Alternatives to Ghostscript

Ghostscript is a versatile tool for viewing, creating, and printing PDF and PostScript files. It offers features like converting PDFs to various formats, extracting text and images, and merging multiple documents. However, one limitation of Ghostscript is its complex command-line interface, which can be overwhelming for beginners.

1. MuPDF: MuPDF is a lightweight PDF and XPS viewer with support for various document formats. It offers fast rendering speeds and efficient memory usage, making it a popular alternative to Ghostscript. However, MuPDF lacks some advanced features present in Ghostscript.
2. Xpdf: Xpdf is an open-source PDF viewer and toolkit that provides command-line tools for viewing, printing, and searching PDF files. It is known for its simple interface and robust performance but may not offer as many features as Ghostscript.
3. PDFtk: PDFtk is a powerful command-line tool for manipulating PDF documents, including merging, splitting, encrypting, and watermarking files. It is easy to use and provides a handy alternative to Ghostscript, especially for batch processing tasks.
4. Poppler: Poppler is a PDF rendering library that powers many popular PDF viewers like Evince and Okular. It offers robust PDF rendering capabilities and supports various document formats, making it a worthy contender to Ghostscript.
5. PDF.js: PDF.js is a JavaScript library for rendering PDF documents in the browser without any plugins. It enables web developers to display and interact with PDF files seamlessly, although it may not offer the same level of functionality as Ghostscript for offline document processing.
6. PDF24 Creator: PDF24 Creator is a feature-rich PDF creation tool that allows users to convert documents to PDF format easily. It provides a user-friendly interface and a wide range of customization options, making it a user-friendly alternative to Ghostscript.
7. Scribus: Scribus is an open-source desktop publishing software that supports creating professional layouts and PDF documents. It offers advanced design features and extensive file format support, making it a suitable replacement for Ghostscript in publishing workflows.
8. Inkscape: Inkscape is a powerful vector graphics editor that also supports editing PDF files. It provides tools for creating and manipulating vector graphics, making it a valuable alternative to Ghostscript for graphic design projects.
9. LibreOffice Draw: LibreOffice Draw is a versatile diagramming and flowcharting tool that includes PDF editing capabilities. It offers a range of features for creating and editing PDFs, making it a useful alternative to Ghostscript for document management tasks.
10. PDFsam: PDFsam (PDF Split and Merge) is a user-friendly tool for splitting, merging, and extracting pages from PDF documents. It simplifies PDF manipulation tasks with its intuitive interface, offering a straightforward alternative to Ghostscript for basic document editing needs.