PostScript is a page description language produced by Adobe Systems Inc. since the early 1980’s. Adobe was formed in 1982 by Dr. John E. Warnock and Dr. Charles M. Geschke. It provides a verbose language of instructions to describe a page of information. While it requires more memory to work with than most page description languages, it was the first widely available product that allowed for control over a large number of fonts and graphical objects.

The first version published in 1985 (the old Red Book) is called Level I, the current implementation (the big Red Book) is called Level II (do not mix these levels with the PostScript version a printer supports, e.g. version 47.0 or version 2011.110, nor with the number in the begin line of any PostScript output like “%!PS-Adobe-3.0”). The PostScript level and to an extent the version of the interpreter too, define the possible operations. For more information see the Red and White Book.

There are several PostScript clones around because of the costly licensing fees for Adobe’s interpreter, the best-known surely is GhostScript. Others, built directly into laser printers or addable via cartridges, are Phoenix Page, Brotherscript, Page Styler, True Image, Turbo PS, PDL and KPDL. Naturally they all claim to be 100% PostScript compatible, but this compatibility sometimes ends when it comes to font downloading, font manipulation like adding a metric table or adding new characters, or some other operations. The printing of simple text and graphics is usually no problem with these clones.

Adobe
	PostScript Language Reference Manual (3rd Edition) Covers PostScript Level III. PostScript® Language Reference provides an overview of how to use the PostScript interpreter and understand the ideal structure of PostScript page descriptions. The book covers the heart of the language, including syntax, data types and objects, stacks, execution, basic operators, memory management, file input/output (I/O), functions, errors, and filtered-files and binary-encoding details. Subsequent chapters cover graphics, fonts, device control, rendering, and operators. The appendices include a LanguageLevel feature summary, implementation limits, interpreter parameters, compatibility issues, character sets, encoding vectors, system-name encodings, and operator-usage guidelines. There’s also a bibliography with additional reading recommendations. ISBN 0-201-37922-8
	PostScript Language Reference Manual (2rd Edition) Covers PostScript Level II, document structuring conventions and many more. PostScript® Language Reference provides an overview of how to use the PostScript interpreter and understand the ideal structure of PostScript page descriptions. The book covers the heart of the language, including syntax, data types and objects, stacks, execution, basic operators, memory management, file input/output (I/O), functions, errors, and filtered-files and binary-encoding details. Subsequent chapters cover graphics, fonts, device control, rendering, and operators. The appendices include a LanguageLevel feature summary, implementation limits, interpreter parameters, compatibility issues, character sets, encoding vectors, system-name encodings, and operator-usage guidelines. There’s also a bibliography with additional reading recommendations. ISBN 0-201-18127-4
	PostScript Language Reference Manual Covers PostScript Level I. ISBN 0-201-10174-2
	PostScript Language Tutorial and Cookbook Contains annotated examples and short programs. Using numerous annotated examples and short programs, the tutorial provides a step-by-step guided tour of PostScript, highlighting those qualities that make it such a unique and powerful language. The cookbook offers a collection of some of the most useful techniques and procedures available to PostScript programmers. ISBN 0-201-10179-3
	PostScript Language Program Design A guide for the design of efficient PostScript programs. ISBN 0-201-14396-8
	Adobe Type 1 Font Format Describes the format for Adobe Type 1 fonts in detail. ISBN 0-201-57044-0
Other
	Postscript and Acrobat/Pdf Bible Applications, Troubleshooting and Cross-Platform Publishing ISBN 3540655344

• Artifex Software Inc The exclusive commercial licenser and supporter of Ghostscript Technologies.
• QualityLogic Printer/MFP Test Tools and Services

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