DVI2PS

Section: Misc. Reference Manual Pages (1L)
Index Return to Main Contents

NAME

dvi2ps - convert a DVI file to PostScript

SYNOPSIS

dvi2ps [ -p ] [ -s ] [ -r ] [ -a pxldir ] [-f n] [-t n] [-m n] dvifile[.dvi]

DESCRIPTION

This program converts a DVI file to PostScript, and writes the result to standard output. The result requires a small amount of PostScript source to precede it to the printer, before it can be successfully printed.

ARGUMENTS

-p: - do not preload font information. Occasionally there may be insufficent memory to hold the information about all of the fonts in the system. Portions of the document may be converted by including the -p option on the command line. This will prevent the preloading of all fonts into the system and instead use demand loading of the font tables.
-s: - turn on printing of statistics. Some versions of dvi2ps will optionally print statistics about font usage and some other information that is generally only interesting to developers. On these systems, -s turns on the statistics printing.
-r: - stack pages in reverse order. Normally, the DVI pages are processed in reverse order, with the result that they are stacked in the correct order in the output tray. This option reverses that.
-a pxldir: - specify different area for PXL files. Specifying ``-a pxldir'' causes directory pxldir'' to be searched for all PXL files, instead of the default directory.
-f n: Specify a starting page number (this is a TeX page number, ount0).
-t n: Specify an ending page number.
-m[0h1234]: Specify a magstep to use to print the document. This overrides whatever might be in the DVI file.
-m n: Specify a magnification to use to print the document. This should probably be one of the magic numbers 1000, 1095, 1200, 1440, 1728, but no checking is done. Note: if your site does not have the complete set of 300 dpi fonts, this option might be disabled.

NOTES

TeX output (.dvi files) can be printed directly to most printers using the standard lpr(1) interface, with the -d option to inform it that you are printing a .dvi file. Dvi2ps is the converter used for PostScript printers internally by the line printer daemon, so it (along with the prologue file) must be installed on the host which spools for the printer.

Not all fonts are available in the resolution needed to display on the laser printer; when a missing font is encountered, dvi2ps will continue to process your dvi file, and and will log a warning message. Gaps will appear in the document where the missing characters should have been.

It can take up to 60 seconds for the first page to be output. After a head of steam has been built up, it can roll along at 5-10 seconds per page.

PostScript and TranScript are trademarks of Adobe Systems, Inc.

FILES

*.dvi: TeX DeVice Independent output file
/usr/local/fonts/pixel: TeX default font rasters directory
/usr/local/lib/ps/psdvi.pro: PostScript header for the converted code.

BUGS

Probably too numerous to mention.

There is likely a limit to the size of documents that can be printed (at least, on the Apple LaserWriter). If you get VMerrors reported when printing, use the `-f' and `-t' options, to select a range of pages. The exact limit is unknown, but is probably well in excess of 50 pages for ``normal'' documents, decreasing with number of different fonts used, size of fonts, etc.

AUTHOR(s)

Mark Senn wrote the early versions of this program for the BBN BitGraph. Stephan Bechtolsheim, Bob Brown, Richard Furuta, James Schaad and Robert Wells improved it. Norm Hutchinson ported the program to the Sun. Neal Holtz ported it to the Apollo, and then to produce PostScript. Local modifications were done by Van Jacobson of Lawerence Berkeley Laboratory.

This document was created by man2html, using the manual pages.
Time: 22:48:51 GMT, December 11, 2024