The Datafile PD-CD 5/DATAFILE_PDCD5.iso/utilities/t/tex/!dvips/!ReadMe

Text File | 1995-01-20 | 9.9 KB | 334 lines

                           ——————
                           !dvips
                           ——————

                    (dvips 5.55) [Arc1.1]


0 Contents
——————————

 1 Simple use
     1.1 Use with the DDE
     1.2 Use with !DaTeX
     1.3 Use with the CLI only
     1.4 NOTE: Automatic creation of font files
     1.5 Getting hard copy
     1.6 If you don't have the DDE modules
 2 Documentation
 3 Differences from dvips in a Unix environment
 4 The unreasonably large wimpslot
     4.1 Running in less memory
     4.2 MakePKs - creating all your PK fonts files
 5 The TeX macro files psfig.tex and psfig.sty
 6 Copyright
 7 Warranty
 8 Bugs
 9 To-Dos
10 Problems of the insurmountable kind




1 Simple use
————————————

This is a port of dvips 5.55.  Using it should hopefully be
simplicity itself.


1.1 Use with the DDE
————————————————————

Run !dvips after !TeX and !TeXFonts have been seen by the filer.
Now take your dvi file say, doc.dvi, and drop it, or the directory
in which it is contained (ie. doc), on to the dvips icon.  This
should result in a PostScript file, doc.ps in this case, being
produced.


1.2 Use with !DaTeX
———————————————————

Make sure that you have shown the filer !dvips, !TeX, and
!TeXFonts before the first print request after loading !DaTeX.
The minimium setting for the amount of allocated memory is
960K———see §3.2.5 of the file `!DaTeX.!Help'——— (although see §4
below).


1.3 Use with the CLI only
—————————————————————————

Make sure that you have shown the filer !dvips, !TeX and !TeXFonts
to set up the necessary environment varibles.  To run dvips on a
dvi file, say doc.dvi, type,

   dvips doc.dvi

or just

   dvips doc

while ensuring that you have a wimpslot of at least 960K (although
see §4 below). This should produce a PostScript file, doc.ps in
this case.


1.4 NOTE: Automatic creation of font files
——————————————————————————————————————————

dvips will attempt to make any font files that it can not find.
If your distibution of armTeX didn't come with any PK font files,
or if you have removed them from your hard disc to free up some
space, processing your first set of dvi files may take some time.
Each time a file is found to be missing METAFONT is called on to
produce it, and it is placed  in a cache directory
(!dvips.Fonts.Cache).  After a while this will contain all the
fonts you regularly use, and making fonts will become a rarer and
rarer occurance.  From time to time, or when the directory becomes
full, you can move the PK files into their correct places in the
directory/ies where your fonts are normally kept (probably within
!TeXFonts).


1.5 Getting hard copy
—————————————————————

The resulting PostScript file can then be printed by dropping on
to !Printers.


1.6 If you don't have the DDE modules
—————————————————————————————————————

I have seen comment that people providing DDE based interfaces for
command line based programs———!dvips being cited here———are just
being lazy in not providing a `proper' wimp interface.  If you
don't have the DDE modules (and even if you do) you should take a
look at David Arnold's !DaTeX, or Dick Alstein's !SemTeX.  Both
provide a competent, and _integrated_ wimp interface to all things
TeX related (although at present !DaTeX has more `nobs').  I see
no reason to duplicate work.  Both !DaTeX and !SemTeX are available
from Hensa.




2 Documentation
———————————————

Documentation can be found in !dvips.Documents.  A very thorough
desciption of dvips can be found in the file dvips.tex, written by
the program's author.  The file test.tex provides a suitable
simple test to ensure that dvips is working roughly as it should
be.  Also in the Documents directory are two processed man pages:
One for dvips and one for afm2tfm———an auxilary program for use
with dvips.




3 Differences from dvips in a Unix environment
——————————————————————————————————————————————

Hopefully the only ways in which dvips differs from the descption
given in dvips.tex relate to the changes I've made to make it sit
better under RISC OS.

Mark Sinke's armTeX takes as a convention that any default paths
are completely replaced by environment varibles, !dvips adheres to
this, and also has the same default paths as armTeX.  Note,
however, that paths given in config files will be added to the
head of the list of paths so far.  !dvips also has the armTeX
concept of a `current selected directory.'  That is if !dvips is
presented with a file with an absolute path it will take the
grandparent directory of the file to be the CSD.  I.e. the file,

   ADFS::IDEDisc4.$.MyFiles.Docs.Fruit.tex

will result in

   ADFS::IDEDisc4.$.MyFiles.Docs

being taken as the CSD.  This means that you should put all files
to be included into the TeX file that don't thave absolute path
names, relative to this.  For example,

\include{banana.tex}
\epsffile{grape.ps}

will look for the files,

   ADFS::IDEDisc4.$.MyFiles.Docs.banana.tex
   ADFS::IDEDisc4.$.MyFiles.Docs.grape.ps

respectively, regardless of the true CSD.  Any path name that
doesn't change with a change in your true CSD is considered to
constitute the use of an abosulte path, so &.apple.tex etc. count.

Any references to ~ the Unix home directory should be taken to
refer to the URD, &, and .dvips to !dvips.




4 The unreasonably large wimpslot
—————————————————————————————————

As !dvips for the DDE stands, running dvips takes a wimpslot of
960K.  Such a slot is only necessary if you are going to allow the
automatic generation of missing PK font files from within dvips.
To generate the missing files, dvips calls on METAFONT to make
them.  As this must also run in the same slot, a pretty big one is
needed.  If you ever set it too small dvips will inform you and not
call METAFONT.


4.1 Running in less memory
——————————————————————————

If you are lucky enough to have enough secondary store to hold all
the PK files that you're ever going to need, or if you always
disable the automatic generation with the -M option, then a much
smaller initial wimpslot of 128K will surfice.


4.2 MakePKs - creating all your fonts files
———————————————————————————————————————————

If you have a large hard disc you may want to create all the PK
font files you are every likely to need and store them away on
disc.  The program MakePKs knows about a large number of commonly
used fonts and the various sizes at which they are commonly
needed.

You run MakePKs from the command line giving it as an arguement
the number of dots per inch of the printer you want the fonts
creating for.  MakePKs will then look at each METAFONT file you
have, and if you are missing a common PK file that is made from
the METAFONT file, it will preceed to request METAFONT to make it.
That is unless it's already in the dvips chache directory, in
which case it just moves it to its rightful place.  As an example
you might use,

   MakePKs 600

to fill in the missing common PK files for use with a 600 dpi
printer.

WARNING: if you are missing a lot of fonts MakePKs will take quite
some time.  If you want to carry on using your computer using a
TaskWindow is a good idea.




5 The TeX macro files psfig.tex and psfig.sty
—————————————————————————————————————————————

The macro files psfig.tex and psfig.sty are not part of the
original dvips 5.55 distibution.  They are by Trevor J. Darrell
and hence have a seperate copyright, which can be found at the
head of the files.  I have included them as they are my preferd
way to get PostScript files into (La)TeX documents.  Unlike
epsf.tex/sty which just looks for a bounding box in a PostScript
files head, psfig.tex/sty will search from beginning to end for a
bounding.  This is very usefull as the PostScript files produced
by !Printers have their bounding boxes at their ends.  Hence you
do not have to edit the file by hand as suggested by the
documentation in epsf.tex/sty.




6 Copyright
———————————

dvips is copyright by Thomas Rokicki.  The head of the source file
dvips.h states:

  `This is dvips, a freely redistributable PostScript driver
   for dvi files.  It is (C) Copyright 1986-94 by Tomas
   Rokicki. You may modify and use this program to your
   heart's content, so long as you send modifications to
   Tomas Rokicki.

   It can be included in any distribution, commercial or
   otherwise, so long as the banner string defined below is
   not modified (except for the version number) and this
   banner is printed on program invocation, or can be
   printed on program invocation with the -? option.'


If you are going to fiddle futher with this program, and then put
it out into the world, I would like you to make it clear in a
prominent place that it is not my original port that you are
distributing, and that I will not be prepared to deal with any
problems arising with its use.




7 Warranty
——————————

As is normal for such things, I state:

  `I, DAVID BRYAN, PROVIDE ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY OF ANY
   SORT WITH THIS SOFTWARE.  IT IS PROVIDED `AS IS' WITHOUT
   WARRANTY OF ANY KIND EXPRESS OR IMPLIED.  I MAKE NO
   CLAIMS TO THE FITNESS OR MERCHANTABILITY OF THIS SOFTWARE
   FOR ANY PURPOSE. I AM IN NO WAY LIABLE TO YOU, OR ANY
   OTHER PARTY, FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY LOST PROFITS,
   LOST MONIES, OR OTHER SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR
   CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY
   TO USE OF THIS SOFTWARE.'




8 Bugs
——————

I haven't found any that I've introduced to dvips.  Also, there
shouldn't be any problem when used with Robin Watts' distrubtion
of armTeX, now.




9 To-Dos
—————————

At present !dvips does not provide the double dot (..) mechanism
for the searching of paths.  A path prefix ending .. in a search
path will cause it not to be searched at all. Next realease should
include this.  (And might be dvips 5.58+, who knows?)




10 Problems of the insurmountable kind
——————————————————————————————————————

If you come across any insurmountable problem with !dvips then you
can contact me at the addresses below.




E-mail:

  [e-mail]


Snail-mail:

  David Bryan
  Robinson College
  Grange Road
  Cambridge
  CB3 9AN