PDF2DSC(1)

💖 PDF2DSC(1) — the Ghostscript Tools glow-up 💖

okay bestie, so this is a page from the Ghostscript Tools manual set, section 1 of the Unix manuals, and it's literally called pdf2dsc. she's giving "quiet utility that does one thing extremely well" energy and honestly? we stan. 🫶

✨ NAME ✨

pdf2dsc — generate a PostScript page list of a PDF document (UNSUPPORTED)

not me putting the UNSUPPORTED right at the top so nobody's surprised later 💀 she's iconic but she is not officially supported, okay? read that twice.

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

pdf2dsc input.pdf [ output.dsc ]

that's it. that's the whole vibe. one required file, one optional file, no chaos. 🎀

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so here's the tea: pdf2dsc calls up gs(1) and gets it to read an Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) document — that's your input.pdf — and then she whips up a PostScript(tm) document called output.dsc that conforms to Adobe's Document Structuring Conventions (DSC) requirements. like, actual compliance, no cap. 💅

and this new document? it doesn't contain your pages. it just tells Ghostscript to read the PDF file and to display pages one at a time. so when you open it, you're not flipping through a copy — you're flipping through the original, one page at a time, exactly as asked. periodt. ✨

the generated document can then be viewed with any PostScript viewer based on Ghostscript — think ghostview(1) on Unix or GSview on Windows — and the user can browse through the pages of the PDF document in any order. any order!! no "next page" tyranny, no being trapped in page 1 to page 47 sequence. main character browsing energy. 👑

and the naming situation, which is lowkey the cutest part:

• if no output file is named on the command line, the name of the output file is that of the input file with any extension removed, followed by the extension .dsc.

so my_cool_doc.pdf walks in and my_cool_doc.dsc walks out. she does it herself. no questions. 🧚

🌈 CAVEATS 🌈

okay bestie, listen, because this part is important and I'm not gonna sugarcoat it:

• The DSC document uses Ghostscript-specific procedures.
• In addition, the original PDF document must be accessible when the DSC document is processed.

🚨 read that again fr fr: this .dsc file is not self-contained. it's more like a little handwritten note pointing at your PDF. if the PDF isn't there when you process the DSC, it's giving nothing. absolutely nothing. keep the original around or it's over. 😭

• You need the file pdf2dsc.ps (originally by Russell Lang) supplied with Ghostscript since release 3.53.

no pdf2dsc.ps, no magic. that's the whole rule. 🍓

💜 SEE ALSO 💜

• gs(1)
• ghostview(1)

go read those next, iykyk. ⭐

⭐ VERSION ⭐

This document was last revised for Ghostscript version 10.03.1.

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Yves Arrouye <yves.arrouye@usa.net> and Russell Lang gsview at ghostgum.com.au

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and that's the whole page, bestie!! this one came stamped with Ghostscript version 10.03.1 and dated 06 May 2024, which is like... the little signature at the bottom of the note. 💌 mwah. go make some .dsc files. you got this. 🌸💖✨