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<book lang="&language;">
<bookinfo>
<title>The &kdvi; Handbook</title>
<authorgroup>
<author>
<firstname>Stefan</firstname>
<surname>Kebekus</surname>
<affiliation>
<address>
<email>kebekus@kde.org</email>
</address>
</affiliation>
</author>
<!-- TRANS:ROLES_OF_TRANSLATORS -->
</authorgroup>
<copyright>
<year>2001</year>
<holder>Stefan Kebekus</holder>
</copyright>
<legalnotice>&FDLNotice;</legalnotice>
<date>2001-01-09</date>
<releaseinfo>1.0</releaseinfo>
<abstract>
<para>This document describes &kdvi; version 0.9h</para>
</abstract>
<keywordset>
<keyword>KDE</keyword>
<keyword>linux</keyword>
<keyword>TeX</keyword>
<keyword>DVI</keyword>
</keywordset>
</bookinfo>
<chapter id="introduction">
<title>Introduction</title>
<para>&kdvi; is a plugin for the &kviewshell; program which allows
&kviewshell; to display &DVI;-files (<literal
role="extension">.dvi</literal>) which are produced by the TeX
typesetting system. &kdvi; supports many extensions of the DVI
standard, for instance the inclusion of &PostScript; graphics or
hyperlinks. More details, examples and all the technical
specifications can be found in the file <ulink
url="KDVI-features.dvi"><filename>KDVI-features.dvi</filename></ulink>
(click <ulink url="KDVI-features.tex">here</ulink> for the
TeX-source of that file).</para>
<para>For up-to-date information, consult <ulink
url="http://devel-home.kde.org/~kdvi">kdvi's home page</ulink>.
</para>
<para>TeX is a high-end typesetting system geared towards
scientific, and in particular mathematical typesetting. More
information about TeX and &DVI; can be found on the <ulink
url="http://www.tug.org">homepage of the TeX user group</ulink> or
the German <ulink url="http://www.dante.de">German DANTE
e.V.</ulink>.
</para>
</chapter>
<chapter id="starting">
<title>Starting &kdvi;</title>
<para>Most of the time, &kdvi; will be started by just clicking
onto a <literal role="extension">.dvi</literal>-file in the file
manager. For convenience there exists a command
<command>kdvi</command> which calls &kviewshell; with the &kdvi;
plugin preloaded. The viewer may thus be started using the command
<userinput><command>kdvi</command>
<parameter>somepath/paper.dvi</parameter></userinput>. The command
lines <userinput><command>kdvi</command>
<parameter>somepath/paper</parameter></userinput> or
<userinput><command>kdvi</command>
<parameter>somepath/paper.</parameter></userinput> will also work.
</para>
<para>The usual parameters handled by &Qt; and &kde; applications
also work: <userinput><command>kdvi</command>
<option>-style</option> <parameter>windows</parameter>
<option>-display</option> <parameter>:0</parameter>
<option>-geometry</option> <parameter>400x400+0+0</parameter>
<option>-caption</option> <parameter>"DVI"</parameter></userinput>
</para>
</chapter>
<chapter id="print">
<title>Printing DVI-Files</title>
<para>&kdvi; can print your DVI-files using the standard KDE
printing interface. Internally, &kdvi; uses the programm
<command>dvips</command> to generate PostScript, which is then
passed on to the printer. In particular, <command>dvips</command>
must be installed if you want to print with &kdvi;. The programm
<command>dvips</command> uses its own configuration files and its
own settings, which are fine for most purposes. However, if you
care for optimal printing results, you should configure
<command>dvips</command> manually and make sure to set a default
MetaFont mode which fits your printer best ---on many systems
you'll find a <ulink url="info:/dvips">GNU-texinfo documentation
of <command>dvips</command></ulink>, and you might also want to
look for a file called <filename>dvips.dvi</filename> or
similar.</para>
</chapter>
<chapter id="export">
<title>Exporting the DVI file to other formats</title>
<para>If you want to save your file as in PostScript or
PDF-format, it is not recommended that you use the printing
function and redirect the printer output to a file. Instead, you
can use the export functions which produce better-quality output
that retains many of the special features of the dvi format and
looks better in many of the viewing applications, such as Adobe's
Acrobat Reader. You will find the export functions in the
<guimenu>File</guimenu> menu.</para>
<section id="export-ps">
<title>Exporting to PostScript</title>
<para>As in printing, the external program
<command>dvips</command> is used to generate the PostScript
file. If the DVI-file contains hyperlinks, these will also be
included in the PostScript file. If you are an export, and if
you would like to generate output which is optimized for a
specific printer, you should probably start
<command>dvips</command> manually and choose the proper MetaFont
mode yourself.</para>
</section>
<section id="export-pdf">
<title>Exporting to PDF</title>
<para>In order to produce PDF files of high quality, &kdvi;
converts DVI to PDF using the external program
<command>dvipdfm</command>. If you are working on a machine
where an older distribution of the TeX typesetting system is
installed, it may be that the programm
<command>dvipdfm</command> is not installed. In that case, you
need to use the printing function to generate PDF
output.</para>
<warning> <para>If you are viewing the generated file in Adobe's
Acrobat reader, you may well find that some of the fonts look
extremely poor although a printout is fine, and although the
document looks ok in ghostview. This is a known issue with the
Acrobat Reader and bitmap fonts. At the time of writing, the
only practicable workaround seems to be to avoid bitmap
fonts.</para>
</warning>
</section>
</chapter>
<chapter id="preferences">
<title>The <guilabel>Preferences</guilabel> dialog</title>
<anchor id="opts"></anchor>
<para>The <guilabel>Preferences</guilabel> dialog can be reached
by choosing <menuchoice><guimenu>Settings</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>DVI options</guimenuitem></menuchoice> in the
<guimenu>Settings</guimenu> menu.</para>
<para>The dialog consists of two tabs, <guilabel>Fonts</guilabel>
and <guilabel>Rendering</guilabel>.</para>
<sect1 id="opt-fonts">
<title><guilabel>Fonts</guilabel> Options</title>
<para>The following picture shows the options dialog of
&kdvi;.</para>
<screenshot>
<screeninfo>The <guilabel>Fonts</guilabel> dialog</screeninfo>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="optionrequester1.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>The <guilabel>Fonts</guilabel> dialog</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Metafont mode</guilabel> </term>
<listitem>
<para>These options specify the fonts which &kdvi; will
use for rendering. By carefully optimizing the settings
here it is possible to improve on the display. However,
unless you are an expert in <command>MetaFont</command>
and know what you are doing, it is not a good idea to
change these options. You may want to look at the <ulink
url="faq.html#MFModes">Frequently asked questions</ulink>
section of this manual.</para>
<para>Safe values are <guilabel>1200 dpi /
Lexmark</guilabel> for good quality, or <guilabel>600 dpi
/ LaserJet 4</guilabel> for medium quality and faster
display.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Generate missing fonts</guilabel></term>
<listitem>
<para>Check this if you want &kdvi; to call the
<command>MetaFont</command> program in the likely case
that kdvi wants to display documents which use fonts which
are not yet readily made. You most certainly want to set
this option.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="opt-rendering">
<title><guilabel>Rendering</guilabel> Options</title>
<para>The following picture shows the second options dialog of
&kdvi;.</para>
<screenshot>
<screeninfo>The <guilabel>Rendering</guilabel> dialog</screeninfo>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="optionrequester2.png" format="PNG"/></imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>The <guilabel>Rendering</guilabel> dialog</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Show PostScript specials</guilabel></term>
<listitem>
<para>If this options is checked, &kdvi; will display
&PostScript; graphics which are embedded into the &DVI;
file. You probably want to set this option.</para>
<para>If an external &PostScript; file could not be found,
&kdvi; will draw a red warning box in its
place. Unfortunately, rendering &PostScript; graphics is
very slow in the current version of &kdvi;. We will
improve on the speed in later versions. If this option is
off, &kdvi; will either draw a grey box as a placeholder
for the graphics, or it will leave the space blank.</para>
<note>
<para>There is no standard way to embed &PostScript;
graphics into a dvi file. It may therefore happen that
&kdvi; cannot properly display a graphic which works
fine with other programs. Older versions of
<command>xdvi</command> and <command>dvips</command>
support the execution of external commands. This is a
bad security risk and therefore deliberately not
implemented in &kdvi;. Technical information about
supported ways to include &PostScript; can be found in
the document <ulink
url="KDVI-features.dvi"><filename>KDVI-features.dvi</filename></ulink>.</para>
</note>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Hyperlinks</guilabel></term>
<listitem>
<para>Check this if you want &kdvi; to display
hyperlinks. The appropriate parts of the text will be
underlined in blue. You probably want to set this
option.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</sect1>
</chapter>
<chapter id="faq">
<title>Frequently asked questions</title>
<qandaset>
<qandaentry>
<question id="fontgen">
<para>What happens when &kdvi; displays the message
"Generating bitmap fonts", and why does the procedure take
so long?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para>Many of the fonts which are typically used in a TeX
document must be generated by the MetaFont system. Metafont
is a language similar to TeX (included in most TeX
distributions) which takes a description of the font
outline, and produces a rasterized version (=
<filename>.pk</filename>-file) of the font which can then be
send to a printer or be used in a previewing program like
&kdvi;. Metafont goes out of its way to produce the best
possible output for your printer. For instance, it knows
that a pixel of an inkjet printer is a roundisch blot, and
that nearby pixels tend to smear into each other. In
contrast, a pixel on a laser printer is rectangular, but an
isolated pixel is very often not rendered at all.</para>
<para>Generating such highly optimized bitmap fonts is
naturally rather time-consuming, in particular since typical
TeX documents use a large number of different fonts. We can
only ask for your patience. To ease the matter somewhat,
most distributions of TeX store the
<filename>.pk</filename>-files for a limited time, e.g. 100
days. Therefore, if you access the same document more than
once, the <filename>.pk</filename> files will be
reused.</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question id="MFModes">
<para>What is a MetaFont Mode?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para>In order to produce bitmap fonts which are optimized
for your printer (see the answer to the first question),
Metafont comes with a database of printing engines --look
for a file called <filename>modes.mf</filename>. A Metafont
Mode is just the name of a database entry. For example, the
name "ljfour" refers to the entry in the database that
describes a Hewlett Packard LaserJet 4 printer. A MetaFont
Mode is usually followed by a number, the resolution. The
LaserJet, for instance canprint in both 300 and 600 dots per
inch. Thus, "ljfour/600" would be a full description.</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
</qandaset>
</chapter>
<chapter id="credits-and-license">
<title>Credits and Licenses</title>
<para>&kdvi;</para>
<para>&kdvi; is based on based on the stand-alone-program &kdvi;
0.4.3 by Markku Hihnala. That program is in turn based on
<application>xdvi</application> version 18f which has many
authors.</para>
<para>Documentation is copyright 2001, Stefan Kebekus
<email>kebekus@kde.org</email></para>
<!-- TRANS:CREDIT_FOR_TRANSLATORS -->
&underGPL;
&underFDL;
</chapter>
&documentation.index;
</book>
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