Technical information
FAX IMAGING
79
Updating Ghostscript on a Unix platform
Unfortunately upgrading Ghostscript on Unix is not as easy as on Windows. Indeed no binaries are available for
these platforms on the official website, only the sourcecode. So you will either need to retrieve these sources from the
website and compile them following Ghostscript instructions or find a binary version for their platform on websites
providing "built" versions of this tool (such as Sunfreeware.com).
Once you get your compiled version of Ghostscript:
1. Go to $VSIFAX/lib/ghostscript/bin.
2. Backup the old gs file (ghostscript v7 executable).
3. Copy the new ghostscript binary in this folder.
4. The ghostscript executable needs to be called gs. Rename it if needed.
PCLTOTIF
Wrapping JetPCL, this converter is in charge of text, PCL and by design all other formats with conversions based on
the printing mechanism. You can launch Pcltotif manually and generate a TIFF file in a similar way as vfx -o. This can
point out if the problem is in the converter itself or in the way the server handles it.
> pcltotif -o output.tif input.file
Additionally here is a list of options you can use to alter the output based on your input file. These flags are normally
set by VSI-FAX according to the information provided on the job via tags and/or data in user profile. You can use
them to reproduce problems linked to particular options (such as Landscape for example).
Option Description
-h on|off include VSI tags in header
-E std|fine specify resolution
-o outfile specify output file (use "-o -" for stdout)
-l length page length (letter, legal, a4)
-p range specify page range
-s scan for embedded keywords
-O landscape specify landscape mode
-e pre-process epson file to PCL
-D lvl debug level
-K keep temp PCl file
-T keep temp TIF file
-Z[no]keywords specify if scan for keywords is active.
Note that VSI-FAX integration with JetPCL is done at a lower level than with Ghostscript and this makes any upgrade
impossible without rebuilding the converter itself. So if you isolate a problem within pcltotif, it will likely require Esker
Technical Staff and R&D involvement.
Tip
Versions 5.1 and on include a wrapping feature for text documents in order to avoid unwanted cut text and to
comply with Outlook client display. However in some cases, this wrapping may be applied to files that you do not
want to wrap. This is likely to happen with PCL files being submitted with unspecific extensions (file.tmp for
example) or redirected on the Standard Input (cat file.pcl | vfx). In these configurations, the server could
be unable to recognize the file as a PCL and treat it as text hence forcing wrapping. The solution in this case is to
slightly alter the way the document is submitted in order to ensure the PCL format is recognized: either by
changing the extension (file.tmp tofile.pcl) or by adding the file type tag (ftp) to declare the input file is pcl
regardless of its extension or by referring to the file within vfx command (cat file.pcl | vfx becomes vfx
file.pcl).