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4<title>Reporting Ghostscript problems</title>
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14<h1>Reporting Ghostscript problems</h1>
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27<p>
28The Ghostscript development team wants Ghostscript to be of high quality,
29but we have limited resources for responding to problems, so please read
30this document carefully.  Read each section in order, and follow the
31instructions in the first one that applies to your situation.  We appreciate
32problem reports, since they help us improve the quality of Ghostscript, but
33please help us by following the procedure below.
34
35<p>
36While we do try to respond to all reports, we give priority to the following
37classes of users:
38
39<ol>
40<li>Beta testers who have actually given us at least one report on some beta
41version supplied to them.
42
43<li>People developing drivers for Ghostscript or applications based on it,
44and that will be made freely available.
45
46<li>People who express serious interest in <a
47href="Commprod.htm#Artifex">licensing Ghostscript commercially</a>.
48
49</ol>
50
51<p>
52We currently have access to systems running Linux, Solaris, Microsoft
53Windows (various versions), and MacOS; gcc, Borland C++ Builder, Watcom C++,
54Microsoft Visual C++, and Metrowerks CodeWarrior.  If your problem turns
55out to be specific to some other hardware or software configuration, it may
56take longer to track down, since we will have to rely on other users to
57help.
58
59<h2>Check that you have a good copy of the most recent version.</h2>
60
61<p>
62Go to
63
64<a href="http://www.ghostscript.com/"
65 class="offsite">http://www.ghostscript.com/</a>
66
67and see if the version number of your Ghostscript installation is the
68most recent available. If not try upgrading to the latest stable or beta
69release and see if that fixes the problem.
70
71<p>
72You can find out what version of Ghostscript you have by typing:
73
74<blockquote><pre>
75gs --version
76</pre></blockquote>
77
78<p>
79(or <b><tt>gswin32c</tt></b>, or whatever your Ghostscript executable is
80named).
81
82<p>
83If you aren't running the most recent version, please get the most recent
84version and install it, per the instructions in <a
85href="Install.htm">Install.htm</a>.  Check whether the problem is still
86there.  If it is, go on to the next step.
87
88<p>
89Even if you are running the most recent version, it is possible that you may
90be running a modified copy.  We are confident that copies on the SourceForge
91site just mentioned, our other master distribution site on
92<a href="ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/ghost/"
93class="offsite">mirror.cs.wisc.edu</a>, and CD-ROMs of commercial
94Linux
95distributions are good; if you got Ghostscript somewhere else, please update
96it from one of these places, and check whether the problem is still there
97before proceeding.
98
99<h2>Check whether your problem is already known.</h2>
100
101<p>
102Go to
103
104<blockquote>
105<a href="http://bugs.ghostscript.com" class="offsite">
106http://bugs.ghostscript.com</a>
107</blockquote>
108
109<p>
110and see whether your problem is already known.  If it is, you may want to
111add a follow-up comment to the report.  If it isn't, go on to the next step.
112
113<h2>Have you ever run Ghostscript successfully?</h2>
114
115<p>
116If your problem is connected with installing or configuring Ghostscript, and
117you haven't yet been able to run it successfully, we're sorry, but we can't
118provide help.  You might want to re-read the <a
119href="Install.htm">instructions</a> for installing Ghostscript, mentioned
120above.  If that doesn't help, all we can suggest is that you post your
121problem to the Usenet newsgroup <a
122href="news:comp.lang.postscript">comp.lang.postscript</a>.  If, after you
123find the solution, you have suggestions for improving the documentation,
124please let us know.
125
126<h2>Reproduce the problem with Ghostscript alone.</h2>
127
128<p>
129If you are running Ghostscript through some other piece of software, such as
130a GUI-based viewer, you will have to reproduce the problem with Ghostscript
131alone before we can look at it.
132
133<ul>
134
135<li>If you are running Ghostscript through Ghostview (for Unix and Linux),
136try to run the same file through Ghostscript (<b><tt>gs</tt></b>) without
137using Ghostview.  If you don't know how to do this, or the problem doesn't
138show up, please contact <a
139href="mailto:ghostview@cs.wisc.edu">ghostview@cs.wisc.edu</a>.
140
141<li>If you are running Ghostscript through GSview (for MS Windows and OS/2),
142try to run the same file through Ghostscript (<b><tt>gswin32</tt></b> or
143<b><tt>gswin32c</tt></b>) without using GSview.  To find out more details
144about how GSview is calling Ghostscript, start GSview with debugging enabled
145(e.g. <b><tt>gsview&nbsp;/d</tt></b>): these details can be seen using "File
146| Show Messages" and can be copied to the clipboard for pasting into a text
147document.  If you have trouble doing this, or if you can't reproduce the
148original problem with Ghostscript alone, please contact <a
149href="mailto:gsview@ghostgum.com.au">gsview@ghostgum.com.au</a>.
150
151<li>If you are running Ghostscript through any other software (e.g.,
152<b><tt>dvips</tt></b>, a printer spooler, etc.), we are sorry, but we cannot
153help you unless you can tell us how to produce the problem using Ghostscript
154alone.
155
156</ul>
157
158<h2>Check whether you are using a third-party printer driver.</h2>
159
160<p>
161The file <b><tt>src/devs.mak</tt></b> lists all the drivers about which we
162can answer questions; the file <b><tt>src/contrib.mak</tt></b> lists all the
163other drivers.  If you are using a driver listed in the latter file, please
164try to reproduce the problem using a driver listed in the former.  If you
165can't, please contact the author of the problem driver.
166
167<h2>Send us a problem report.</h2>
168
169<p>
170Please go to the problem reporting form in <a
171href="Bug-form.htm">Bug-form.htm</a> and follow its instructions.
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177<p>
178<small>Copyright &copy; 2000 Aladdin Enterprises.  All
179rights reserved.</small>
180
181<p>
182This software is provided AS-IS with no warranty, either express or
183implied.
184
185This software is distributed under license and may not be copied,
186modified or distributed except as expressly authorized under the terms
187of the license contained in the file LICENSE in this distribution.
188
189For more information about licensing, please refer to
190http://www.ghostscript.com/licensing/. For information on
191commercial licensing, go to http://www.artifex.com/licensing/ or
192contact Artifex Software, Inc., 101 Lucas Valley Road #110,
193San Rafael, CA  94903, U.S.A., +1(415)492-9861.
194
195<p>
196<small>Ghostscript version 8.53, 20 October 2005
197
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