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 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 6.20 (2000-04-06)

This fileset includes the first steps towards bringing the pdfwrite driver closer to matching Acrobat Distiller 4. Highlights:

All problems registered on SourceForge numbered 103963 or lower are closed, except for the following: 101549, 101814, 101829, 101905, 101955, 102046, 102047, 102132, 102146, 102735, 102901, 103016, 103528, 103963.


Incompatible changes

(Procedures) - The default value of FPU_TYPE in all Windows and OS/2 makefiles is now 387 rather than 0. - The process for reporting problems has changed significantly. (PDF writer) - The Cos procedures no longer take the device as an argument, except for object-creating procedures, which now take the device rather than an allocator. - The is_object member of Cos values is replaced by value_type. Clients must use COS_VALUE_IS_OBJECT() to test whether a value is an object reference. - The Cos procedures that take C strings no longer copy the string. - The argument of cos_write_object is no longer const. (Drivers) - The default BufferSpace for printer drivers is now 4 Mb. - Device halftone order implementations must now provide a new bit_index procedure. - The image argument for psdf_setup_image_filters is changed from gs_image_t to gs_pixel_image_t. - The font-related psdf_ procedures are renamed psf_. (Streams) - The interface to the [T]BCP filters is now in a separate file, sbcp.h. (PDF interpreter) - The internal beginpage procedure is renamed dictbeginpage, and now takes a dictionary argument. (Interpreter) - The argument list for the internal build_gs_TrueType_font procedure has changed. - The zcharstring_glyph_outline procedure is renamed zchar1_glyph_outline. - The Instances dictionary of resources is renamed .Instances. (Library) - ImageType 4 images now give an error if a MaskColor value is out of the range of possible sample values. - The definition of gs_param_key_t, the key type returned by parameter list enumeration, is changed. - Implementors of parameter lists must now call gs_param_list_init to initialize the common members. - st_indexed_map is now private. Clients allocating instances of this structure must now call alloc_indexed_map. - Setting a transfer map as the identity mapping now requires calling gx_set_identity_transfer. - gs_cid_system_info is renamed gs_cid_system_info_t. - The get_outline procedure of a Type 42 or Type 11 (CIDFontType 0) font now returns 1 if the string was newly allocated and can be freed by the client. - The procs member of gs_type1_data is now an in-line structure rather than a pointer to a const structure.

Copyright © 2000 Aladdin Enterprises. All rights reserved.

This file is part of Aladdin Ghostscript. See the Aladdin Free Public License (the "License") for full details of the terms of using, copying, modifying, and redistributing Aladdin Ghostscript.

Ghostscript version 6.20, 6 April 2000