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.
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.
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).
Problem:
PostScript files containing LanguageLevel 3 data may give a /typecheck in
--.image3-- error.
Workaround, Fix: See below under "Disable LanguageLevel 3 features".
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.
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.
Problem:
The output of pdf2ps sometimes includes strange lines, or occasionally
omits a line.
Fix: Apply this patch
(requires recompiling Ghostscript).
Problem:
pdf2ps doesn't output commands to set the page size or page orientation.
Fix: Apply this patch
(requires recompiling Ghostscript).
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).
Problem:
Referencing an undefined IODevice, such as %Engine%, causes a memory access
error.
Fix: Apply this patch
(requires recompiling Ghostscript).
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).
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.
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).
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).
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.
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).
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).
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).
(1999-07-15)
(1999-05-24)
(1999-03-16)
(1999-03-16)
(1999-03-16)
(1999-02-20)
(1999-02-20)
(1999-02-20)
(1999-02-20)
(1999-01-20)
(1999-01-20)
(1999-01-17)
(1999-01-15)
(1999-01-15)
(1998-12-22)
(1998-12-21)
(1998-12-20)