Cutting the inner part of a PS file with Ghostscript & converting the output to PDF.

[Evgenij V. Chikunov]

I have looked through the apropriate newsgroups & was curious if I'm
the only
one who have the need for the following.

I have a large set of PS files made for a publishing house. That is,
we were
publishing a book and the PS files have many now not needed marks on
margins.
We want to quickly convert them into PDF files, but w/o those marks.

The valid area of the documents is within BBox 43.5 64.5 525.75 717
and all
the useless marks are outside. I tried to cut the outer area with
Ghostscript's
ps2pdf batch files, specifying all possible parameters I have found
and all
I have accomplished so far is conversion to PDF & cut of the right &
top part
of useless info on pages. I need now a way to cut the bottom & left
parts.

I have noticed that there are several mentions of possibilities to
position
BBox by GS commands, to position start of the document pages
coordinate system,
to rotate document by deliberately selecting wrong orientation of
pages and so
on, but all these options either do not work in my GS6.01 or just
mentioned
w/o any trace of how to invoke them.

For sample, my 
-dORIENT1=true 
or
-dORIENT1=false 
settings just seem to be ignored by Ghostscript6.01 and page
orientation gets
changed from landscape (in PS files) to portrait in resulting PDFs if
&
only if I specify 
-dFIXEDMEDIA
switch, which dont seem to be connected to it and regardless of other
switches.
(but the PAPERSIZE parameter must represent a portrait type or left
blank to
use the default one)

In Use.html it is mentioned that

...Note that the initialization file gs_init.ps makes systemdict
read-only, so the values of names defined with -D, -d, -S, and -s
cannot be changed -- although, of course, they can be superseded by
definitions in userdict or other dictionaries. However, device
parameters set this way (PageSize, Margins, etc.) are not read-only,
and can be changed by code in PostScript files. ...

But there is no way for me to get how I can change these values,
namely, PageSize & Margins from command line or elseway, for I tried
all that
came to my imagination, searched entire GS directories & tried to
change
the apropriate fields in every file I found to contain "PageSize" or
"Margins".

Neither can I get what they meant by the following - 

*exerpt from file align.ps in lib directory*
For correct alignment of pages, put the following line
in a file named (for example) margins.ps, and then mention
margins.ps on the gs command line when printing any of your
own files:

    <<  /.HWMargins [ml mb mr mt] /Margins [x y]  >>  setpagedevice
*end exerpt*

What do they mean by 'mention file on command line'? It sound for me
much like
'just say the program to work the right way', but I tried all the ways
of 'mentioning' the file I created in the command line & it led me
nowhere.

The other way suggested somewhere out there was to put
"number" "number" translate
in the beginning of PS file or in GS command line. I tried both in
several
ways & failed to see any good out of it.

Perharps I've missed something but I spent 2 weeks now on this task &
it looks like I cant solve this on my own. I have not found helps on
GS I didnt looked
through. I'd greatly apreciate if you point me on the correct syntax
of a
GS command that can help me with it or suggest any other program that
can
perform the same thing of cutting bottom-left part of an PDF or PS
document.

Auxilary question - can GS cut several pages out of PS file directly?
Now to have some pages in separate file I have to create PDF file from
PS & cut them into another PDF file using
-dFirstPage=pagenumber 
-dLastPage=pagenumber
switches. The options that create multiple one-page files by selecting
Outputfile as XYZ%02d.ABC/XYZ%%02d.ABC or alike simply produce one
file with all pages, named XYZ01.ABC or smth like. The same thing
happens if I use
First/LastPage with PS file itself.
Sounds like a bug.

I have tested all of the following on GNU GS6.01 & going now to do the
same with
GS7.00, but I suppose the things will go the same since I didnt found
much
differences in their documentation files.

Thanks for your help beforehand & sorry that this gone too long - I'm
rathe new
with this newsgroups thing yet.

Evgenij