Computer Science
DVIPS(1) DVIPS(1)
NAME
dvips - convert a TeX DVI file to PostScript
SYNOPSIS
dvips [ options ] file[.dvi]
DESCRIPTION
The program dvips takes a DVI file file[.dvi] produced by
TeX (or by some other processor such as GFtoDVI) and con-
verts it to PostScript, normally sending the result
directly to the (laser)printer. The DVI file may be spec-
ified without the .dvi extension. Fonts used may either
be resident in the printer or defined as bitmaps in PK
files, or a `virtual' combination of both. If the mktexpk
program is installed, dvips will automatically invoke
METAFONT to generate fonts that don't already exist.
For more information, see the Texinfo manual dvips.texi,
which should be installed somewhere on your system, hope-
fully accessible through the standard Info tree.
OPTIONS
-a Conserve memory by making three passes over the
.dvi file instead of two and only loading those
characters actually used. Generally only useful on
machines with a very limited amount of memory, like
some PCs.
-A Print only odd pages (TeX pages, not sequence
pages).
-b num Generate num copies of each page, but duplicating
the page body rather than using the #numcopies
option. This can be useful in conjunction with a
header file setting \bop-hook to do color separa-
tions or other neat tricks.
-B Print only even pages (TeX pages, not sequence
pages).
-c num Generate num copies of every page. Default is 1.
(For collated copies, see the -C option below.)
-C num Create num copies, but collated (by replicating the
data in the PostScript file). Slower than the -c
option, but easier on the hands, and faster than
resubmitting the same PostScript file multiple
times.
-d num Set the debug flags. This is intended only for
emergencies or for unusual fact-finding expedi-
tions; it will work only if dvips has been compiled
with the DEBUG option. If nonzero, prints addi-
tional information on standard output. The number
is taken as a set of independent bits. The meaning
of each bit follows. 1=specials; 2=paths; 4=fonts;
8=pages; 16=headers; 32=font compression; 64=files;
128=memory; 256=Kpathsea stat(2) calls; 512=Kpath-
sea hash table lookups; 1024=Kpathsea path element
expansion; 2048=Kpathsea searches. To trace every-
thing having to do with file searching and opening,
use 3650 (2048 + 1024 + 512 + 64 + 2). To track all
classes, you can use `-1' (output is extremely
voluminous).
-D num Set the resolution in dpi (dots per inch) to num.
This affects the choice of bitmap fonts that are
loaded and also the positioning of letters in resi-
dent PostScript fonts. Must be between 10 and
10000. This affects both the horizontal and verti-
cal resolution. If a high resolution (something
greater than 400 dpi, say) is selected, the -Z flag
should probably also be used.
-e num Make sure that each character is placed at most
this many pixels from its `true' resolution-inde-
pendent position on the page. The default value of
this parameter is resolution dependent. Allowing
individual characters to `drift' from their cor-
rectly rounded positions by a few pixels, while
regaining the true position at the beginning of
each new word, improves the spacing of letters in
words.
-E makes dvips attempt to generate an EPSF file with a
tight bounding box. This only works on one-page
files, and it only looks at marks made by charac-
ters and rules, not by any included graphics. In
addition, it gets the glyph metrics from the tfm
file, so characters that lie outside their enclos-
ing tfm box may confuse it. In addition, the
bounding box might be a bit too loose if the char-
acter glyph has significant left or right side
bearings. Nonetheless, this option works well for
creating small EPSF files for equations or tables
or the like. (Note, of course, that dvips output
is resolution dependent and thus does not make very
good EPSF files, especially if the images are to be
scaled; use these EPSF files with a great deal of
care.)
-f Run as a filter. Read the .dvi file from standard
input and write the PostScript to standard output.
The standard input must be seekable, so it cannot
be a pipe. If you must use a pipe, write a shell
script that copies the pipe output to a temporary
file and then points dvips at this file. This
option also disables the automatic reading of the
PRINTER environment variable, and turns off the
automatic sending of control D if it was turned on
with the -F option or in the configuration file;
use -F after this option if you want both.
-F Causes Control-D (ASCII code 4) to be appended as
the very last character of the PostScript file.
This is useful when dvips is driving the printer
directly instead of working through a spooler, as
is common on extremely small systems. NOTE! DO NOT
USE THIS OPTION!
-h name
Prepend file name as an additional header file.
(However, if the name is simply `-' suppress all
header files from the output.) This header file
gets added to the PostScript userdict.
-i Make each section be a separate file. Under cer-
tain circumstances, dvips will split the document
up into `sections' to be processed independently;
this is most often done for memory reasons. Using
this option tells dvips to place each section into
a separate file; the new file names are created
replacing the suffix of the supplied output file
name by a three-digit sequence number. This option
is most often used in conjunction with the -S
option which sets the maximum section length in
pages. For instance, some phototypesetters cannot
print more than ten or so consecutive pages before
running out of steam; these options can be used to
automatically split a book into ten-page sections,
each to its own file.
-k Print crop marks. This option increases the paper
size (which should be specified, either with a
paper size special or with the -T option) by a half
inch in each dimension. It translates each page by
a quarter inch and draws cross-style crop marks.
It is mostly useful with typesetters that can set
the page size automatically.
-K This option causes comments in included PostScript
graphics, font files, and headers to be removed.
This is sometimes necessary to get around bugs in
spoolers or PostScript post-processing programs.
Specifically, the %%Page comments, when left in,
often cause difficulties. Use of this flag can
cause some included graphics to fail, since the
PostScript header macros from some software pack-
ages read portions of the input stream line by
line, searching for a particular comment. This
option has been turned off by default because
PostScript previewers and spoolers have been get-
ting better.
-l num The last page printed will be the first one num-
bered num Default is the last page in the document.
If the num is prefixed by an equals sign, then it
(and any argument to the -p option) is treated as a
sequence number, rather than a value to compare
with \count0 values. Thus, using -l =9 will end
with the ninth page of the document, no matter what
the pages are actually numbered.
-m Specify manual feed for printer.
-M Turns off the automatic font generation facility.
If any fonts are missing, commands to generate the
fonts are appended to the file missfont.log in the
current directory; this file can then be executed
and deleted to create the missing fonts.
-n num At most num pages will be printed. Default is
100000.
-N Turns off structured comments; this might be neces-
sary on some systems that try to interpret
PostScript comments in weird ways, or on some
PostScript printers. Old versions of TranScript in
particular cannot handle modern Encapsulated
PostScript.
-o name
The output will be sent to file name If no file
name is given, the default name is file.ps where
the .dvi file was called file.dvi; if this option
isn't given, any default in the configuration file
is used. If the first character of the supplied
output file name is an exclamation mark, then the
remainder will be used as an argument to popen;
thus, specifying !lpr as the output file will auto-
matically queue the file for printing. This option
also disables the automatic reading of the PRINTER
environment variable, and turns off the automatic
sending of control D if it was turned on with the
-F option or in the configuration file; use -F
after this option if you want both.
-O offset
Move the origin by a certain amount. The offset is
a comma-separated pair of dimensions, such as
.1in,-.3cm (in the same syntax used in the paper-
size special). The origin of the page is shifted
from the default position (of one inch down, one
inch to the right from the upper left corner of the
paper) by this amount.
-p num The first page printed will be the first one num-
bered num. Default is the first page in the docu-
ment. If the num is prefixed by an equals sign,
then it (and any argument to the -l option) is
treated as a sequence number, rather than a value
to compare with \count0 values. Thus, using -p =3
will start with the third page of the document, no
matter what the pages are actually numbered.
-pp pagelist
A comma-separated list of pages and ranges (a-b)
may be given, which will be interpreted as \count0
values. Pages not specified will not be printed.
Multiple -pp options may be specified or all pages
and page ranges can be specified with one -pp
option.
-P printername
Sets up the output for the appropriate printer.
This is implemented by reading in config.printer-
name , which can then set the output pipe (as in,
!lpr -Pprintername as well as the font paths and
any other config.ps defaults for that printer only.
Note that config.ps is read before config.printer-
name In addition, another file called ~/.dvipsrc is
searched for immediately after config.ps; this file
is intended for user defaults. If no -P command is
given, the environment variable PRINTER is checked.
If that variable exists, and a corresponding con-
figuration file exists, that configuration file is
read in.
-q Run in quiet mode. Don't chatter about pages con-
verted, etc.; report nothing but errors to standard
error.
-r Stack pages in reverse order. Normally, page 1
will be printed first.
-R Run in secure mode. This means that ``backtick''
commands from a \special{} or \psffile{} macro in
the (La)TeX source like \special{psfile="`zcat
foo.ps.Z"} or \psffile[72 72 540 720]{"`zcat
screendump.ps.gz"} are not executed.
-s Causes the entire global output to be enclosed in a
save/restore pair. This causes the file to not be
truly conformant, and is thus not recommended, but
is useful if you are driving the printer directly
and don't care too much about the portability of
the output.
-S num Set the maximum number of pages in each `section'.
This option is most commonly used with the -i
option; see that documentation above for more
information.
-t papertype
This sets the paper type to papertype. The paper-
type should be defined in one of the configuration
files, along with the appropriate code to select
it. (Currently known types include letter, legal,
ledger, a4, a3, ) You can also specify -t land-
scape, which rotates a document by 90 degrees. To
rotate a document whose size is not letter, you can
use the -t option twice, once for the page size,
and once for landscape. The upper left corner of
each page in the .dvi file is placed one inch from
the left and one inch from the top. Use of this
option is highly dependent on the configuration
file. Note that executing the letter or a4 or
other PostScript operators cause the document to be
nonconforming and can cause it not to print on cer-
tain printers, so the paper size should not execute
such an operator if at all possible.
-T offset
Set the paper size to the given pair of dimensions.
This option takes its arguments in the same style
as -O. It overrides any paper size special in the
dvi file.
-U Disable a PostScript virtual memory saving opti-
mization that stores the character metric informa-
tion in the same string that is used to store the
bitmap information. This is only necessary when
driving the Xerox 4045 PostScript interpreter. It
is caused by a bug in that interpreter that results
in `garbage' on the bottom of each character. Not
recommended unless you must drive this printer.
-V Download non-resident PostScript fonts as bitmaps.
This requires use of `gsftopk' or `pstopk' or some
other such program(s) in order to generate the
required bitmap fonts; these programs are supplied
with dvips.
-x num Set the magnification ratio to num /1000. Overrides
the magnification specified in the .dvi file. Must
be between 10 and 100000.
-X num Set the horizontal resolution in dots per inch to
num.
-Y num Set the vertical resolution in dots per inch to
num.
-Z Causes bitmapped fonts to be compressed before they
are downloaded, thereby reducing the size of the
PostScript font-downloading information. Espe-
cially useful at high resolutions or when very
large fonts are used. Will slow down printing
somewhat, especially on early 68000-based
PostScript printers.
SEE ALSO
mf(1), afm2tfm(1), tex(1), latex(1), lpr(1), dvips.texi.
ENVIRONMENT
Dvipsk uses the same environment variables and algorithms
for finding font files as TeX and its friends do. See the
documentation for the Kpathsea library for details.
(Repeating it here is too cumbersome.)
KPATHSEA_DEBUG: Trace Kpathsea lookups; set to -1 for com-
plete tracing.
PRINTER: see above.
NOTES
PostScript is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems
Incorporated.
AUTHOR
Tomas Rokicki <rokicki@cs.stanford.edu>; extended to vir-
tual fonts by Don Knuth. Path searching and configuration
modifications by kb@mail.tug.org.
1 June 1996 1
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