Recent changes in Ghostscript

# Changes in the most recent release of Ghostscript

This document is news about the most recent Ghostscript release. For earlier versions, see the history documents:

> History of Ghostscript versions 9.n
> History of Ghostscript versions 8.n
> History of Ghostscript versions 7.n
> History of Ghostscript versions 6.n
> History of Ghostscript versions 5.n
> History of Ghostscript versions 4.n
> History of Ghostscript versions 3.n
> History of Ghostscript versions 2.n
> History of Ghostscript versions 1.n

For other information, see the Ghostscript overview.

## Version 9.18 (2015-09-23)

This is the thirteenth full release in the stable 9.x series, and is a maintenance release.

Highlights in this release include:

- A substantial revision of the build system and GhostPDL directory structure, meaning the GhostPCL and GhostXPS "products" are now built by the Ghostscript build system "proper" rather than having their own builds which called the Ghostscript build system for certain parts of the builds.

  Ghostscript-only users should not be affected by this change.

  For users of the PCL and XPS interpreters (collectively downloaded as "GhostPDL") there is a new, "flatter" directory structure and only one `configure` and one `make` invocation to build all the products. There are also some executable default name changes to bring the PCL and XPS binaries in line with the Ghostscript ones. All executables now end up in the "bin" directory (or build specific variant thereof, e.g. "debugbin"). The PCL executable, by default, is now "gpcl6" on Unix like systems and "gpcl6win??.exe" (where "??" is either "32" or "64"). The XPS executable remains "gxps" on Unix-like systems, but similarly becomes "gxpswin??.exe" on Windows.

  Those using scripts or other automated processes will need to take steps to cope with these changes.

- A new method of internally inserting devices into the device chain has been developed, named "device subclassing". This allows suitably written devices to be more easily and consistently as "filter" devices.

  The first fruit of this is a new implementation of the "-dFirstPage"/"-dLastPage" feature which functions a device filter in the Ghostscript graphics library, meaning it works consistently with all input languages.

- The "ghostpdl.inf" file, provided to simplify installing a Postscript printer configure to produce output to suit Ghostscript's "pdfwrite" device is now available as a digitally signed version: "ghostpdl.cat".

- Plus the usual round of bug fixes, compatibility changes, and incremental improvements.

For a list of open issues, or to report problems, please visit bugs.ghostscript.com.

### Incompatible changes

No recorded incompatible changes.

### Changelog

See the history file for complete log of changes.

Copyright © 2005-2015 Artifex Software, Inc. All rights reserved.

This software is provided AS-IS with no warranty, either express or implied. This software is distributed under license and may not be copied, modified or distributed except as expressly authorized under the terms of that license. Refer to licensing information at http://www.artifex.com/ or contact Artifex Software, Inc., 7 Mt. Lassen Drive - Suite A-134, San Rafael, CA 94903, U.S.A., +1(415)492-9861, for further information.

Ghostscript version 9.18, 5 October 2015