[comp.text.tex] dvips problems

rokicki@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Tomas G. Rokicki) (11/28/90)

If anyone has difficulties with dvips, I do attempt to help them as best I
can.  But please,
   - Try to duplicate the problem with as small a file as possible
   - Send me both the TeX source and the PostScript output of dvips
   - At the very least tell me the version number you are using
Over 95% of the `problems' involve:
   - Not setting up the config.ps, MakeTeXPK, Makefile, or your own
      .cshrc correctly
   - Telling dvips there is more memory than the printer actually has
   - Broken spoolers (dvips has options to get around these bugs)
   - Broken interpreters (ditto, I think I've worked around all known bugs)
   - Bad bounding boxes on PostScript graphics files
   - Bad PostScript in included figures (I've worked around the bug in
      Adobe Illustrator that caused such a problem)
   - Not having a working METAFONT on your system
      (load waits.mf into plain.base, folks)
I am positive there are plenty of bugs in 5.4, but there are none that I know
about, and 5.4 and its predecessors have been a very reliable workhorse for me.

I'm not really a grouch, and I appreciate any and all bug reports, even when
they turn out to be problems with other software.   -tom