Postscript files can be displayed onscreen using the ghostview program. Newer versions of ghostview also read pdf files. This utility program is available on most UNIX/LINUX platforms and can be started simply by typing either ghostview, ggv, or gv. In some cases, however, the short hand gv is used for other purposes already such as starting GaussView, a program for the visualization of molecular structures.

In case ghostview starts successfully, a new window appears together with a menu containing the following buttons:

File
controls file related operations. The Open option leads to a popup window for file selection, the Quit option exits the program.

Page
offers some display-related options such as Next (which displays the next page in the file) or Previous (which displays the previous page in the file). Redisplay reloads the whole file and shows the first page.

Magstep
defines the magnification of the text (as well as the default window size). In some versions of the program, the button is labeled with the currently selected scale factor (e.g. 1.000).

Orientation
controls the on-screen orientation of the currently displayed page, for example in Portrait or Landscape orientation.

Media or BBox
defines the paper size of the document (e.g. B5, A4, A5 . . )