## Ghostscript – Black Box Magic

### What is Ghostscript?

For those not familiar, Ghostscript (`gs`), strictly defined, is a so-called “PostScript interpreter,” and many programs use `gs` for PostScript conversions and import/export. Ghostscript has become one of the core building blocks of OSS software. It would be hard to imagine modern OSS distributions and software without it.

Likewise, Scribus uses Ghostscript, sometimes taking advantage of the most sophisticated features that are available only in the latest versions. Scribus uses `gs` for three purposes, the first one being the import of rasterized EPS files and certain DCS files into image frames. The second feature that requires `gs` is the Print Preview, and the third one is the Barcode Generator.

If `gs` is not installed on your system or Scribus can’t find the `gs` executable, the features mentioned before won’t work, and Scribus will display a warning each time it is being launched:

In case `gs` has been installed on your computer, but Scribus can’t find it, you can add the path to the `gs` executable file in the Scribus Preferences.

We always encourage you to have the latest Ghostscript available for your system.

### Installing Ghostscript

#### Linux/UNIX

As mentioned above, Ghostscript is required by many applications, including the printing subsystem. Thus, it’s unlikely that it isn’t installed on your system. If, for any reason, `gs` isn’t available on your system or your system is being shipped with a version that’s too old (you should at least use Ghostscript 8.6 with Scribus), you can download a tarball from the `gs` website. Be careful to download Ghostscript itself, not ghostpdl, whose source code is in the same directory. Then follow the build instructions in the tarball and install it.

#### Windows

See the general information about Scribus on Windows for further details.

#### Mac OS X

There are different ways to install Ghostscript for Mac OS X, but unfortunately, none of them seems to be as easy as most Mac users are used to:

- You can download an installer for `gs` which works with various OS X versions.
- You can install `gs` via Fink.
- The most current releases of Ghostscript are always available via MacPorts.
- Finally, you can, of course, download the latest source code and compile Ghostscript yourself.

#### OS/2 and eComStation

See the general information about Scribus on OS/2 and eComStation for further details.

#### Haiku

See the general information about Scribus for Haiku.