BILLW@MATHOM.CISCO.COM (William Westfield) (09/13/89)
Is there a newer version of a DVI to Postscript converter out there anywhere? The version I have seen was originally by Mark Senn, and modified by several other people. In addition to being somewhat limited, it is pretty painfully slow. Ideally, I would like to get something that supports GF fonts (I have the version from Stanford, but for example, the version on uunet doesn't seem to have GF support in it) AND printers with resolutions other than 300dpi (eg linotronics). Sources would be nice (I'd like to run it on tops20, which will require some work), but comercial packages (running on Suns) would also be considered if they are sufficiently wonderful. Thanks Bill Westfield cisco Systems. billw@cisco.com
spqr@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Sebastian Rahtz) (09/14/89)
Is there a newer version of a DVI to Postscript converter out there anywhere? The version I have seen was originally by Mark Senn, and you could look at `dvitops', by James Clark, available from the UK TeX archive, which is written in portable C (well, it compiles on a PC as well as a Sun!) - it doesn't support gf (only pk), but it is efficient and has lots of good features. mail `help' to tex-server@aston.ac.uk with the first line of the message as your return address, and you should get info (this assumes dvitops is not in the USA somewhere, as it ought to be). Else try Stephan von Bechtolsheim's dvitps, which is on the current Unix TeX tape, and therefore presumably at Washington for FTP -- Sebastian Rahtz S.Rahtz@uk.ac.soton.ecs (JANET) Computer Science S.Rahtz@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Bitnet) Southampton S09 5NH, UK S.Rahtz@sot-ecs.uucp (uucp)
lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee) (09/15/89)
From article <SPQR.89Sep14091859@hilliard.ecs.soton.ac.uk>, by spqr@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Sebastian Rahtz): " " Is there a newer version of a DVI to Postscript converter out there " anywhere? Yes. A version of dvi2ps by Piet van Oostrum has some useful new features. I will have yet another version soon -- I'm working out what I hope are the last few bugs. Following is an excerpt from the README of van Oostrum's version, and after that some notes on getting it by ftp. Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu --------- Notes by Piet van Oostrum: I added support for BSD4.1 and changed the dvi2ps program to read PK files rather than PXL files (the files are generated by the Metafont Utilities). I also added code to calculate VM usage. The program does not download fonts if the VM is low. In that case individual bitmaps are loaded on a character basis and removed immediately after printing. I also restructured the DVI.PS file to improve the VM usage. To use the VM limiting feature compile with -DBUDGET=estimated VM value in bytes. To use builtin fonts compile with -DBUILTIN. You can then define the fonts e.g. with \font\palatino=p-rom at 12pt See the file palatino.sty for equivalent latex style options. This version allows you to put the PXL or PK files in a different directory than the tfm files. In that case if you use the TEXFONTS environment variable, you must specify both directories in it. Note added by Matt Crawford: A patch sent by Piet van Oostrum on 14 Sep 1987 has been applied to dvi2ps.c. ---------- listing of directory pub on oddjob.uchicago.edu: Connected to oddjob.uchicago.edu. 220 oddjob FTP server (Version 4.172 Fri Dec 2 14:11:17 CST 1988) ready. ... -rw-r--r-- 1 matt wheel 130781 Jun 29 12:05 dist.2.0.tar.Z -rw-r--r-- 1 matt wheel 95621 Sep 14 1987 dvi2ps.pk.tar.Z -rw-r--r-- 1 matt wheel 501760 Jan 5 1988 elxsi-rpc.tar ...
pjt@yin.cpac.washington.edu (Larry Setlow) (09/15/89)
In article <12525755870010@MATHOM.CISCO.COM> BILLW@MATHOM.CISCO.COM (William Westfield) writes:
Is there a newer version of a DVI to Postscript converter out there
anywhere? The version I have seen was originally by Mark Senn, and
modified by several other people. In addition to being somewhat limited,
it is pretty painfully slow.
From: rokicki@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Tomas G. Rokicki)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: dvips 4.0
Message-ID: <11801@polya.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 15 Sep 89 03:55:09 GMT
Sender: USENET News System <news@Polya.Stanford.EDU>
Lines: 31
ANNOUNCING RELEASE of dvips version 4.0, with the following features:
- `Correct' memory budgeting; no longer have to break up
long documents by hand
- Bitmap font compression on output greatly reduces output
file size, especially at typesetter resolution
- Fast and compact page code reduces size of output file
- Encapsulated PostScript graphics support
- Non-encapsulated PostScript graphics support
- PostScript font support, with correct use of ligatures
and kerns and TeX character positions.
- Brand new afm2tfm source provided
- Automatic generation of missing fonts through METAFONT
(or can be modified to convert gf->pk as needed)
- Conformant PostScript output
- Automatic spooling through lpr or other process
- Support for multiple printers with different characteristics
- Literal PostScript specials and macros
- Generation of collated as well as uncollated copies
- Reversal of pages on demand
- Compact, modular source code for easy modifications
- Freely redistributable
- Easy installation
- psfig and tpic support
The most important new feature is the bitmap compression feature; you
can now generate files for high-resolution typesetters using standard
TeX bitmapped fonts without generating impossibly large output files.
This code is available from labrea.stanford.edu in ~pub/dvips40.tar.Z.ralph@nastassia.laas.fr (Ralph P. Sobek) (09/19/89)
In article <4861@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee) writes: | From article <SPQR.89Sep14091859@hilliard.ecs.soton.ac.uk>, by spqr@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Sebastian Rahtz): | " | " Is there a newer version of a DVI to Postscript converter out there | " anywhere? | | Yes. A version of dvi2ps by Piet van Oostrum has some useful | new features. I will have yet another version soon -- I'm working | out what I hope are the last few bugs. | | Following is an excerpt from the README of van Oostrum's version, | and after that some notes on getting it by ftp. Oh my god!! Another version?!! I hope that there is someone to coordinate all these versions. We alone have 3 versions of dvi2ps. Normally the most recent has 2.11 as version number. | Notes by Piet van Oostrum: | | I added support for BSD4.1 and changed the dvi2ps program to read PK files | rather than PXL files (the files are generated by the Metafont Utilities). It's a shame that Piet van Oostrum did not add his interesting modifications to the latest dvi2ps! For example, dvi2ps already accepts PK and GF font files and in seperate directories. Is someone (Piet?) willing to create dvi2ps 2.12? Maybe, it already exists. Ralph P. Sobek Disclaimer: The above ruminations are my own. ralph@laas.laas.fr Addresses are ordered by importance. ralph@laas.uucp, or ...!uunet!mcvax!laas!ralph If all else fails, try: SOBEK@FRMOP11.BITNET sobek@eclair.Berkeley.EDU =============================================================================== Upon the instruments of death the sunlight brightly gleams. -- King Crimson
lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee) (09/20/89)
From article <426@laas.laas.fr>, by ralph@nastassia.laas.fr (Ralph P. Sobek): " " Oh my god!! Another version?!! I hope that there is someone to " coordinate all these versions. We alone have 3 versions of dvi2ps. " Normally the most recent has 2.11 as version number. Well, it is confusing. Van Oostrum's version is numerated 2.30, but from what you say, I would guess it does not have 2.11 in it's lineage. I didn't know there was a version that reads GF files -- is there a place I can get that by ftp separate from the entire TeX distribution? On a related topic, I got mail from Mike Finegan about troubles getting dvi2ps to work on a 3B2. I couldn't get a reply to him, and don't know about dvi2ps on SysV anyhow, but maybe someone else can help him -- michael k finegan <Mike.Finegan@UC.EDU> mfinegan@uceng.UC.EDU finegan@aicvo1.ece.UC.EDU -- Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu
lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee) (09/21/89)
From article <426@laas.laas.fr>, by ralph@nastassia.laas.fr (Ralph P. Sobek): " " Oh my god!! Another version?!! ... Yes, well, my version is ready in case anyone is interested. Here is a list of ways in which it _may_ differ from other extant versions: 1. It uses pk or pxl font files, or a combination of the two. (Not gf files, though.) 2. It will use pk fonts with up to 256 characters (as one finds in Silvio Levy's Greek fonts and JTeX, though I haven't tested dvi2ps with JTeX yet). 3. PS fonts native to the printer are ok, too. This dvi2ps does not keep track of what fonts may or may not be available inside the printer nor of character widths in those fonts. It just passes the info it finds in the dvi file about names and positioning right through to its output ps file. 4. The size of the output is somewhat smaller and PS interpretation time somewhat faster than for the other versions of dvi2ps that I've seen. As suggested in Glenn Reid's PS Program Language Design, characters are collected into long strings with space characters and submitted to widthshow. (dvips 4.0 does a nice job at optimizing PS output, but it doesn't do this particular optimization.) 5. In calling dvi2ps, flags and flag arguments work in a more standard way (e.g. `dvi2ps -hs -n10 some' is an acceptable way to ask for 10 copies, no header, and statistics, as well as `dvi2ps -h -s -n 10 some'). 6. \special texts with no keywords are sent literally to the LW (instead of being interpreted as a list of files to include). 7. There is no longer a header .ps file to be kept in a library directory somewhere. The header code is compiled into dvi2ps. The source for the header code, tex.ps, may contain #ifdefs. ------------ The thing is in 4 shar files, 161k. Email me if you want a copy. Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu
piet@cs.ruu.nl (Piet van Oostrum) (09/22/89)
In article <426@laas.laas.fr>, ralph@nastassia (Ralph P. Sobek) writes: `In article <4861@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee) writes: `| From article <SPQR.89Sep14091859@hilliard.ecs.soton.ac.uk>, by spqr@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Sebastian Rahtz): `| " `| " Is there a newer version of a DVI to Postscript converter out there `| " anywhere? `| `| Yes. A version of dvi2ps by Piet van Oostrum has some useful `| new features. I will have yet another version soon -- I'm working `| out what I hope are the last few bugs. `| `Oh my god!! Another version?!! I hope that there is someone to `coordinate all these versions. We alone have 3 versions of dvi2ps. `Normally the most recent has 2.11 as version number. ` `It's a shame that Piet van Oostrum did not add his interesting `modifications to the latest dvi2ps! For example, dvi2ps already `accepts PK and GF font files and in seperate directories. ` `Is someone (Piet?) willing to create dvi2ps 2.12? Maybe, it already exists. ` Let me first tell, what I know about dvi2ps genealogy and how I got involved. I started working on dvi2ps in May 1986, so my version has been around for a resonable time. When we started using TeX, I encountered a couple of problems: 1. We were using a VAX11/750 with Unix BSD 4.1. Our system manager didn't want to switch to 4.2, and the dvi2ps I found on the Unix tape didn't work on 4.1, so I had to patch the program anyway. 2. Our disk was almost full and couldn't take all of the PXL files, which was the only font format supproted then by the supplied dvi2ps. So I decided to add support for PK files. I think it is silly to use PXL files, anyway. I just coded the algorithms from pktype into dvi2ps. 3. I found it very annoying that the LaserWriter run out of Virtual Memory after 30-40 pages (sometimes even after a single page, if you had many fonts. I think I really got upset when I wanted to print fontsamples of the supplied fonts and couldn't get a page with every line a different font. So I added code that estimated how much memory was left in the LW, and if a certain threshold was reached, no more characters were downloaded, but they were printed on an individual basis. This has been very satisfactory because we never run out of VM anymore. I also looked very carefully in the supplied Postcript code and found a number of places where extra save/restore pairs could decrease the amount of VM used. These were the basic initial changes I made (along with a number of minor cleanups). Later I added code to use Postscript fonts. I got this code from somebody else, integrated it, cleaned it up and made it easily parametrizable. The other changes were just useful options and bug changes. I have advertised the availability of my version on TeXhax, and a more recent version on comp.text. Several people in Europe, USA and Australia have received copies. My own version is now 2.48, and I have a few bug patches waiting. Apparently, other people were also working on different modifications of dvi2ps. The versions of dvi2ps that float around, form a Directed Acyclic Graph (actually, I'm not sure that it is acyclic :=). The basic problem, I think, was that there was no means of finding out who did what. TeXhax was the only way I had to find out what was going on. There has been a discussion on merging the various versions of dvi2ps on Texhax, and once it seemed that somebody was going to make a single version with all the enhancements in it, but apparently that failed (I got this info from Pierre MacKay) I am not going to defend the fact that I have maintained a separate version of dvi2ps. In fact when I saw the announcement of dvi2ps 4.0 by Tomas G. Rokicki, I decided that it would be time to discontinue development of my version. I have not yet seen his version (I can't FTP yet, so I have to find it some other way). If it does have everything I need (and I suspect it does) I will probably switch to his version. I will put the final bug patches in my version, and I will spuuly it to anyone who wants it, but I suggest that we agree on a single supported standard version of dvi2ps. There seems to be also a version called dvitps by Stephan von Bechtolsheim, but I don't know anything about it. Maybe these two gentlemen could even agree on merging their programs? From what I have read these persons have done a very good job. The best way to standardize in my opinion is to keep the standard version up to date on the Unix tape, and to distribute patches on Usenet or through a mailing list. I am willing to give my code, suggestions, etc to get a good standard version, but I'm not going to reinvent the wheel. That is the primary reason for me to stop enhancing dvi2ps 2.48. I have cross-posted this to comp.text to get a greater audience, but followups only to comp.lang.postscript. Should I also send something to teXhax for those poor people without net.access? -- Piet van Oostrum, Dept of Computer Science, University of Utrecht Padualaan 14, P.O. Box 80.089, 3508 TB Utrecht, The Netherlands. Telephone: +31-30-531806 Internet: piet@cs.ruu.nl Telefax: +31-30-513791 Uucp: uunet!mcvax!hp4nl!ruuinf!piet
piet@cs.ruu.nl (Piet van Oostrum) (09/22/89)
In article <1594@ruuinf.cs.ruu.nl>, I (Piet van Oostrum) wrote:
`of dvi2ps. In fact when I saw the announcement of dvi2ps 4.0 by Tomas G.
`Rokicki,
^^^^ Sorry, make that dvips
Also spuuly meant supply.
Pietkevin@math.lsa.umich.edu (Kevin Coombes) (09/22/89)
Okay, here goes. I've spent the last few weeks working on merging several versions of dvi2ps---namely, the three versions available at the june.cs.washington.edu archive, by Larry Denenberg, Peter Damron, and Jing-bai Wang. I also have Van Jacobson's version. I have a copy of Tomas Rokicki's version 4.0 of dvips, but haven't yet had a chance to look at it. The merge isn't yet complete, nor is it ready for general consumption. Right now, it can use PK, GF, or PXL files (with the available choices set at compile time), allows flexible organization of font directories and supports environment variables to help with this. It searches for fonts in a reasonable manner, and will use postscript to rescale fonts if it can't find them in the right size. It supports various specials, including psfig. The point is: I'm willing to invest some more time in producing version 3.0 (or whatever) of dvi2ps. I can see from this discussion that there is some interest. What I'd like (by e-mail, and I'll post summaries) is information on what other versions are available, how to get them, and what features people most want to see. I have heard of the following versions, but have not seen copies: dvitps by Stephan von Bechtolsheim dvitops by James Clark dvi2ps by Piet van Oostrum. If anyone is interested in helping to produce a merged version of dvi2ps, or in testing such a version if/when it becomes available, I'd also appreciate hearing that. Kevin Coombes <kevin@math.lsa.umich.edu> <Kevin_Coombes@ub.cc.umich.edu>
mfinegan@uceng.UC.EDU (michael k finegan) (09/28/89)
Do any of the dviXps versions work on an AT&T 3B2/400 (SysV 3.1) ? The versions (old and new) in the distribution tape don't ... - Michael Finegan mfinegan@uceng.UC.EDU (please E-MAIL YES responses)