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I'm trying to compress pdf files using ghostscript like this:

gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dPDFSETTINGS=/ebook -dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH  -sOutputfile=output.pdf input.pdf

I've done this successfully in the past, but for some reason now it won't work. I get the following error:

GPL Ghostscript 9.15 (2014-09-22)
Copyright (C) 2014 Artifex Software, Inc.  All rights reserved.
This software comes with NO WARRANTY: see the file PUBLIC for details.
**** Unable to open the initial device, quitting.
Unrecoverable error: undefinedfilename in setpagedevice
Operand stack:
    true  --nostringval--  --nostringval--  --nostringval--  --nostringval--  --nostringval--  --nostringval--  --nostringval--  --nostringval--

[Edit: I fixed the typo from -SOutputFile to -sOutputFile to avoid this red herring. (But that is what some of the comments/answers are referring to.)]

emacsomancer
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    -SOutputFile is incorrect, it should be -sOutputFile. Because you haven't specified an output file, you get an undefinedfilename. Not too surprising :-) I strongly recommend that you don't use -dPDFSETTINGS but instead set the switches you want individually. – KenS Dec 13 '14 at 12:31
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    Sorry for the typo. Unfortunately, even with the correct syntax (-sOutputFile) I still get exactly the same error. – emacsomancer Dec 13 '14 at 16:23

2 Answers2

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This worked for me...

gs \
   -sDEVICE=pdfwrite \
   -dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 \
   -dPDFSETTINGS=/printer \
   -dNOPAUSE \
   -dQUIET \
   -dBATCH \
   -sOutputFile=output.pdf \
    input.pdf

Edited by -kp-

To spell it out explicitly (and to re-iterate what KenS wrote in his comment):

  1. -SOutputFile=... does NOT work
  2. -sOutputFile=... is the correct syntax. (Ghostscript command line parameters are case sensitive!)

Also, with recent versions of Ghostscript, you can now use -o output.pdf instead of the long version. -o ... also automatically and implicitely sets the -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE parameters. So the shortest way to write this command is:

gs                          \
   -sDEVICE=pdfwrite        \
   -dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 \
   -dPDFSETTINGS=/printer   \
   -q                       \
   -o output.pdf            \
    input.pdf
Kurt Pfeifle
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Spock
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    Sorry for the typo. Unfortunately, even with the correct syntax (-sOutputFile) I still get exactly the same error. – emacsomancer Dec 13 '14 at 16:23
  • Though when I use the example at the end of your post (with the appropriate file names, of course), it works. Perhaps in the latest versions of `gs` `-sOutputFile` no longer works? – emacsomancer Dec 13 '14 at 16:27
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    No, OutputFile continues to work perfectly well. Try removing the PDFSETTINGS and CompatibilityLevel. In short, try to reduce the scope of the problem until you discover what it is that provokes the error. It sounds like you are getting the error due to using ebook. If so then instead set the configuration the same as the predefined settings, and then remove them one by one until you see the problem. – KenS Dec 13 '14 at 19:19
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    @KenS I've tried removing various other bits, but nothing works as long as I have `-sOutputFile=output.pdf`. As soon as I switch to `-o output.pdf`, it works. – emacsomancer Dec 13 '14 at 22:40
  • Well I *know* that works, I use it here all the time. I see you are on Linux, did you get the binaries from a distribution, or build them yourself ? – KenS Dec 14 '14 at 09:07
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    @KenS - from a distribution. I'll have to play with it some more sometime to see what my issue is with `-sOutputFile`. – emacsomancer Dec 15 '14 at 03:07
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    I'd have to say it sound like the distribution has broken Ghostscript somehow (several distros make changes to Ghostscript when packaging it). Your best bet is probably to download the source and build it yourself. You might also report the problem as a bug to the distribution involved. All I cna tell you is that (built from source) -sOutputFile works well for me on Linux. – KenS Dec 15 '14 at 08:06
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It could be that you have simply mixed up your input and output filenames. I have done that before and got the same message. It's easy to do, since the output file command comes before the input file.

Delyle
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