Question

Is it possible to get the page size (from e.g. a PDF document page) using GhostScript? I have seen the “bbox” device, but it returns the bounding box (it differs per page), not the TrimBox (or CropBox) of the PDF pages. (See http://www.prepressure.com/pdf/basics/page_boxes for info about page boxes.) Any other possibility?

Answer 1

Meanwhile I found a different method. This one uses Ghostscript only (just as you required). No need for additional third party utilities.

This method uses a little helper program, written in PostScript, shipping with the source code of Ghostscript. Look in the toolbin subdir for the pdf_info.ps file.

The included comments say you should run it like this in order to list fonts used, media sizes used

gswin32c -dNODISPLAY ^
   -q ^
   -sFile=____.pdf ^
   [-dDumpMediaSizes] ^
   [-dDumpFontsUsed [-dShowEmbeddedFonts]] ^
   toolbin/pdf_info.ps

I did run it on a local example file, with commandline parameters that ask for the media sizes only (not the fonts used). Here is the result:

C:\> gswin32c ^
      -dNODISPLAY ^
      -q ^
      -sFile=c:\downloads\_IXUS_850IS_ADVCUG_EN.pdf ^
      -dDumpMediaSizes ^
      C:/gs8.71/lib/pdf_info.ps


  c:\downloads\_IXUS_850IS_ADVCUG_EN.pdf has 146 pages.
  Creator: FrameMaker 6.0
  Producer: Acrobat Distiller 5.0.5 (Windows)
  CreationDate: D:20060817164306Z
  ModDate: D:20060822122024+02'00'

  Page 1 MediaBox: [ 595 842 ] CropBox: [ 419.535 297.644 ]
  Page 2 MediaBox: [ 595 842 ] CropBox: [ 297.646 419.524 ]
  Page 3 MediaBox: [ 595 842 ] CropBox: [ 297.646 419.524 ]
  Page 4 MediaBox: [ 595 842 ] CropBox: [ 297.646 419.524 ]
  [....]