Artifex Software is pleased to announce the release of Ghostscript 9.54.0

Novato, CA April 2, 2021 – Artifex Software, Inc. developer of Ghostscript is pleased to announce the release of Ghostscript 9.54.0. Artifex is a trusted developer, partner, and provider of core technologies that drive print, file conversion, and document management solutions. We provide essential software tools to major printer manufacturers, SaaS and Cloud developers, and PDF tools/creation companies.

Our latest release introduces new features, enhancements to functionality, product demos, and more.

Highlights for this release include:

In this latest release of Ghostscript, all output devices are now capable of simulating overprinting and spot colors, regardless of the capabilities of the target device. In prior versions of Ghostscript, only specific devices could provide proper rendering of overprinting and its interactions with spot colors. With this option, Ghostscript will if necessary make use of an intermediate buffer to render any overprint/spot color content, prior to sending the data to the target device.

We’ve added the ability to output to the Microsoft Word “docx” format with our newly implemented “docxwrite” device. This is not a third-party library and will be more fully developed over time.

Ghostscript now includes a “map text to black” function, where text drawn by an input job can be forced to draw in solid black. This occurs for text fill and text stroke operations. PDF output created with this setting will be updated to be drawn with gray values of 0. Type 3 fonts, which are sometimes used for graphics, are not affected by this parameter.

N-up imposition functionality has been expanded to handle all input file types including PDF, PCL, XPS, as well as improved handling of PostScript. This latest implementation of N-up offers more robust functionality with simplified execution.

The Tesseract OCR engine has been built into Ghostscript to improve searchability and copy and paste functionality when the input lacks the metadata for that purpose. The relevant OCR library sources (Tesseract and Leptonica) are now included in the source release archives.

In addition, several Java and C# sample apps have been developed and are available to evaluate. These are included with the Ghostscript project.

About Ghostscript

Ghostscript is the #1 Page Description Language (PDL) conversion tool available today. Ghostscript has the most comprehensive interpreter capabilities and flexibility of any software in its class, making it the industry leader in PDF, PostScript, PCL, and XPS rendering and conversion. Ghostscript’s versatility, extraordinary color management, and speed make it a superior PDL solution for your print and document management needs. Ghostscript is offered under a dual licensing model, Open Source AGPL and a commercial license through Artifex, the exclusive commercial licensing agent for Ghostscript.

About Artifex Software, Inc.

Artifex is a trusted developer, partner, and provider of core technologies that drive print, file conversion, and document management solutions. We provide essential software tools to major printer manufacturers, SaaS and Cloud developers, and PDF tools/creation companies. For over 28 years, Artifex has provided premier software products to top-level global customers. Artifex's major product offerings include Ghostscript (PDL Interpreter that is an industry leader in PDF, PostScript, PCL, and XPS rendering and conversion), MuPDF (lightweight PDF and XPS interpreter), and SmartOffice (mobile document productivity suite for viewing, editing, creating and printing MS Office documents and PDF files). Artifex is headquartered in Novato, CA, with offices in North America, Europe, and Asia. For more information, visit www.artifex.com.