Obtain Ghostview

How to View Postscript Files Without Printing


Topics:

The Ghostview Viewer

The application called Ghostview provides a convenient viewer for postscript files, so that you can view the pages on your screen as they would look if printed. Ghostview can be installed even on a computer which is not connected to a postscript printer.

If a machine has Ghostview installed, then any postscipt file can be viewed by starting up the application. So if you desire to view a .ps file available on the web, you can always download it to the machine you're working on and then start up Ghostview. However, it's much more helpful if the web browser automatically starts up the application and displays the document when you click on the desired file (such as a class handout)- then you can view the file immediately, and decide if you wish to save it. A browser will do this if it has Ghostview installed as a "helper application". The sections below discuss where to find UW campus machines with this feature, and how to install Ghostview on your machine at home.

Viewing postscript files on a UW campus machine:

Many of the UW Unix machines (including those at the Suzallo CRC lab) already have Ghostscript or Ghostview installed as a helper application to the web browsers they run. Ghostscript is actually the software engine for which Ghostview provides a nice graphical user interface. Ghostscript by itself will provide a basic display of a postscript document, but without nice buttons for zooming in, turning pages, etc. The PC's in some campus computer labs do not have a postscript viewer installed. If you wish to have Ghostscript or Ghostview installed on a campus machine, talk to the lab staff.

How to get a postscript viewer for your PC or Mac at home:

Postscript viewers which run using the Ghostscript software engine are available on the web, and can be freely dowloaded for non-commercial use. Before downloading any software, read whatever description is available to make sure that you have enough disk space.

Macs:

The site www.glyphic.com/glyphic/projects/macgs.html has a good discussion of what is available for the Mac, along with links to the sites where you can download all of the appropriate software. After you have installed the software on your computer, you can then set up your postscript viewer as a helper application to Netscape.

PC's:

If you have Windows 3.1x, you are in luck! You can click here for instructions and links to all of the software you need for Ghostscript and GSView. The files are self-decompressing, so you won't need anything that cannot be found at this site.

If you have another version of Windows, the site condor.depaul.edu/~gbrewste/gs/gs.html provides some instructions and a concise listing of the software you need to download, along with the appropriate links. Alternatively, the site www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/gsview/index.html provides a set of links to many resources related to installing GSview for PC, including a link to a resource page for installing GSview for the OS/2 operating system. You can find everything you need for Windows at this site also, inlcuding a more detailed discussion of Ghostscript and GSview; however, you have to spend a bit of time going to different links and finding out which files you need to download. After you have installed the software on your computer, you can then set up your postscript viewer as a helper application to Netscape.

The files that you need to download from either of the two sites mentioned above will come in compressed .zip format. This means you need to decompress them after downloading. Shareware versions of the PKZIP® utility for performing this task are available from the PKWARE® site.

Set up your postscript viewer as a helper application to etscape:

The site www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/gsview/netscape.html provides a short and simple list of instructions for setting up your installed postscript viewer as a helper application to Netscape.



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