Ghostscript and GSView on Windows 95

Last update: Wed Oct 1 18:07:40 2003               

The Aladdin Enterprises software archive is large and complex, so it is not immediately clear what packages are needed for Microsoft Windows 95 users. Here is a quick guide to getting these packages installed.

This recipe will probably work for Windows 98 and Windows NT as well, but I have not been able to test that conjecture.

1. Check that your system has the unzip utility installed. It is not distributed by Microsoft, so unless you put it on your machine, you don't have it. You can get a copy from http://www.math.utah.edu/pub/ibmpc/unzip.exe or equivalently, ftp://ftp.math.utah.edu/pub/ibmpc/unzip.exe.
2. Make sure that unzip.exe is installed in a directory which is in the system search path: issue the PATH command in an MS-DOS window to find out what the search path is set to.
3. From http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/gsview/ fetch and save this file in a suitable empty directory:

   -rw-r--r--   1 staff     587641 Feb 21 09:58 gsv25w32.zip
   

4. From ftp://ftp.cs.wisc.edu/ghost/aladdin/gs510 fetch and save these files in the same directory:

   -rw-r--r--   1 staff    1170038 Jun 28  1996 gs510fn1.zip
   -rw-r--r--   1 staff    1078003 Jun 28  1996 gs510fn2.zip
   -rw-r--r--   1 staff     824052 Jan  3 10:22 gs510ini.zip
   -rw-r--r--   1 staff     568543 Nov 24  1997 gs510w32.zip
   

5. In an MS-DOS window, connect to the directory containing these files, and then do

           unzip gsv25w32.zip
   

   This will unpack the distribution file into these files:

    469050  Defl:X  468079   0%  02-21-98  10:57  b19d76f0   win32.zip
     58912  Defl:X   27457  53%  02-20-98  21:54  76d9d151   setup.exe
    103968  Defl:X   48631  53%  05-18-96  17:44  ffdc135e   wizunz32.dll
     37920  Defl:X   16253  57%  02-20-98  21:54  ee04d4fc   setp32de.dll
     38432  Defl:X   16182  58%  02-20-98  21:54  eff9cd6e   setp32fr.dll
       124  Defl:X     108  13%  02-21-98  10:57  1f60c761   README32.TXT
     14234  Defl:X    5520  61%  02-20-98  18:36  5f4f98b0   README.TXT
       284  Defl:X     211  26%  02-20-98  18:36  6ad44eae   FILE_ID.DIZ
     10435  Defl:X    4306  59%  07-09-97  16:04  5359c804   LICENCE
   

6. Issue the EXIT command to return from MS-DOS to Windows.
7. Launch the setup.exe program in the directory that you just unpacked the files in, by double clicking on it.
8. You have an opportunity to specify an installation directory, but the default is probably adequate. Complete the installation by clicking on the Next buttons until you get to one named Finish, then select it too. If you didn't change the installation directory, then you now have a top-level c:\gstools directory with gs5.10 and gsview subdirectories. The latter has the ghostview viewer, and it is accessible via the Start -> Programs -> GS Tools menu in the lower-left corner of your Windows desktop.
9. The installation will have unpacked the gs510fn1.zip archive containing the .pfb files, which are the font character outlines. The gs510fn2.zip file contains the .afm files, which are the font metrics. ghostscript and ghostview don't need the .afm files, so setup.exe did not unpack it. However, other programs that use the fonts will, so you should unzip it in the c:\gstools\fonts directory.