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# The KGhostview Handbook

Mark
Donohoe
07/06/1998
0.06.01

This documentation was last updated for kghostview version 0.6.1. Please make any comments and additions to the author.

KDE
linux
postscript
ghostivew

## Introduction

KGhostview is the PostScript viewer for the K Desktop Environment. It is a port of Tim Theisen's Ghostview program which is used to view documents prepared in Adobe's PostScript page description language. PostScript is the major page description language for printing on UNIX systems and this application is used to preview material intended for printing or for reading documents online.

KGhostview is just a front end to Alladin's Ghostcript package which renders the documents. You can use the viewer with all recent versions of Ghostscript. Newer versions offer much improved performance which you can take advantage of with KGhostview. It future, it will be possible to view Portable Document Format files.

If a document does not conform to the Adobe document structuring convention the functionality of the PostScript viewer is limited. If there is no table of contents, skipping around the document and marking pages is not possible.

## Tutorial

## Fundamentals

This section desribes what you see in the main PostScript viewer window, the actions of the toolbar buttons and how to use the page list.

You can open multiple PostScript viewer windows to view multiple documents. The window title bar shows you the name of the document in that window. The tools and text fields that help you to navigate a document may be hidden in order to give more space on the screen to the content area.

### Window summary

Window title bar

  The name of a document is displayed in the window title bar.

Page display

  The content area displays a page of the current document. If the page is too large to fit inside the window, scroll bars are automatically added to the sides of the display.

Tool bar

  Tool bar buttons activate the PostScript viewer features you'll most commonly use. Click on the buttons to move through the document, to change the view and to mark and print pages. You can choose to have the toolbar on any side of the contents area. Click with the right mouse button on the toolbar handle to select the position you want. You can also hide the toolbar from the options menu.

Status bar

  The status bar has four fields showing the current page, magnification factor, orientation and file name of the document. You can choose to hide the status bar from the options menu.

Page list

  A page list can be shown down the left side of the page display. This list has three columns: the first may contain a flag indicating that the page has been marked; the second shows the page shape; and the third contains the page number. You may use this page list to navigate the document or to select pages for printing.

### Tool bar

Back

  Moves one page back in the document.

Forward

  Moves one page forward in the document.

Go to page

  Lets you choose which page to display.

View control

  Lets you set the magnification, orientation and page size for the view of your document.

Print

  Lets you print the document previewed in this PostScript viewer window.

Mark

  Marks (Unmarks) the current page. Used to select individual pages for printing.

Go to start

  Goes to start of the document.

Go to end

  Goes to end of the document.

Read down

  Scrolls up the current page for convenient reading of the document in chunks.

### Page list

The page list is useful for navigating the document and selecting pages for printing. To view a page simply click on the page number in the list with the left mouse button.

If you want to mark a page, click on it with the middle mouse button. A flag will be displayed in the first column of the page list to show that the page has been marked. You can clear or change your page marks using the menu of choices that is activated with the right mouse button. The choices available are

- Mark current

- Mark all

- Mark even

- Mark odd

- Toggle marks

- Remove marks

## Primary menu items

### File

New

  Creates a new PostScript viewer window.

Open ...

  Lets you select a file to open.

Close

  Closes the current PostScript viewer window.

Print ...

  Lets you print the document previewed in this PostScript viewer window.

Entries 1. - 4.

  The last four opened documents are stored in these menu entries. Simply select one of these to reopen that document.

Quit

  Exits PostScript viewer, closing all the windows.

### View

Zoom in

  Increases the magnification of the view of your document.

Zoom out

  Decreases the magnification of the view of your document.

View control ...

  Lets you set the magnification, orientation and page size for the view of your document.

Shrink wrap

  Resizes the PostScript viewer window to neatly fit the width of the document. If the document is too wide to fit on the screen then the PostScript viewer window is stretched to the maximum possible width.

Redisplay

  Renders the current page of your document again.

Info ...

  Displays some basic information about your document.

### Go

Next page

  Moves one page forward in the document.

Previous page

  Moves one page back in the document.

Go to page ...

  Lets you choose which page to display.

Go to start

  Goes to the start of the document.

Go to end

  Goes to the end of the document.

Read down

  Scrolls up the current page for convenient reading of the document in chunks.

### Options

Configure interpreter ...

  Lets you choose a few options about how the Ghostscript driver should work.

Show tool bar

  Toggle the toolbar on and off.

Show status bar

  Toggle the statusbar on and off.

Show page list

  Toggle the page list on and off.

Configure key bindings ...

  Lets you choose your own key bindings for the actions that PostScript viewer can perform.

Save Options

  Writes your set of preferences including the size of the PostScript viewer window and the location of the toolbar to a configuration file.

### Help

About PostScript viewer

  Simply tells you the program name, version number and address of the author

Help for PostScript viewer

  Starts the KDE online help and loads in this handbook.

Copyright

  Displays copyright information for PostScript viewer.

## Dialog boxes

### Print

The Printer Name can be entered in the appropriate text field to choose the destination to send your document. The Pages to be printed can be selected from the combo box. The options are

- All

- Marked

### View control

This dialog allows you to set the magnification factor, orientaion and media used for the view of your document. You can leave the dialog open and apply changes repeatedly.

Magstep

  Select the magnification of the document from the combo box. Your can scale a page from 20&percnt; to 300&percnt; from its default size.

Orientation

  The options are

  - Portrait

  - Landscape

  - Upside down

  - Seascape

Media

  Media defined in the document appear at the start of the list.

### Info

Shows the file name, title and creation date of the document.

### Go to page

Allows you to select the section and page number of the page you want to display.

### Configure key bindings

Allows you to change the keys that are bound to PostScript viewer actions.

### Configure interpreter

The Configure interpreter dialog is comprised of three sections:

1. The General section.

2. The Palette options.

3. The Backing style.

#### General

One may edit the interpreter name which is by default set to gs suitable for most systems. One may also check any combination of three options.

Set Antialiasing for smoothly rendered text. Performing antialiasing is memory intensive and slower than a straightforward rendering of fonts. If short of memory or time you may wish to turn this option off. Early versions of Ghostscript could not perform antialiasing.

Check Platform fonts if you wish to use your native window system fonts rather than the fonts that come with your PostScript interpreter. Recent versions of Ghostscript come with good quality fonts.

Turn Messages on if you want to be informed of any output or error messages generated by your PostScript interpreter.

#### Palette

You may choose the palette to be used to render your PostScript document. The options are

- Color

- Grayscale

- Monochrome

#### Backing

You have the choice of two methods to maintain the contents of a page in the viewer once it has been rendered by your PostScript interpreter. These are

- Pixmap

- Backing store

One method may be faster on your X server than the other. Also, some X servers do not offer a backing store.

### Ghostscript messages

Displays error or general output messages from Ghostscript.

## Epilogue

### Developer

`Mark Donohoe`

### Authors

`Mark Donohoe`

`Robert Williams` - Editor

### Copyright

kghostview is released under the GPL License.