Removal of old PostScript-based PDF interpreter from GhostScript 10.01.0

[rfdonnelly]

Hello again. Question: the release notes for GhostScript 10.00.0 state that the old PostScript-based PDF interpreter that dvisvgm depends on will be removed from GhostScript in the next release, 10.01.0 scheduled for 2023 Q2. My understanding is that dvisvgm depends on GhostScript for both PDF processing and DVI processing. I'm assuming this change coming to GhostScript will only negatively affect dvisvgm PDF processing and that the dvisvgm DVI processing will be unaffected. Is this correct?

[mgieseki]

Yes, that's almost right. Ghostscript is used to process PostScript and PDF fragments embedded into the DVI file by TeX's \special statement. All DVI files without any PDF sections as well as EPS files are not affected by the changes coming with GS 10.1 and can (hopefully) be converted as before.
To keep the PDF functionality alive, dvisvgm 3 comes with a new, alternative PDF handler based on mutool. You can find a bit more about that here.

[rfdonnelly]

Interesting. I wasn't aware that PDF fragments could be embedded in DVI. Thank you for the explanation.