Creating a Ghostscript PDF Printer

Introduction

Each time you print to the Ghostscript PDF Printer, it creates a new PDF file in the designated target folder. Other PDF drivers pop a dialog asking you to name the PDF file, but Ghostscript PDF constructs the target filename for itself automatically.

Prerequisites

• gs921w64.exe or gs921w32.exe downloaded from https://www.ghostscript.com/download/gsdnld.html
• mfilemon-setup.exe downloaded from https://sourceforge.net/projects/mfilemon/

Note: If you download a ghostscript version later than 9.21 that's fine - but you need to know what version it is to be able to set up mfilemon properly.

Installation Steps

1. Install ghostscript - Running as Administrator, install ghostscript by running the exe. This creates folder whose name incorporates the version number, e.g. C:\Program Files\gs\gs9.21
2. Install mfilemon - Run the mfilemon-setup.exe installer.
3. Install the GhostscriptPDF printer and connect it to a port instance of the Multi File Port Monitor.
   1. From the Control Panel, open the Devices and Printers window and click Add a printer.
   2. Click The printer that I want isn't listed.
      
   3. Select the Add a local printer or network printer with manual settings radiobutton and click [ Next ]:
      
   4. Select the Create a new port radio button and choose Multi File Port Monitor from the drop down. Click [ Next ]:
      
   5. A small dialog will appear asking you to give a name to the new instance of the Multi File Port Monitor. Give the new port the name MFP1: and dismiss the dialog with [ OK ]:
      
   6. The larger MFILEMON port configuration dialog will appear, and all its fields will be blank. Fill the fields using this screenshot as a guide:
      
      Output path should be an existing writable folder- we use C:\Temp\pdf
      Filename pattern file%i.pdf - the created pdfs will have names file0001.pdf, file0002.pdf, etc.
      User command "C:\Program Files\gs\gs9.21\bin\gswin64c.exe" -dBATCH -dSAFER -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dPDFSETTINGS=/prepress -dAutoRotatePages=/PageByPage -r600 -sOutputFile="%f" -  Note how the version number 9.21 appears in the executable file path. Note also that the command ends with an important  trailing hyphen. 
      Use pipe - on Windows 7 and 8 check this - on Win 10 leave it unchecked.
      Leave the other fields at their default settings.
      Click [ OK ]
   7. The Add Printer dialog will reappear again. Click [ Have Disk... ]
      
   8. The Install From Disk dialog appears - Click [ Browse ], navigate to C:\Program Files\gs\gs9.21\lib and select ghostpdf.inf
      
      Note: Earlier versions of the ghostscript driver were not accompanied by a signed cat file, so the Add Printer wizard would warn that the driver was unsigned. This problem is fixed at ghostscript 9.21 and later.
   9. You should be able to click through all the other panels in the Add Printer Wizard. 
   10. Try a printer Test Page and then check to see that a pdf file has been created in your designated folder.