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Scribus - setting gs location

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gpittman
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Scribus - setting gs location

I have installed Scribusng on a network drive, and the program works fine (Win XP and Win 7).

However, I have been unable to get the location for ghostscript to be remembered. Each time I start Scribus, it tells me that gs is not installed.

Inside the My Documents folder (network drive space), I have one named ScribusNg (or whatever the installer named it).
After failing with the old gs (8.70), I installed gs 9.14 in a gs directory inside ScribusNg.

Then I specify the location for gs in Scribus Preferences as usual.
I've done this several times to no avail.

John T. Haller
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Automatic

First, I'm assuming you mean Scribus Portable as we don't have a supported version of NG available (there is a dev test in the forums and if your issue is with that, please post in that thread).

Ghostscript is set automatically and must be in a specific location. So, if you have Scribus Portable installed to X:\PathTo\ScribusPortable, you must install Ghostscript Portable to X:\PathTo\CommonFiles\Ghostscript.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

Gord Caswell
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Advanced use

Greg,

As John's indicated, Scribus Portable, and the 1.4.4 SVN package I've posted for testing the X-1a features (and assume you're referring to), will automatically pickup Ghostscript located in a CommonFiles setup as above (specifically gswin32c.exe or gswin64c.exe, depending on architecture).

Also, the following is another method you can use, which is supported by Scribus Portable: set the GS_PROG environment variable to the location of the applicable exe as above. However, note that PortableApps.com is unable to support installs of Ghostscript that are not made using our package thereof, nor to non-standard portable locations.

[EDIT] For reference: the reason you're unable to set the location for GS within Scribus and have it remembered is that we have the portable wrapper auto-setting that specific setting every launch, as the path may change from launch to launch, particularly when changing from win32 to win32 x6 and back.

Gord Caswell
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Followup test

Sorry for the additional post.

I just tested on my local "My Documents" folder (unfortunately I don't have access to a network drive at the moment) and have been able to confirm that using either method above, Scribus Portable (including the SVN test) picks up Ghostscript no problem.

Additionally, as Ghostscript Portable is simply a "normal" Ghostscript install packaged to work with the rest of our apps, you could also point to an installed copy elsewhere on your system using GS_PROG, and would have no issues getting it picked up.

gpittman
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still not getting it

There is no such thing as CommonFiles.

Inside my network drive folder, I have a Scribus-ngPortable folder.

Inside that is the EXE file, and also an App folder, a Data folder, an Other folder.

Inside App:
AppInfo folder
DefaultData folder
Scribus folder

Inside Data:
Scribus folder
settings folder
Temp folder

Inside Other:
Help folder
Source folder

Ghostscript installs inside a folder named gs9.14. I tried renaming that to Ghostscript, tried moving it around in this file/folder structure, but still no ghostscript is found or remembered.

I did not install a PortableApp ghostscript, since this makes no sense. ghostscript installs in its own directory with all of its needs inside on the network drive.

Greg Pittman

Gord Caswell
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separate

CommonFiles is separate from Scribus (or any other app) portable. As such, manipulating Ghotsscript's location within the app won't accomplish anything.

In your case, I recommend setting the environment variable GS_PROG. Here's how: http://www.werockyourweb.com/install-ghostscript-windows-and-gimp

Yes, that link mentions Gimp, but the instructions apply.

[EDIT] Fixed spelling errors. Yay for writing quickly on a phone!

gpittman
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hmmm

I'll give this a try when I get a chance, but the basic issue is that I can't write to the harddrive, so how will I set system variables?

Secondly, it sounds like I'll need to do this on every system I use (20, 30, more?).

Greg Pittman

Gord Caswell
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try this

In that case, try this:

X == Network drive

Rename/move gs9.14 as follows:

X:\
X:\Scribus-ngPortable
X:\CommonFiles\Ghostscript

gpittman
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so far so good

I've logged in to my office desktop from home, made a CommonFiles folder on the network drive, and so far it seems to work, with Preferences showing the path to gs.

The acid test will be when I get a chance to try it with one of the Win7 computers (my office has XP still).

Greg Pittman

gpittman
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Success!!

You're a genius, Gord!

Greg Pittman

Gord Caswell
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:)

Glad it worked for you.

As a side note, the package of Ghostscript we have available here includes both 32 and 64 bit versions, whereas Ghostscript.com provides them as separate packages.

This is beneficial if the computers you're using have different architectures.

briddle
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Setting GS location

Same problem here.
I have my portableapps divided into 3 groups (each with a PortableApps folder) for backup purposes.
CommonFiles is only in 1 PortableApps folder.
ScribusPortable is installed in a different group.
Alongside ScribusPortable.exe I created ScribusPortable.exe.bat;

set GS_PROG=C:\Portable3\PortableApps\CommonFiles\Ghostscript\bin\gswin64c.exe

ScribusPortable.exe

When you run the .bat file, ScribusPortable finds ghostscript fine.
Some more work to set the drive letter would be useful to increase the portability, but I'm just testing Scribus currently.

Bruce

b riddle

Gord Caswell
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Not designed for it

Scribus Portable is designed to work best with the PortableApps.com Platform.

We do not support using a Ghostscript setup other than Ghostscript Portable.

This is not to say you can't use an alternate setup, such as the one you're using, just that we won't provide support when doing so.

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