What is PostScript?

PostScript is a programming language optimized for printing graphics and text (whether on paper, film, or CRT is immaterial). In the jargon of the day, it is a page description language. It was introduced by Adobe in 1985 and first (to my knowledge) appeared in the Apple LaserWriter. The main purpose of PostScript was to provide a convenient language in which to describe images in a device independent manner. This device independence means that the image is described without reference to any specific device features (e.g. printer resolution) so that the same description could be used on any PostScript printer (say, a LaserWriter or a Linotron) without modification. In practice, some PostScript files do make assumptions about the target device (such as its resolution or the number of paper trays it has), but this is bad practice and limits portability.

The language itself, which is typically interpreted, is stack-based in the same manner as an RPN calculator. A program pushes arguments to an operator onto a stack and then invokes the operator. Typically, the operator will have some result which is left at the top of the stack. As an example, let us say we want to multiply 12 and 134. We would use the following PostScript code:

	12 134 mul

The first two words '12' and '134' push the numbers 12 and 134 onto the stack. 'mul' invokes the multiply operator which pops two values off the stack, multiplies them, and then pushes the result back onto the stack. The resulting value can be left there to be used by another operator later in the program.

To follow the conventions used by Adobe in their manuals, I will synopsize operators using the following scheme: arg-1 arg-2 ... operator result. This scheme means that, to use operator, you must push arguments arg-1, arg-2, and so on before invoking the operator. operator will return the result: result. Many operators return no result (they have some side-effect); these will be shown as returning '-'.