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 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 8.60 (2007-08-01)

This is a new stable release of the Ghostscript codebase. The most significant change is the merge of drivers and other patches from ESP Ghostscript. This version of Ghostscript work with CUPS and is intended to be a replacement for the Easy Software fork going forward. We extend a special thanks to Till Kamppeter and Mike Sweet for making this happen.

In addition to CUPS support, the ESP merge includes a number of other notable changes. The contrib directory of the GPL Ghostscript source tree now includes a much larger complement of drivers. These are not maintained by Artifex Software, Inc. and are not included in the commercially licensed version, but are of great assistance maintaining support for older printers in Linux distribution. The X11 device is now modularized on Linux and Solaris systems when built with GNU ld, meaning this device is compiled as a separate shared object which can be optionally loaded at runtime, allowing the main binary to work on systems without X client support installed.

This release also includes numerous important bug fixes over the previous stable version, as well as improvements to performance, memory footprint, shading and image handling. We recommend upgrading to all users.

The following bugs were open at the time of release:

226943, 430175, 465936, 493348, 535932, 578865, 610478, 614298, 626295, 686747, 686853, 686865, 687011, 687039, 687084, 687095, 687108, 687146, 687193, 687196, 687257, 687271, 687280, 687295, 687297, 687303, 687327, 687342, 687345, 687346, 687375, 687397, 687414, 687475, 687492, 687514, 687520, 687531, 687536, 687559, 687561, 687593, 687595, 687608, 687630, 687650, 687666, 687674, 687677, 687695, 687697, 687702, 687715, 687721, 687728, 687729, 687731, 687775, 687780, 687782, 687793, 687796, 687805, 687814, 687844, 687850, 687887, 687903, 687904, 687907, 687915, 687931, 687950, 687957, 687970, 687974, 687981, 687983, 687988, 688006, 688007, 688022, 688024, 688026, 688032, 688035, 688036, 688042, 688058, 688061, 688064, 688066, 688075, 688081, 688095, 688129, 688130, 688134, 688151, 688152, 688159, 688166, 688184, 688187, 688200, 688203, 688204, 688207, 688210, 688215, 688227, 688239, 688243, 688267, 688269, 688280, 688282, 688283, 688288, 688312, 688317, 688318, 688320, 688333, 688337, 688342, 688358, 688360, 688361, 688363, 688372, 688375, 688378, 688386, 688387, 688389, 688395, 688413, 688427, 688428, 688429, 688434, 688436, 688437, 688440, 688446, 688448, 688468, 688473, 688474, 688475, 688483, 688490, 688495, 688500, 688515, 688517, 688526, 688528, 688533, 688539, 688540, 688542, 688543, 688557, 688565, 688573, 688580, 688581, 688588, 688598, 688601, 688604, 688605, 688610, 688616, 688617, 688619, 688626, 688627, 688633, 688634, 688636, 688637, 688638, 688643, 688646, 688647, 688651, 688653, 688655, 688673, 688674, 688683, 688696, 688697, 688699, 688708, 688709, 688710, 688711, 688714, 688717, 688728, 688731, 688734, 688736, 688739, 688757, 688762, 688770, 688774, 688777, 688778, 688783, 688796, 688797, 688806, 688807, 688811, 688813, 688815, 688818, 688829, 688830, 688834, 688843, 688845, 688846, 688871, 688872, 688876, 688899, 688903, 688904, 688907, 688908, 688909, 688914, 688915, 688916, 688917, 688918, 688919, 688923, 688926, 688928, 688933, 688940, 688942, 688943, 688945, 688949, 688952, 688958, 688969, 688970, 688976, 688978, 688979, 688981, 688983, 688986, 688990, 688992, 688994, 688999, 689003, 689011, 689013, 689014, 689022, 689025, 689028, 689031, 689032, 689036, 689040, 689044, 689046, 689048, 689050, 689053, 689055, 689057, 689058, 689060, 689065, 689068, 689070, 689076, 689077, 689078, 689080, 689081, 689085, 689090, 689092, 689093, 689094, 689098, 689101, 689103, 689104, 689106, 689107, 689111, 689114, 689115, 689116, 689117, 689127, 689128, 689129, 689130, 689132, 689133, 689136, 689137, 689138, 689145, 689146, 689148, 689150, 689153, 689154, 689155, 689159, 689161, 689164, 689167, 689169, 689172, 689174, 689175, 689181, 689182, 689184, 689186, 689188, 689195, 689198, 689199, 689206, 689209, 689210, 689212, 689222, 689224, 689230, 689232, 689236, 689241, 689242, 689244, 689246, 689247, 689248, 689249, 689252, 689253, 689256, 689264, 689265, 689266, 689267, 689273, 689278, 689279, 689280, 689281, 689282, 689283, 689289, 689290, 689291, 689292, 689294, 689295, 689298, 689302, 689304, 689305, 689306, 689308, 689310, 689313, 689316, 689326, 689327, 689331, 689333, 689334, 689335, 689338, 689339, 689340, 689341, 689343, 689347, 689349, 689350, 689351, 689352, 689353, 689354, 689356, 689358, 689359, 689361, 689362, 689363, 689364, 689365, 689367, 689368, 689369, 689370, 689372, 689373, 689374, 689375, 689376, 689378, 689379, 689380, 689381, 689382, 689384, 689385, 689386.

Incompatible changes

The default device on unix-oriented builds has temporarily switched to the bbox device, and is not the x11 device as in the past. The means that running gs from the commandline with no options will no longer display a file. Specify -sDEVICE=x11alpha instead. The change is a side effect of the X11 modularization patch, and will be remedied in a future release.


Copyright © 2005-2007 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 8.60, 1 August 2007