Viewing Postscript and PDF Files on Ada

06-Feb-2007

Introduction

If you have a PostScript or PDF file on ada.rice.edu that you need to view from your Linux or Unix desktop, you must login to Ada using SSH with X11 forwarding enabled and use a special version of Ghostscript. Instructions are provided below.

Enable X11 Forwarding

Login to ada.rice.edu using SSH with X11 forwarding enabled. This will allow graphical applications to run on one of the login nodes on ada.rice.edu while displaying the results on your Linux or Unix desktop.


adauser@adahost:~> ssh -X ada.rice.edu

Invoke Ghostscript

Once you have logged in with X11 forwarding, run Ghostscript with the gs_x11 command to view your PDF or PostScript file.

adauser@adahost:~> gs_x11 doc.ps

At this point Ghostscript should be running on one of the login nodes of Ada with the graphical output being displayed on your Linux or Unix desktop.