The gvu program provides an X11 user interface for the ghostscript interpreter. gvu and ghostscript function as two cooperating programs. gvu creates the viewing window and ghostscript draws in it.

Don't be alarmed by the number of options. Generally, one invokes gvu with just one parameter, the name of the file to be previewed. If the filename is ``-'', gvu will read from ``stdin''. The options provide a way to set X resources from the command line for a single invocation of gvu. For that reason, discussion of the options is delayed until after the X resources are discussed.