Cheat-sheet for versatile interpreter GhostScript. It can be used to tweak, convert, produce high quality Postscript and PDF files.
Adobe® PDF Creation Settings - Used by GhostScript.
GhostScript Documentation.
Convert postscript (ps) to pdf:
gs -q -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=fileout.pdf filein.ps
Merge ps and/or pdf:
gs -q -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=fileout.pdf filein1.ps filein2.pdf filein3.pdf
Extract page(s) from a ps or a pdf document:
gs -q -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dFirstPage=3 -dLastPage=3 -sOutputFile=fileout.pdf filein.ps
Embed fonts in a pdf:
gs -q -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=fileout.pdf -dPDFSETTINGS=/prepress -dEmbedAllFonts=true -dSubsetFonts=true -dCompatibilityLevel=1.6 filein.pdf
Convert images to pdf:
Check this post. Or else use ImageMagic's convert.PDF optimization options
-dPDFSETTINGS=/screen (screen-view-only quality, 72 dpi images)
-dPDFSETTINGS=/ebook (low quality, 150 dpi images)
-dPDFSETTINGS=/printer (high quality, 300 dpi images)
-dPDFSETTINGS=/prepress (high quality, color preserving, 300 dpi imgs)
-dPDFSETTINGS=/default (almost identical to /screen)
Paper size options
-sPAPERSIZE=letter
-sPAPERSIZE=a4
-dDEVICEWIDTHPOINTS=w -dDEVICEHEIGHTPOINTS=h (point=1/72 of an inch)
-dFIXEDMEDIA (force paper size over the PostScript defined size)
-gWIDTHxHEIGHT (page size in pixels)
Output devices:
-sDEVICE=pdfwrite
-sDEVICE=ps2write
-sDEVICE=png16m (24-bit RGB color)
-sDEVICE=pnggray (grayscale)
-sDEVICE=pngmono (black-and-white)
-sDEVICE=pngalpha (32-bit RGBA color)
-sDEVICE=jpeg (color JPEG)
-sDEVICE=jpeggray (grayscale JPEG)
-sDEVICE=epswrite (encapsulated postscript)
-sDEVICE=txtwrite (text output, UTF-8)
Check -sOutputFile below, for separate images for each page of a multi-page document. Tiff, PNM and many more formats are supported. Check details in Ghostscript output devices.
Help & list of available devices:
gs -h
Other options
-dNOPAUSE (no pause after page)
-dBATCH (exit after last file)
-sOutputFile=ABC-%03d.pgm (produces 'ABC-001.pgm'..'ABC-010.pgm'..)
-dEmbedAllFonts=true
-dSubsetFonts=true (Embeds only the characters used in document)
-dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 (Adobe's PDF specifications,
>=1.4 for font embedding,
=1.6 for OpenType font embedding)
-dCompressPages=true (compress page content)
-dFirstPage=pagenumber
-dLastPage=pagenumber
-dAutoRotatePages=/PageByPage (or /All or /None)
-rXRESxYRES (XRES & YRES in pixels/inch)
-rRES (same XRES & YRES, affects images and fonts converted to bitmaps)
-sPDFPassword=password
More details & defaults on ps2pdf documentation.Adobe® PDF Creation Settings - Used by GhostScript.
GhostScript Documentation.