What is PostScript?

PostScript is a page description language (PDL) developed by Adobe. In essence, it is a programming language for describing how a page is to be printed or displayed. Examples of other PDLs include Envoy, PDF, and PCL. PostScript consists of functions for describing and positioning lines, shapes, fills, and other graphical elements, and for placing and formatting text.

Since PostScript describes the nature of a file's contents rather than just specifying how they look, PostScript content can be scaled effectively to any size. For example, a postcard-sized PostScript file could be expanded to the size of a billboard without any loss in quality.

PostScript files often have the file extension .ps or .eps.

For further information about PostScript, see Adobe's product page for PostScript or search Adobe's web site.

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