  Microsoft Windows 3.0, 3.1 DIB printer  [MS Windows only]
   OS/2:
 *     os2pm   OS/2 Presentation Manager   [OS/2 only]
 *     os2dll  OS/2 DLL bitmap             [OS/2 only]
 *     os2prn  OS/2 printer                [OS/2 only]
   Unix and VMS:
   ****** NOTE: For direct frame buffer addressing under SCO Unix or Xenix,
   ****** edit the definition of EGAVGA below.
 *     lvga256  Linux vgalib, 256-color VGA modes  [Linux only]
 +     vgalib  Linux vgalib, 16-color VGA modes   [Linux only]
       x11     X Windows version 11, release >=4   [Unix and VMS only]
       x11alpha  X Windows masquerading as a device with alpha capability
       x11cmyk  X Windows masquerading as a 1-bit-per-plane CMYK device
       x11cmyk2  X Windows as a 2-bit-per-plane CMYK device
       x11cmyk4  X Windows as a 4-bit-per-plane CMYK device
       x11cmyk8  X Windows as an 8-bit-per-plane CMYK device
       x11gray2  X Windows as a 2-bit gray-scale device
       x11gray4  X Windows as a 4-bit gray-scale device
       x11mono  X Windows masquerading as a black-and-white device
       x11rg16x  X Windows with G5/B5/R6 pixel layout for testing.
       x11rg32x  X Windows with G11/B10/R11 pixel layout for testing.

Printers:

 +     atx23   Practical Automation ATX-23 label printer
 +     atx24   Practical Automation ATX-24 label printer
 +     atx38   Practical Automation ATX-38 label printer
 +     deskjet  H-P DeskJet and DeskJet Plus
       djet500  H-P DeskJet 500; use -r600 for DJ 600 series
 +     fs600   Kyocera FS-600 (600 dpi)
 +     laserjet  H-P LaserJet
 +     ljet2p  H-P LaserJet IId/IIp/III* with TIFF compression
 +     ljet3   H-P LaserJet III* with Delta Row compression
 +     ljet3d  H-P LaserJet IIID with duplex capability
 +     ljet4   H-P LaserJet 4 (defaults to 600 dpi)
 +     ljet4d  H-P LaserJet 4 (defaults to 600 dpi) with duplex
 +     ljetplus  H-P LaserJet Plus
       lj5mono  H-P LaserJet 5 & 6 family (PCL XL), bitmap:
               see below for restrictions & advice
       lj5gray  H-P LaserJet 5 & 6 family, gray-scale bitmap;
               see below for restrictions & advice
 *     lp2563  H-P 2563B line printer
 *     oce9050  OCE 9050 printe
       (pxlmono) H-P black-and-white PCL XL printers (LaserJet 5 and 6 family)
       (pxlcolor) H-P color PCL XL printers (e.g. Color LaserJet 4500)

Fax file format:

   ****** NOTE: all of these drivers normally adjust the page size to match
   ****** one of the three CCITT standard sizes (U.S. letter with A4 width,
   ****** A4, or B4).  To suppress this, use -dAdjustWidth=0.
       faxg3   Group 3 fax, with EOLs but no header or EOD
       faxg32d  Group 3 2-D fax, with EOLs but no header or EOD
       faxg4   Group 4 fax, with EOLs but no header or EOD
       tiffcrle  TIFF "CCITT RLE 1-dim" (= Group 3 fax with no EOLs)
       tiffg3  TIFF Group 3 fax (with EOLs)
       tiffg32d  TIFF Group 3 2-D fax
       tiffg4  TIFF Group 4 fax

High-level (vector) file formats

       epswrite  EPS output (like PostScript Distillery)
       pdfwrite  PDF output (like Adobe Acrobat Distiller)
       pswrite  PostScript output (like PostScript Distillery)
       pxlmono  Black-and-white PCL XL
       pxlcolor  Color PCL XL

Other raster file formats and devices

       bit     Plain bits, monochrome
       bitrgb  Plain bits, RGB
       bitcmyk  Plain bits, CMYK
       bmpmono Monochrome MS Windows .BMP file format
       bmpgray 8-bit gray .BMP file format
       bmpsep1 Separated 1-bit CMYK .BMP file format, primarily for testing
       bmpsep8 Separated 8-bit CMYK .BMP file format, primarily for testing
       bmp16   4-bit (EGA/VGA) .BMP file format
       bmp256  8-bit (256-color) .BMP file format
       bmp16m  24-bit .BMP file format
       bmp32b  32-bit pseudo-.BMP file format
       cgmmono  Monochrome (black-and-white) CGM -- LOW LEVEL OUTPUT ONLY
       cgm8    8-bit (256-color) CGM -- DITTO
       cgm24   24-bit color CGM -- DITTO
       jpeg    JPEG format, RGB output
       jpeggray  JPEG format, gray output
       miff24  ImageMagick MIFF format, 24-bit direct color, RLE compressed
       pcxmono PCX file format, monochrome (1-bit black and white)
       pcxgray PCX file format, 8-bit gray scale
       pcx16   PCX file format, 4-bit planar (EGA/VGA) color
       pcx256  PCX file format, 8-bit chunky color
       pcx24b  PCX file format, 24-bit color (3 8-bit planes)
       pcxcmyk PCX file format, 4-bit chunky CMYK color
       pbm     Portable Bitmap (plain format)
       pbmraw  Portable Bitmap (raw format)
       pgm     Portable Graymap (plain format)
       pgmraw  Portable Graymap (raw format)
       pgnm    Portable Graymap (plain format), optimizing to PBM if possible
       pgnmraw Portable Graymap (raw format), optimizing to PBM if possible
       pnm     Portable Pixmap (plain format) (RGB), optimizing to PGM or PBM
                if possible
       pnmraw  Portable Pixmap (raw format) (RGB), optimizing to PGM or PBM
                if possible
       ppm     Portable Pixmap (plain format) (RGB)
       ppmraw  Portable Pixmap (raw format) (RGB)
       pkm     Portable inKmap (plain format) (4-bit CMYK => RGB)
       pkmraw  Portable inKmap (raw format) (4-bit CMYK => RGB)
       pksm    Portable Separated map (plain format) (4-bit CMYK => 4 pages)
       pksmraw Portable Separated map (raw format) (4-bit CMYK => 4 pages)
 *     plan9bm  Plan 9 bitmap format
       pngmono Monochrome Portable Network Graphics (PNG)
       pnggray 8-bit gray Portable Network Graphics (PNG)
       png16   4-bit color Portable Network Graphics (PNG)
       png256  8-bit color Portable Network Graphics (PNG)
       png16m  24-bit color Portable Network Graphics (PNG)
       psmono  PostScript (Level 1) monochrome image
       psgray  PostScript (Level 1) 8-bit gray image
       psrgb   PostScript (Level 2) 24-bit color image
       tiff12nc  TIFF 12-bit RGB, no compression
       tiff24nc  TIFF 24-bit RGB, no compression (NeXT standard format)
       tifflzw  TIFF LZW (tag = 5) (monochrome)
       tiffpack  TIFF PackBits (tag = 32773) (monochrome)

This information obtained from gs 6.51 devs.mak on 2001-06-28.

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Updated: $Date: 2005/05/10 13:08:55 $ $Author: Arabidopsis $