(How) can I set an offset when converting PDF to PCL with Ghostscript?

Question

I need to shift the whole page content of a PDF a certain distance down and to the left when converting it to PCL.

I've already found how to do it with PDF to PDF:

• How can I shift page images in PDF files more to the left or to the right?

Is there somehing similar for the PCL conversion?

Now I convert with the following command:

    gswin32c.exe \
      -q \
      -dNOPAUSE \
      -dBATCH \
      -sDEVICE=pxlmono \
      -dDuplex=false \
      -dTumble=false \
      -sPAPERSIZE=a4 \
      -dMediaPosition=4 \
      -sOutputFile="d:\out.pcl" \
      -f"d:\in.pdf" \
      -c \
      -quit

Is there a possibility to do it directly or do I need to shift the content in a PDF to PDF conversion first (like in the linked question) and then convert it to pcl in a second conversion step?

Answer 1

I don't think it would work with the direct conversion of PDF => PCL.

You should do it in 2 steps, then it works:

1. first shift the contents on the PDF pages,
2. convert the PDF with the shifted pages to PCL.

First command:

gs                  \
  -sDEVICE=pdfwrite \
  -o pdf-shifted-by-1-inch-to-left-2-inches-to-top.pdf \
  -g8420x5950       \
  -c "<</PageOffset [-72 144]>> setpagedevice" \
  -f input.pdf

Second command:

gs                  \
  -sDEVICE=pxlmono  \
  -o pcl-output.pcl \
  -sPAPERSIZE=a4    \
   pdf-shifted-by-1-inch-to-left-2-inches-to-top.pdf