wisner@eddie.MIT.EDU (Bill Wisner) (01/09/88)
Yesterday I FTPed and downloaded UniTerm v2.0a (thanks, whats-yer-name at Oregon State) to find, to my chagrin, that the documentation is in DVI format. Well.. what's DVI? How do I get this file full of gibberish to make some sense? Be warned that I have no printer.. -- Bill Wisner / wisner@eddie.MIT.EDU The number of arguments is unimportant unless some of them are correct.
pes@ux63.bath.ac.uk (Smee) (01/10/88)
.DVI files are 'Device Independent' files as produced by the TeX formatter. You then need to find a machine sommewhere which has TeX, and which has a DVI to specific device 'conversion' program (aka 'driver'). (DVIST which was posted some time ago won't hack it, because UG.DVI references font files which were not present with DVIST. I have heard rumours of a DVI2PS program which will convert UG.DVI to a (huge) PostScript file, which ought to be more amenable to being (painfully) battered into a legible form, in the absence of a printer. I haven't seen DVI2PS myself, though. Simon, if you're listening, how about putting out a 'human reabdibledable' form of UG.DVI?
hakanson@mist.cs.orst.edu (Marion Hakanson) (01/10/88)
In article <7844@eddie.MIT.EDU> wisner@eddie.MIT.EDU (Bill Wisner) writes: >Yesterday I FTPed and downloaded UniTerm v2.0a (thanks, whats-yer-name at >Oregon State) to find, to my chagrin, that the documentation is in DVI format. You're welcome. As the one who made UniTerm available for FTP, I have had a few other such queries about the DVI documentation file. So: >Well.. what's DVI? How do I get this file full of gibberish to make some >sense? Be warned that I have no printer.. DVI is the output of the TeX (or LaTeX, in this case) text formatter. It is a device-independent format for bitmapped display devices (such as Sun displays, Apple Laserwriters (PostScript), Imagen laser printers (imPress), etc. Typically, one runs the DVI file through a program which converts it to some device-specific format. Simon Poole's Users Guide (about 65 pages) for UniTerm 2.0a prints out beautifully on our Imagen laser printer, but not everyone can print DVI files. Luckily, we have here a program which converts DVI to ordinary text. The result is not very pretty, and requires more than 80 columns to print out, but it is easier to read than gibberish. Get the README file (anonymous FTP on cs.orst.edu) to see which files contain what (there is no need to retrieve them all). Marion Hakanson Domain: hakanson@cs.orst.edu CSNET : hakanson%cs.orst.edu@relay.cs.net UUCP : {hp-pcd,tektronix}!orstcs!hakanson
john@viper.Lynx.MN.Org (John Stanley) (01/14/88)
In article <2072@bath63.ux63.bath.ac.sk> pes@ux63.bath.ac.uk (Smee) writes: >Simon, if you're listening, how about putting >out a 'human readable' form of UG.DVI? I second the motion. Distributing the documentation in a form that 99% of all users can't possibly read is very very unhelpful. I really don't understand what Simon had in mind when he sent out the most recient posting... --- John Stanley (john@viper.UUCP) Software Consultant - DynaSoft Systems UUCP: ...{amdahl,ihnp4,rutgers}!meccts!viper!john
pes@ux63.bath.ac.uk (Smee) (01/19/88)
In article <503@viper.Lynx.MN.Org> john@viper.UUCP (John Stanley) writes: > I second the motion. Distributing the documentation in a form that >99% of all users can't possibly read is very very unhelpful. I really >don't understand what Simon had in mind when he sent out the most >recient posting... Well, to be fair, it does make a much 'prettier' looking manual (as is TeX's wont) -- including much more legible tables, particularly where 'non-ASCII' characters are involved, as with the accented chars. Also, I have a feeling that the takeup of TeX is higher in Europe, which may have influenced the decision. Still, an alternate form for us poor folk would be nice.