XDVI(1)XDVI(1)NAMExdvi - DVI Previewer for the X Window System
SYNOPSISxdvi [+[page]] [--help] [-allowshell] [-altfont font] [-anchorposition
anchor] [-bg color] [-browser WWWbrowser] [-copy] [-cr color] [-debug
bitmask|string[,string ...]] [-display host:display] [-dvipspath path]
[-editor command] [-expert] [-expertmode flag] [-fg color] [-findstring
string] [-font font] [-fullscreen ] [-gamma g] [-geometry geometry]
[-gsalpha] [-gspalette palette] [-h] [-help] [-hl color] [-hush]
[-hushbell] [-hushchars] [-hushchecksums] [-hushstdout] [-icongeometry
geometry] [-iconic] [-install] [-interpreter path] [-keep] [-l]
[-license] [-linkcolor color] [-linkstyle 0|1|2|3] [-margins dimen]
[-mfmode mode-def[:dpi]] [-mgs[n] size] [-mousemode 0|1|2] [-nocolor]
[-nofork] [-noghostscript] [-nogrey] [-nogssafer] [-noinstall]
[-nomakepk] [-nomatchinverted] [-noomega] [-noscan] [-notempfile]
[-notype1fonts] [-noxi2scrolling] [-offsets dimen] [-p pixels] [-paper
papertype] [-pause] [-pausespecial special-string] [-postscript flag]
[-rulecolor color] [-rv] [-S density] [-s shrink] [-safer] [-sidemargin
dimen] [-sourceposition line[:col][ ]filename] [-statusline] [-text-
encoding encoding] [-thorough] [-topmargin dimen] [-unique] [-version]
[-visitedlinkcolor color] [-warnspecials] [-watchfile secs] [-wheelunit
pixels] [-xoffset dimen] [-yoffset dimen] [dvi_file]
DESCRIPTION
Xdvi is a program for previewing dvi files, as produced e.g. by the
tex(1) program, under the X window system.
Xdvi can show the file shrunken by various integer factors, and it has
a ``magnifying glass'' for viewing parts of the page enlarged (see the
section MAGNIFIER below). This version of xdvi is also referred to as
xdvik since it uses the kpathsea library to locate and generate font
files. In addition to that, it supports the following features:
- hyperlinks in DVI files (section HYPERLINKS),
- direct rendering of PostScript<tm> Type 1 fonts (section TYPE 1
FONTS),
- source specials in the DVI file (section SOURCE SPECIALS),
- string search in DVI files (section STRING SEARCH),
- saving or printing (parts of) the DVI file (sections PRINT DIALOG
and SAVE DIALOG).
Xdvi can be compiled with the Motif toolkit or the Xaw (Athena) toolkit
(and variants of it), and the Motif version has a slightly different
GUI; these differences are noted below.
Before displaying a page of a DVI file, xdvi will check to see if the
file has changed since the last time it was displayed. If this is the
case, it will reload the file. This feature allows you to preview many
versions of the same file while running xdvi only once. Since it cannot
read partial DVI files, xdvik versions starting from 22.74.3 will cre‐
ate a temporary copy of the DVI file being viewed, to ensure that the
file can be viewed without interruptions. (The -notempfile can be used
to turn off this feature).
Xdvi can show PostScript<tm> specials by any of three methods. It will
try first to use Display PostScript<tm>, then NeWS, then it will try to
use Ghostscript to render the images. All of these options depend on
additional software to work properly; moreover, some of them may not be
compiled into this copy of xdvi.
For performance reasons, xdvi does not render PostScript specials in
the magnifying glass.
If no file name has been specified on the command line, xdvi will try
to open the most recently opened file; if the file history (accessible
via the File > Open Recent menu) is empty, or if none of the files in
the history are valid DVI files, it will pop up a file selector for
choosing a file name. (In previous versions, which didn't have a file
history, the file selector was always used; you can set the X resource
noFileArgUseHistory to false to get back the old behaviour.)
OPTIONS
In addition to specifying the dvi file (with or without the .dvi exten‐
sion), xdvi supports the following command line options. If the option
begins with a `+' instead of a `-', the option is restored to its de‐
fault value. By default, these options can be set via the resource
names given in parentheses in the description of each option.
+page Specifies the first page to show. If + is given without a num‐
ber, the last page is assumed; the first page is the default.
-allowshell
(.allowShell) This option enables the shell escape in PostScript
specials. (For security reasons, shell escapes are disabled by
default.) This option should be rarely used; in particular it
should not be used just to uncompress files: that function is
done automatically if the file name ends in .Z, .gz, or .bz2.
Shell escapes are always turned off if the -safer option is
used.
-altfont font
(.altFont) Declares a default font to use when the font in the
dvi file cannot be found. This is useful, for example, with
PostScript <tm> fonts.
-anchorposition anchor
Jump to anchor after opening the DVI file. This is only useful
when invoking xdvi from other applications.
-background color
(.background) Determines the color of the background. Same as
-bg.
-bg color
(.background) Determines the color of the background.
-browser browser
(.wwwBrowser) Defines the web browser used for handling external
URLs. The value of this option or resource has the same syntax
as the BROWSER environment variable; see the explanation of that
variable in the section `ENVIRONMENT' below for a detailed de‐
scription. If neither the option nor the X resource wwwBrowser
is specified, the environment variables BROWSER and WWWBROWSER
(in that order) are used to determine the browser command. If
these are not set either, the following default value is used:
xdg-open %s:htmlview %s:firefox -remote -remote "openURL(%s,new-
window)":mozilla -remote "openURL(%s,new-window)":netscape
-raise -remote "openURL(%s,new-window)":xterm -e w3m %s:xterm -e
lynx %s:xterm -e wget %s
-copy (.copy) Always use the copy operation when writing characters to
the display. This option may be necessary for correct operation
on a color display, but overstrike characters will be incorrect.
If greyscale anti-aliasing is in use, the -copy operation will
disable the use of colorplanes and make overstrikes come out in‐
correctly. See also -thorough.
-cr color
(.cursorColor) Determines the color of the mouse cursor. The
default is the same as the foreground color.
-debug bitmask|string[,string ...]
(.debugLevel) If nonzero, prints additional information on stan‐
dard output. The argument can be either a bitmask specified as
a decimal number, or comma-separated list of strings.
For the bitmask representation, multiple values can be specified
by adding the numbers that represent the individual bits; e.g.
to debug all all file searching and opening commands, use 4032
(= 2048 + 1024 + 512 + 256 + 128 + 64). Use -1 to turn on debug‐
ging of everything (this will produce huge output).
For the string representation, use the strings listed in the
following table, with a comma to separate the values; e.g. to
debug all file searching and opening commands, use search,ex‐
pand,paths,hash,stat,open. (The option `kpathsea' is provided
as a shorthand for these.) Note that such a list may need to be
quoted to prevent the shell from interpreting commas or spaces
in the list.
The individual numbers and strings have the following meanings:
1 bitmap Bitmap creation
2 dvi DVI translation
4 pk PK fonts
8 batch Batch mode: Exit after
reading the DVI file
16 event Event handling
32 ps PostScript interpreter calls
64 stat Kpathsea stat(2) calls
128 hash Kpathsea hash table lookups
256 open Kpathsea file opening
512 paths Kpathsea path definitions
1024 expand Kpathsea path expansion
2048 search Kpathsea searching
4032 kpathsea All Kpathsea options
4096 htex Hypertex specials
8192 src Source specials
16384 client Client/server mode (see -unique
and -sourceposition options)
32768 ft FreeType library messages (Type 1 fonts)
65536 ft_verbose Verbose FreeType library messages (currently unused)
131072 gui GUI elements
Some of the Kpathsea debugging options are actually provided by
Kpathsea; see the Debugging section in the Kpathsea manual for
more information on these.
-density density
(.densityPercent) Determines the density used when shrinking
bitmaps for fonts. A higher value produces a lighter font. The
default value is 40. If greyscaling is in use, this argument
does not apply; use -gamma instead. See also the `S' keystroke.
Same as -S.
-display host:display
Specifies the host and screen to be used for displaying the dvi
file. By default this is obtained from the environment variable
DISPLAY.
-dvipspath path
(.dvipsPath) Use path as the dvips program to use when printing.
The default for this is dvips. The program or script should
read the DVI file from standard input, and write the PostScript
file to standard output.
-editor editor
(.editor) Specifies the editor that will be invoked when the
source-special() action is triggered to start a reverse search
(by default via Ctrl-Mouse 1). The argument to this option is a
format string in which occurrences of ``%f'' are replaced by the
file name, occurrences of ``%l'' are replaced by the line number
within the file, and optional occurrences of ``%c'' are replaced
by the column number within the line.
If neither the option nor the X resource .editor is specified,
the following environment variables are checked to determine the
editor command: XEDITOR, VISUAL, and EDITOR (in this sequence).
If the string is found as the value of the VISUAL or EDITOR en‐
vironment variables, then ``xterm -e '' is prepended to the
string; if the editor is specified by other means, then it must
be in the form of a shell command to pop up an X window with an
editor in it. If none of these variables is set, a warning mes‐
sage is displayed and the command ``xterm -e vi +%l %f'' is
used.
If no ``%f'' or ``%l'' occurs in the string, the missing format
strings are appended automatically. (This is for compatibility
with other programs when using one of the environment vari‐
ables).
A new instance of the editor is started each time this command
is used; therefore it is preferable to use an editor that can be
invoked in `client' mode to load new files into the same in‐
stance. Example settings are:
emacsclient --no-wait
(older Emacsen)
gnuclient -q
(XEmacs and newer Emacsen)
gvim --servernamexdvi--remote
(VIM v6.0+; the `--servername xdvi' option will cause
gvim to run a dedicated instance for the files opened by
xdvi.)
nc (nedit)
Note that those strings need to be enclosed into quotes when us‐
ing them on the command-line to protect them from the shell;
when using them as argument for the .editor resource in an X re‐
source file, no quotes should be used.
NOTE ON SECURITY: The argument of this option isn't executed as
a shell command, but via exec() to prevent evil tricks with the
contents of source specials.
-expert
This option is only supported for backwards compatibility; it is
equivalent to -expertmode 0, which should be preferred.
-expertmode flag
(.expertMode) With an argument of 0, this option switches off
the display of the buttons, scrollbars, the toolbar (Motif on‐
ly), the statusline and the page list. These GUI elements can
also be (de)activated separately, by combining the appropriate
values in the flag argument. This acts similar to the -debug op‐
tion: The integer flag is treated as a bitmap where each bit
represents one element. If the bit has the value 1, the element
is switched on, if it has the value 0, the element is switched
off. The meaning of the bits is as follows:
1 statusline
2 scrollbars
4 Motif: pagelist, Xaw: buttons and pagelist
8 toolbar (Motif only)
16 menubar (Motif only)
For example, to turn on only the statusline and the scrollbars,
use 3 (= 1 + 2). See also the `x' keystroke, where the bits are
addressed by their positions, from 1 to 3 (Xaw) or 5 (Motif),
respectively.
If the statusline is not active, all messages that would normally be
printed to the statusline will be printed to stdout, unless the -hush‐
stdout option is used.
-fg color
(.foreground) Determines the color of the text (foreground).
-findstring string
This option triggers a search for string in the DVI file men‐
tioned on the command-line, similar to forward search (see the
description of the sourceposition option): If there is already
another instance of xdvi running on the displaying that DVI
file, it will cause that instance to perform the search instead.
The search starts at the top of the current page of the DVI
file.
-font font
(*font) Sets the font used in menus, buttons etc., as described
in the X(7x) man page. The font for child windows can be set
separately, e.g.:
xdvi*statusline*font: \
-*-helvetica-medium-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
-foreground color
Same as -fg.
-fullscreen
When this option is used, xdvi will (try to) run in fullscreen
mode, with no window decorations. This option is not guaranteed
to work with all windowmanagers/desktops; if you're experiencing
problems with it, please use the -geometry option instead, and a
suitable window manager setting to remove the window decora‐
tions. When using this option for presentations, you might want
to get rid of all the control widgets as well, using the -ex‐
pertmode option. This option can also be toggled at runtime us‐
ing the fullscreen action (by default bound to Ctrl-l).
-gamma gamma
(.gamma) Controls the interpolation of colors in the greyscale
anti-aliasing color palette. Default value is 1.0. For 0 <
gamma < 1, the fonts will be lighter (more like the background),
and for gamma > 1, the fonts will be darker (more like the fore‐
ground). Negative values behave the same way, but use a slight‐
ly different algorithm. For color and grayscale displays; for
monochrome, see -density. See also the `S' keystroke.
-geometry geometry
(.geometry) Specifies the initial geometry of the main window,
as described in the X(7x) man page. The geometry of child win‐
dows can be set separately, e.g.:
xdvi*helpwindow.geometry: 600x800
-gsalpha
(.gsAlpha) Causes Ghostscript to be called with the x11alpha
driver instead of the x11 driver. The x11alpha driver enables
anti-aliasing in PostScript specials, for a nicer appearance.
It is available on newer versions of Ghostscript. This option
can also be toggled with the `V' keystroke.
-gspalette palette
(.palette) Specifies the palette to be used when using Ghost‐
script for rendering PostScript specials. Possible values are
Color, Greyscale, and Monochrome. The default is Color.
-h, -help, --help
Prints a short help text with an overview of the command-line
options to standard output.
-hl color
(.highlight) Determines the color of the page border, of the
ruler in `ruler mode', and of the highlighting markers in for‐
ward search and string search. The default is the foreground
color.
-hush (.Hush) Causes xdvi to suppress all suppressible warnings.
-hushbell
(.hushBell) Don't sound the X bell when an error occurs.
-hushchars
(.hushLostChars) Causes xdvi to suppress warnings about refer‐
ences to characters which are not defined in the font.
-hushchecksums
(.hushChecksums) Causes xdvi to suppress warnings about checksum
mismatches between the dvi file and the font file.
-hushstdout
(.hushStdout) Suppresses printing of status messages to stdout.
Note that errors or warnings will still be printed to stderr
even if this option is used.
-icongeometry geometry
(.iconGeometry) Specifies the initial position for the icon.
-iconic
(.iconic) Causes the xdvi window to start in the iconic state.
The default is to start with the window open.
-install
(.install) If xdvi is running under a PseudoColor visual, then
(by default) it will check for TrueColor visuals with more bits
per pixel, and switch to such a visual if one exists. If no
such visual exists, it will use the current visual and colormap.
If -install is selected, however, it will still use a TrueColor
visual with a greater depth, if one is available; otherwise, it
will install its own colormap on the current visual. If the
current visual is not PseudoColor, then xdvi will not switch the
visual or colormap, regardless of its options. The default val‐
ue of the install resource is the special value, maybe. There
is no +install option. See also -noinstall, and the GREYSCALING
AND COLORMAPS section.
-interpreter filename
(.interpreter) Use filename as the Ghostscript interpreter. By
default it uses gs.
-keep (.keepPosition) Sets a flag to indicate that xdvi should not
move to the home position when moving to a new page. See also
the `k' keystroke. This flag is honored by all page switching
actions and by up-or-previous() / down-or-next(), although the
latter only honor the horizontal postion, not the vertical one.
This allows for a "continuous" scrolling back an forth through a
document with a display window narrower than a page width.
-l (.listFonts) List the names of all fonts used.
-license
Prints licensing information.
-linkcolor
(.linkColor) Color used for unvisited hyperlinks (`Blue2' by de‐
fault). Hyperlinks are unvisited before you click on them, or
after the DVI file has been reloaded. The value should be ei‐
ther a valid X color name (such as DarkGoldenrod4) or a hexadec‐
imal color string (such as #8b6508). See also -visitedlinkcolor
and -linkstyle.
-linkstyle
(.LinkStyle) Determines the style in which hyperlinks are dis‐
played. Possible values and their meanings are:
0 No highlighting of links
1 Underline links with link color
2 No underlining, color text with link color
3 Underline and display text colored with
link color
The values for link color are specified by the options/resources
-linkcolor and -visitedlinkcolor (which see).
-margins dimen
(.Margin) Specifies the size of both the top margin and side
margin. This determines the ``home'' position of the page with‐
in the window as follows. If the entire page fits in the win‐
dow, then the margin settings are ignored. If, even after re‐
moving the margins from the left, right, top, and bottom, the
page still cannot fit in the window, then the page is put in the
window such that the top and left margins are hidden, and pre‐
sumably the upper left-hand corner of the text on the page will
be in the upper left-hand corner of the window. Otherwise, the
text is centered in the window. The dimension should be a deci‐
mal number optionally followed by any of the two-letter abbrevi‐
ations for units accepted by TeX (pt, pc, in, bp, cm, mm, dd,
cc, or sp). By default, the unit will be cm (centimeters). See
also -sidemargin, -topmargin, and the keystroke `M.'
-mfmode mode-def
(.mfMode) Specifies a mode-def string, which can be used in
searching for fonts (see ENVIRONMENT, below). Generally, when
changing the mode-def, it is also necessary to change the font
size to the appropriate value for that mode. This is done by
adding a colon and the value in dots per inch; for example, -mf‐
mode ljfour:600. This method overrides any value given by the
pixelsPerInch resource or the -p command-line argument. The
metafont mode is also passed to metafont during automatic cre‐
ation of fonts. By default, it is unspecified.
-mgs size
Same as -mgs1.
-mgs[n] size
(.magnifierSize[n]) Specifies the size of the window to be used
for the ``magnifying glass'' for Button n. The size may be giv‐
en as an integer (indicating that the magnifying glass is to be
square), or it may be given in the form widthxheight. See the
MOUSE ACTIONS section. Defaults are 200x150, 400x250, 700x500,
1000x800, and 1200x1200.
-mousemode [0|1|2]
(.mouseMode) Specifies the default mode of xdvi at startup: Mag‐
nifier (0), Text Selection Mode (1) or Ruler Mode (2). See the
section MODES, below, for more information.
-nocolor
(.color) Turns off the use of color specials. This option can
be toggled with the `C' keystroke. (Note: -nocolor corresponds
to color:off; +nocolor to color:on.)
-nofork
(.fork) With the -sourceposition and -unique options, the de‐
fault behavior is for xdvi to put itself into the background
(like a daemon) if there is no appropriate instance of xdvi al‐
ready running. This argument makes it run in the foreground in‐
stead. This is useful for debugging, or if your client applica‐
tion cannot deal well with a program self-backgrounding itself
in this way -- e.g., the IPC functions in emacs are known to
have problems with this. If no -sourceposition or -unique argu‐
ment is given, then this option has no effect. (Note: -nofork
corresponds to fork:off; +nofork to fork:on.)
-noghostscript
(.ghostscript) Inhibits the use of Ghostscript for displaying
PostScript<tm> specials. (Note: -noghostscript corresponds to
ghostscript:off; +noghostscript to ghostscript:on.)
-nogrey
(.grey) Turns off the use of greyscale anti-aliasing when print‐
ing shrunken bitmaps. (Note: -nogrey corresponds to grey:off;
+nogrey to grey:on.) See also the `G' keystroke.
-nogssafer
(.gsSafer) Normally, if Ghostscript is used to render PostScript
specials, the Ghostscript interpreter is run with the option
-dSAFER. The -nogssafer option runs Ghostscript without
-dSAFER. The -dSAFER option in Ghostscript disables PostScript
operators such as deletefile, to prevent possibly malicious
PostScript programs from having any effect. If the -safer op‐
tion is specified, then this option has no effect; in that case
Ghostscript is always run with -dSAFER. (Note: -nogssafer cor‐
responds to gsSafer:off; +nogssafer to gsSafer:on.)
-noinstall
(.install) Inhibit the default behavior of switching to a True‐
Color visual if one is available with more bits per pixel than
the current visual. (Note: -noinstall corresponds install:off;
there is no +noinstall option.) See also -install, and the
GREYSCALING AND COLORMAPS section.
-nomakepk
(.makePk) Turns off automatic generation of font files that can‐
not be found by other means. (Note: -nomakepk corresponds to
makePk:off; +nomakepk to makePK:on.)
-nomatchinverted
(.matchInverted) Don't highlight string search matches in in‐
verted color; instead, draw a rectangle in highlight color (see
the -hl option) around the match. This option is activated auto‐
matically if the display isn't running in TrueColor. (Note:
-nomatchinverted corresponds to matchInverted:off; +nomatchin‐
verted to matchInverted:on.)
-noomega
(.omega) This will disable the use of Omega extensions when in‐
terpreting DVI files. By default, the additional opcodes 129
and 134 are recognized by xdvi as Omega extensions and inter‐
preted as requests to set 2-byte characters. The only drawback
is that the virtual font array will require 65536 positions in‐
stead of the default 256 positions, i.e. the memory requirements
of xdvi will be slightly larger. If you find this unacceptable
or encounter another problem with the Omega extensions, you can
switch this extension off by using -noomega (but please do send
a bug report if you find such problems - see the bug address in
the AUTHORS section below).
(Note: -noomega corresponds to omega: off; +noomega to omega:
on.)
-noscan
(.prescan) By default, xdvi does a preliminary scan of the dvi
file to process any papersize specials; this is especially im‐
portant at startup since the paper size may be needed to deter‐
mine the window size. If PostScript<tm> is in use, then pres‐
canning is also necessary in order to properly process header
files. In addition, prescanning is needed to correctly deter‐
mine the background color of a page. This option turns off such
prescanning. (Prescanning will be automatically be turned back
on if xdvi detects any of the specials mentioned above.) (Note:
-noscan corresponds to prescan:off; +noscan to prescan:on.)
-notempfile
(.tempFile) As mentioned in the section DESCRIPTION above, xdvi
will create a temporary copy of the DVI file so that it can be
accessed without interruptions even while the file is being
rewritten by TeX. Since this introduces the overhead of copying
the file every time it has changed, the -notempfile allows you
to turn off this behaviour. In this case, exposing parts of the
window while the DVI file is being written by TeX will erase the
current window contents until the DVI file can be completely
reread.
(Note: -notempfile corresponds to tempFile:off; +notempfile to
tempFile:on.)
-notype1fonts
(.type1) This will disable the use of the FreeType library to
display PostScript<tm> Type 1 fonts. Use this option as a work‐
around when you encounter problems with the display of Type 1
fonts (but please don't forget to send a bug report in this
case, to the URL mentioned in the section AUTHORS below).
(Note: -notype1fonts corresponds to type1:off; +notype1fonts to
type1:on.)
-noxi2scrolling
(.xi2Scrolling) This will disable the use of high-resolution
scrolling using the XInput 2.1 features of the X Server. When
enabled, horizontal and vertical scrolling is done in smaller
increments than would correspond to a single click of a mouse
wheel. This is only available for hardware that supports the
feature, generally touchpads. It is not available for tradi‐
tional wheel mice. If suitable hardware is not present or if
the X server does not support XInput 2.1 or higher, then the
high-resolution scrolling feature is turned off and has no ef‐
fect.
(Note: -noxi2scrolling corresponds to xi2Scrolling:off;
+noxi2scrolling, to xi2Scrolling:on.)
-offsets dimen
(.Offset) Specifies the size of both the horizontal and vertical
offsets of the output on the page. By decree of the Stanford
TeX Project, the default TeX page origin is always 1 inch over
and down from the top-left page corner, even when non-American
paper sizes are used. Therefore, the default offsets are 1.0
inch. The argument dimen should be a decimal number optionally
followed by any of the two-letter abbreviations for units ac‐
cepted by TeX (pt, pc, in, bp, cm, mm, dd, cc, or sp). By de‐
fault, the unit will be cm (centimeters). See also -xoffset and
-yoffset.
-p pixels
(.pixelsPerInch) Defines the size of the fonts to use, in pixels
per inch. The default value is 600. This option is provided
only for backwards compatibility; the preferred way is to set
both the resolution and the Metafont mode via the -mfmode option
(which see).
-paper papertype
(.paper) Specifies the size of the printed page. Note that in
most cases it's best to specify the paper size in the TeX input
file via the line
\usepackage[dvips]{geometry}
which will be recognized by both dvips and xdvi; in that case
the use of a `-paper' option should be unnecessary.
The paper size may be specified in the form widthxheight option‐
ally followed by a unit, where width and height are decimal num‐
bers giving the width and height of the paper, respectively, and
the unit is any of the two-letter abbreviations for units ac‐
cepted by TeX (pt, pc, in, bp, cm, mm, dd, cc, or sp). By de‐
fault, the unit is cm (centimeters).
There are also synonyms which may be used: us (8.5x11in), legal
(8.5x14in), foolscap (13.5x17in), as well as the ISO sizes
a1-a7, b1-b7, c1-c7. Each of these also has a landscape or `ro‐
tated' variant: usr (11x8.5in), a1r-a7r, etc. For compatibility
with dvips, the formats letter (8.5x11in), ledger (17x11in) and
tabloid (11x17in) are also supported (these don't have rotated
variants).
Any of the above sizes may be preceded by a plus sign (`+');
this causes the paper size given here to override any paper size
given in the dvi file. The default paper size is 21 x 29.7 cm
(A4 size).
-pause (.pause) This option provides a simple implementation of incre‐
mental (stepwise) display, which can be used for presentations.
When this option is used, xdvi will pause the display of the
current page whenever it encounters a special special-string
(xdvi:pause by default; the string can be customized via -paus‐
especial, see below), and the cursor will change its shape. The
action unpause-or-next() (by default bound to the Space key)
will display the next portion of the page up to the following
special-string, or until the end of the page is reached. When
the option is not used, specials containing special-string will
be ignored.
-pausespecial special-string
(.pauseSpecial) Sets the special string that causes xdvi to
pause when the -pause option is active. The default value of
special-string is xdvi:pause.
-postscript flag
(.postscript) If flag = 0, rendering of PostScript<tm> specials
is disabled; instead, bounding boxes will be displayed (if
available). A value of 1 (the default) switches PostScript<tm>
specials on. With a value of 2, the PostScript<tm> specials are
displayed along with their bounding boxes; this allows you to
visually check the correctness of the bounding boxes. The values
can also be toggled at runtime with the `v' keystroke and the
corresponding numerical prefix arguments 0, 1 and 2.
-ps2pdfpath path
(.ps2pdfPath) Use path as a conversion program from PostScript
to PDF. The program or script should accept two command-line ar‐
guments: The PostScript file as first argument, and the PDF out‐
put file as second argument.
-rulecolor color
(.ruleColor) Determines the color of the rules used for the the
magnifier (default: foreground color).
-q (.noInitFile) Ignore the $HOME/.xdvirc startup file (i.e. don't
read it at startup, and don't write it at exit). This forces the
defaults defined in $HOME/.Xdefaults to be used. See FILES for
more information on $HOME/.xdvirc.
-rv (.reverseVideo) Causes the page to be displayed with white char‐
acters on a black background, instead of vice versa.
-S density
(.densityPercent) Same as -density (which see).
-s shrink
(.shrinkFactor) Defines the initial shrink factor. The default
value is 8. If shrink is given as 0, then the initial shrink
factor is computed so that the page fits within the window (as
if the `s' keystroke were given without a number).
-safer (.safer) This option turns on all available security options; it
is designed for use when xdvi is called by a browser that ob‐
tains a dvi or TeX file from another site. This option selects
+nogssafer and +allowshell.
-sidemargin dimen
(.sideMargin) Specifies the side margin (see -margins).
-sourceposition line[:col][ ]filename
This option makes xdvi search in the dvi file for the place cor‐
responding to the indicated line (and, optionally, column) in
the .tex source file, and highlight the place found by drawing a
rectangle in the highlight color (see the -hl option) around the
corresponding text. In addition, when run with this argument
(and the -nofork option is not given, which see), xdvi will al‐
ways return immediately: if it finds another instance of xdvi
already showing dvi_file, then it will cause that instance to
raise its window and move to the given place in the dvi file;
otherwise it will start up its own instance in the background.
If several instances of xdvi are displaying the respective dvi
file, the instance which was last raised to the foreground will
be used.
The space before filename is only needed if the filename starts
with a digit. When the space is used, the argument needs to be
enclosed in quotes to prevent the shell from misinterpreting the
space as argument separator.
This option requires that dvi_file be prepared with source spe‐
cial information. See the section on SOURCE SPECIALS for de‐
tails on how to do this.
Here is a more detailed description of how the filename in the
-sourceposition argument is matched with the filename in the
source specials:
1. If neither of the filenames contains a path name component,
the filenames are compared ignoring the `.tex' extensions in
both filenames.
2. Otherwise, if one of the filenames does contain a path compo‐
nent (e.g.: ./test.tex, ../test.tex, /my/homedir/tex/test.tex
or any combination of these), both filenames are expanded to
a full path, with any occurrences of ../ and ./ expanded, and
multiple slashes removed.
The pathname in the -sourceposition is expanded relative to
the current working directory of the xdvi-sourceposition in‐
vocation, and the pathnames in the source specials are ex‐
panded relative to the path of the current DVI file being
viewed.
The path names are then compared ignoring the `.tex' exten‐
sions in both path names.
-statusline
(.statusline) This option is obsolete; use -expertmode flag in‐
stead (which see).
-text-encoding encoding
(.textEncoding) Use encoding as the text encoding of the string
in the "Find" window. Usually, this should not be needed since
the encoding is determined from the locale settings.
-thorough
(.thorough) Xdvi will usually try to ensure that overstrike
characters (e.g., \notin) are printed correctly. On monochrome
displays, this is always possible with one logical operation,
either and or or. On color displays, however, this may take two
operations, one to set the appropriate bits and one to clear
other bits. If this is the case, then by default xdvi will in‐
stead use the copy operation, which does not handle overstriking
correctly. The -thorough option chooses the slower but more
correct choice. See also -copy.
-topmargin dimen
(.topMargin) Specifies the top and bottom margins (see -mar‐
gins).
-unique
(.unique) This option will make another instance of xdvi running
on the same display act as a `server'. For example, the invoca‐
tion
xdvi-unique +5 file.dvi
will cause this other instance to load file.dvi on page 5 in
place of the file that it is currently displaying. If there is
already another instance of xdvi already displaying the file
file.dvi, then it will just jump to page 5. If the other in‐
stance of xdvi is displaying a different file, it will load
file.dvi instead. Otherwise, if no other instance of xdvi is
currently running on the display, this option instead starts a
new instance of xdvi in the background (unless the -nofork op‐
tion is specified, which see) displaying page 5 of file.dvi.
The filename and the +n option for the page number are the only
options available for controlling a remote instance of xdvi like
this; all other options are currently ignored.
-useTeXpages
Use logical TeX pages (the values of the \count0 register) in‐
stead of physical pages for the pagelist labels and when jumping
to a page in a document with the `g' keystroke (or the goto-
page() action). This option can be toggled via the `T' key‐
stroke.
-version
Print information on the version of xdvi.
-visitedlinkcolor
(.visitedLinkColor) Color used for visited hyperlinks (`Purple4'
by default). Hyperlinks become visited once you click on them.
As for linkColor, the value should be either a valid X color
name or a hexadecimal color string.
-warnspecials
(.warnSpecials) Causes xdvi to print warnings about \special
strings that it cannot process to stderr. These warnings are
suppressed by default.
-watchfile n
(.watchFile) If this option is set to a value larger than 0, xd‐
vi will check the DVI file for changes every n seconds. If the
DVI file has been completely written by TeX, it will be reloaded
automatically. Fractional values (e.g. `2.5') are possible. The
default for this option is 0, i.e. no watching.
Since xdvi cannot handle partial DVI files, it tries not to
reload the file while it is being rewritten. However, use of
the magnifier or switching of pages requires reading (a part of)
the DVI file, and if the tempfile option is switched off, this
will erase the current contents of the window until the DVI file
can be read entirely.
-wheelunit pixels
(.wheelUnit) Sets the number of pixels that a motion of a wheel
mouse will move the image up, down, left, or right. (See the
wheel and hwheel actions, below, for more information on this.)
If set to zero, the wheel mouse functionality is (essentially)
disabled. The default value is 80.
-xoffset dimen
(.xOffset) Specifies the size of the horizontal offset of the
output on the page. See -offsets.
-yoffset dimen
(.yOffset) Specifies the size of the vertical offset of the out‐
put on the page. See -offsets.
KEYSTROKES
Xdvi recognizes the following keystrokes when typed in its window.
Each may optionally be preceded by a (positive or negative) number, a
`prefix argument', whose interpretation will depend on the particular
keystroke. This prefix argument can be discarded by pressing the ``Es‐
cape'' key. If present, the ``Help'', ``Prior'' and ``Next'' keys are
synonyms for `?', `b', and `f' keys, respectively.
The key bindings listed here are those that xdvi assigns by default.
The names appearing in brackets at the beginning of the descriptions
are the names of the actions associated with the keys; these can be
used to customize the key bindings, as explained in more detail in the
section CUSTOMIZATION below. If only a lowercase binding is listed,
both upper- and lowercase keys will work for that binding.
ESC key
[discard-number()] The escape key discards the numerical prefix
for all actions (useful when you mistyped a number).
Return key
[forward-page()] Moves to the next page (or to the nth next page
if a number is given). Synonyms are `n', `f' and Line Feed.
Backspace key
[back-pagee()] Moves to the previous page (or back n pages).
Synonyms are `p', `b' and Ctrl-h.
Delete key
[up-or-previous()] Moves up two-thirds of a window-full, or to
the top of the previous page if already at the top of the page.
With a float argument, moves up the corresponding fraction of a
window-full.
Space key
[unpause-or-next()] Moves down two-thirds of a window-full, or
to the next page if already at the bottom of the page.
When the option -pause special-string is used and the display is
currently paused, this key will instead display the next portion
of the page until the next special-string or the end of the page
is encountered. See the description of the -pause option for
details. The action [down-or-next()] does a similar thing, but
without pausing; it is not bound to a key by default.
Ctrl-Home (Xaw), Ctrl-osfBeginLine (Motif)
[goto-page(1)] Moves to the first page of the document.
Ctrl-End (Xaw), Ctrl-osfEndLine (Motif)
[goto-page()] Moves to the last page of the document.
Home (Xaw), osfBeginLine (Motif)
[home-or-top()] Move to the ``home'' position of the page, or to
the top of the page if the keep flag is set (in this case, the
page doesn't scroll horizontally).
End (Xaw), osfEndLine (Motif)
[end-or-bottom()] Move to the ``end'' position of the page (the
lower right-hand corner), or to the bottom of the page if the
keep flag is set (in this case, the page doesn't scroll horizon‐
tally).
Down arrow
[down(0.015)] Scrolls page down.
Up arrow
[up(0.015)] Scrolls page up.
Right arrow
[right(0.015)] Scrolls page right.
Left arrow
[left(0.015)] Scrolls page left.
Alt-Ctrl-+
[change-density(25)] Increase the darkness of the fonts in the
DVI window by adding to the gamma value (see also the `S' key‐
stroke).
Alt-Ctrl--
[change-density(-25)] Decrease the darkness of the fonts in the
DVI window by subtracting from the gamma value (see also the `S'
keystroke).
Ctrl-+ [set-shrink-factor(+)] Increase the shrink factor (see also the
`s' keystroke).
Ctrl-- [set-shrink-factor(-)] Decrease the shrink factor (see also the
`s' keystroke).
Ctr-[ [pagehistory-delete-backward()] Delete the current item in the
page history and move to the history item before the deleted
one. With a prefix argument n, delete n previous history items.
See PAGE HISTORY for details.
[ [pagehistory-back()] Move back in the page history (see PAGE
HISTORY for details). With a prefix argument n, move back n his‐
tory items.
Ctr-] [pagehistory-delete-forward()] Delete the current item in the
page history and move to the history item after the deleted one.
With a prefix argument n, delete n next history items. See PAGE
HISTORY for details.
] [pagehistory-forward()] Move forward in the page history (see
PAGE HISTORY for details). With a prefix argument n, move for‐
ward n history items.
^ [home()] Move to the ``home'' position of the page. This is
normally the upper left-hand corner of the page, depending on
the margins as described in the -margins option, above.
? [help()] Same as the h key (which see).
B [htex-back()] This key jumps back to the previous hyperlink an‐
chor. See the section HYPERLINKS for more information on navi‐
gating the links.
b [back-page()] Moves to the previous page (or back n pages).
Synonyms are `p', Ctrl-h and Backspace.
C [set-color()] This key toggles the use of color specials. The
key sequences `0C' and `1C' turn interpretation of color spe‐
cials off and on, respectively. See also the -nocolor option.
c [center()] Moves the page so that the point currently beneath
the mouse cursor is moved to the middle of the window, and warps
the mouse cursor to the same place.
D [toggle-grid-mode()] This key toggles the use of a grid on the
displayed page. If no number is given, the grid mode is
switched on or off. By prepending a number from 1 to 3, 3 dif‐
ferent grid levels can be set. The units of the grid are inches
or centimeters, depending on whether the paper format is letter
(in) or a4 (cm).
d [down()] Moves page down two thirds of a window-full. With a
float argument to ``down'', moves down the corresponding frac‐
tion of a window-full.
Ctrl-f [find()] Pop up a window to search for a string in the DVI file.
See the section STRING SEARCH, below, for more details.
f [forward-page()] Moves to the next page (or to the nth next page
if a number is given). Synonyms are `n', Return, and Line Feed.
G [set-greyscaling()] This key toggles the use of greyscale anti-
aliasing for displaying shrunken bitmaps. In addition, the key
sequences `0G' and `1G' clear and set this flag, respectively.
See also the -nogrey option.
If given a numeric argument that is not 0 or 1, greyscale anti-
aliasing is turned on, and the gamma resource is set to the val‐
ue divided by 100. E.g., `150G' turns on greyscale and sets gam‐
ma to 1.5.
Ctrl-g [find-next()] Find the next match string in the DVI file; this
can be used instead of pressing the `Find' button in the search
window.
g [goto-page()] Moves to the page with the given number. If no
page number is given, xdvi jumps to the last page.
If the option/resource useTeXpages is active, the numbers corre‐
spond to the actual page numbers in the TeX file; otherwise, ab‐
solute page numbers (starting from 1) are used. In the latter
case, the page numbers can be changed with the `P' keystroke,
below. Note that with the useTeXpages option it is possible
that the same page number occurs multiple times; in such a case,
xdvi will use the first page number that matches.
h Pops up a help window with a short explanation of the most im‐
portant key bindings and concepts.
k [set-keep-flag()] Normally when xdvi switches pages, it moves to
the home position as well. The `k' keystroke toggles a `keep-
position' flag which, when set, will keep the same position when
moving between pages. Also `0k' and `1k' clear and set this
flag, respectively. See also the -keep option.
Ctrl-l [fullscreen(toggle)] Toggles fullscreen mode (see the descrip‐
tion of the -fullscreen option for more information on this).
This is even more flaky than using the command-line option:
There is no universal standard how a window could change its own
geometry or window decorations at run-time, so this will not
work with most window managers or desktops. Generally, it's bet‐
ter to use the window manager controls to change the size or
decorations of the xdvi window.
l [left()] Moves page left two thirds of a window-full.
M [set-margins()] Sets the margins so that the point currently un‐
der the mouse cursor defines the upper left-hand corner of the
text in the page. Note that the command does not move the im‐
age, but only determines the margins for the page switching com‐
mands. For details on how the margins are used, see the -margins
option.
m [toggle-mark()] Toggles the mark for the current page in the
page list. When a page is marked, it is displayed with a small
star `*' next to the page number. The marked pages can then be
printed or saved to a file. A page or several pages can also be
marked by clicking or dragging Mouse-2 in the page list.
Ctrl-n [toggle-mark()forward-page()] Toggles the mark for the current
page in the page list, and moves to the next page. This lets you
quickly mark a series of subsequent pages.
n [forward-page()] Moves to the next page (or to the nth next page
if a number is given). Synonyms are `f', Return, and Line Feed.
Ctrl-o [select-dvi-file()] Read a new dvi file. A file-selection widget
is popped up for you to choose the DVI file from. If a prefix
argument n is given, the n th file from the file history is
opened instead.
P [declare-page-number()] ``This is page number n.'' This can be
used to make the `g' keystroke refer to a different page number
than the physical page. (If you want to use `logical' or TeX
page numbers instead of physical pages, consider using the op‐
tion -useTeXpages instead.) The argument n should be given as
prefix to this key.
Ctrl-p [print()] Opens a popup window for printing the DVI file, or
parts of it. See the section PRINT DIALOG for an explanation of
the options available, and the resources to customize the de‐
fault behaviour.
p [back-page()] Moves to the previous page (or back n pages).
Synonyms are `b', Ctrl-h and Backspace.
q [quit()] Quits the program.
Ctrl-r [forward-page(0)] Redisplays the current page.
R [reread-dvi-file()] Forces the dvi file to be reread. This al‐
lows you to preview many versions of the same file while running
xdvi only once.
r [right()] Moves page right two thirds of a window-full.
Ctrl-s [save()] Opens a popup window for saving the DVI file, or parts
of it. See the section SAVE DIALOG below for more information on
this.
S [set-density()] Sets the density factor to be used when shrink‐
ing bitmaps. This should be a number between 0 and 100; higher
numbers produce lighter characters. If greyscaling mode is in
effect, this changes the value of gamma instead. The new value
of gamma is the given number divided by 100; negative values are
allowed.
s [set-shrink-factor()] Changes the shrink factor to the given
number. If no number is given, the smallest factor that makes
the entire page fit in the window will be used. (Margins are
ignored in this computation.)
T [use-tex-pages()] Use logical TeX pages (the values of the
\count0 register) instead of physical pages for the pagelist la‐
bels and when jumping to a page in a document via goto-page().
See also the -useTeXpages option.
t [switch-magnifier-units()] Switches the units used for the mag‐
nifier tick marks, and for reporting the distance between the
mouse pointer and the ruler centre in ruler mode (see the sec‐
tion MODES). The default value is specified by the X resource
tickUnits (`mm' by default). The units toggle through the fol‐
lowing values; except for `px', they all correspond to TeX's
units: mm (millimeters) pt (TeX points), in (inches), sp (scaled
points, the unit used internally by TeX) bp (big points or
`PostScript points'), cc (cicero points), dd (didot points), pc
(pica), and px (screen pixels).
Ctrl-u [back-page()toggle-mark()] Moves to the previous page, and tog‐
gles the mark for that page. This is the dual action to Ctrl-n.
u [up()] Moves page up two thirds of a window-full. With a float
argument to ``up'', moves up the corresponding fraction of a
window-full.
Ctrl-v [show-source-specials()] Show bounding boxes for every source
special on the current page, and print the strings contained in
these specials to stderr. With prefix 1, show every bounding box
on the page. This is for debugging purposes mainly.
V [set-gs-alpha()] This key toggles the anti-aliasing of Post‐
Script<tm> specials when Ghostscript is used as renderer. In
addition the key sequences `0V' and `1V' clear and set this
flag, respectively. See also the -gsalpha option.
v [set-ps()] This key toggles the rendering of PostScript<tm> spe‐
cials between 3 states:
- specials (like EPS graphics) are displayed;
- specials are displayed along with their bounding box (if
available);
- only the bounding box is displayed.
The states can also be selected directly by using `1v', `2v' and
`0v' respectively. See also the -postscript option.
Ctrl-x [source-what-special()] Display information about the source
special next to the mouse cursor in the statusline. This is the
same special that would be found by source-special(), but with‐
out invoking the editor. For debugging purposes.
x [set-expert-mode()] Toggles expert mode, in which the sta‐
tusline, the scrollbars, the menu buttons, the toolbar (Motif
only) and the page list are not shown. Typing `1x' toggles the
display of the statusline at the bottom of the window. Typing
`2x' toggles the scrollbars (if available). For Xaw, `3x' tog‐
gles the menu buttons and the page list, for Motif, it toggles
the page list. In Motif, the additional bindings `4x' toggle the
toolbar, and `5x' the menu bar.
Without a prefix argument, all of the mentioned GUI elements are
either switched on (if they had been invisible before) or off.
Toggling the scrollbars may behave erratically with the Xaw wid‐
gets; e.g. the scrollbars may reappear after resizing the win‐
dow, and at certain window sizes one of the scrollbars may fail
to disappear.
See also the option -expertmode (the numbers above correspond to
the bits in the argument to -expertmode).
MOUSE ACTIONS IN THE MAIN WINDOW
The mouse actions can be customized by setting the X resource mouse‐
Translations. Since there are three different mouse modes (see the
section MODES below), there is a special action mouse-modes which lists
the actions for each of the three modes: mouse-modes("ACTIONS-FOR-
MODE1", "ACTIONS-FOR-MODE2", "ACTIONS-FOR-MODE3"). If only one argu‐
ment is specified, this action is used for all modes. The default
bindings are as follows:
xdvi.mouseTranslations: \
Shift<Btn1Down>:mouse-modes("drag(+)")\n\
Shift<Btn2Down>:mouse-modes("drag(|)")\n\
Shift<Btn3Down>:mouse-modes("drag(-)")\n\
Ctrl<Btn1Down>:mouse-modes("source-special()")\n\
<Btn1Down>: mouse-modes("do-href()magnifier(*2)", "text-selection()", "ruler()")\n\
<Btn2Down>: mouse-modes("do-href-newwindow()magnifier(*2)", "text-selection()", "ruler()")\n\
<Btn3Down>: mouse-modes("magnifier(*3)")\n\
<Btn4Down>: mouse-modes("wheel(-0.2)")\n\
<Btn5Down>: mouse-modes("wheel(0.2)")\n\
<Btn6Down>: mouse-modes("hwheel(-0.2)")\n\
<Btn7Down>: mouse-modes("hwheel(0.2)")\n\
All of these actions are described in more detail below. Note the use
of quote symbols around the action strings, which are necessary to
group them into one argument. Buttons 4, 5, 6, and 7 refer to wheel
movements (wheel up/down/left/right) on wheel mice. Not all mice sup‐
port horizontal scrolling.
The X Toolkit routines that implement translations do not support event
types of Btn6Down or Btn7Down. Because of this, xdvi implements its
own parser for translations given in mouseTranslations. This parser is
more limited than the parser built in to the X Toolkit. The string
given in mouseTranslations should not begin with ``#replace'', ``#aug‐
ment'', or ``#override''. Modifiers of the form @keysym are not sup‐
ported, and the event type must be of the form BtnDown or BtnnDown,
where n is a positive integer without leading zeroes. Also, some limi‐
tations apply to the action field.
do-href()do-href-newwindow()
Usually, if a binding specifies more then one action, all ac‐
tions are executed in a sequence. The hyperlink bindings do-
href() and do-href-newwindow() are special in that they are used
as an alternative to other actions that might follow them if the
mouse is currently located on a hyperlink. In this case, none
of the other actions will be executed; otherwise, only the other
actions are executed.
The action do-href() jumps to the link target in the current xd‐
vi window (eventually switching to another page), and do-href-
newwindow() opens a new instance of xdvi for the link target.
In both cases, the location of the target is indicated by a
small arrow drawn in the same color as a visited link in the
left corner of the window.
magnifier(n x m)
magnifier(*n)
This action will pop up a ``magnifying glass'' which shows the
unshrunk image of the region around the mouse pointer. The mag‐
nifier disappears when the mouse button is released. Moving the
mouse cursor while holding the button down will move the magni‐
fier.
Different mouse buttons produce different sized windows, as in‐
dicated by the the argument of the magnifier() action. Its argu‐
ment is either a string of the form widthxheight, as in the
-mgsn command-line option, or one of the strings *1 through *5,
referring to the value specified by the corresponding -mgsn op‐
tion.
drag(+)
drag(|)
drag(-)
Drags the page with the mouse. This action should have one pa‐
rameter, the character ``|'', ``-'', or ``+'', indicating verti‐
cal dragging only, horizontal dragging only, or dragging in all
directions.
source-special()
This action starts a ``reverse search'', opening the editor at
the location in the TeX file corresponding to the pointer loca‐
tion in the DVI file. See the section on SOURCE SPECIALS, be‐
low, for more information on this.
wheel()
This action can be used to scroll the image with a wheel mouse,
where it is usually bound to mouse button 4 (wheel up) or 5
(wheel down). The action takes one parameter, giving the dis‐
tance to scroll the image. If the parameter contains a decimal
point, the distance is given in wheel units; otherwise, pixels.
A negative value scrolls up, a positive value scrolls down.
hwheel()
This action can be used to scroll the image horizontally with a
wheel mouse, where it is usually bound to mouse button 6 (wheel
left) or 7 (wheel right). The action takes one parameter, giv‐
ing the distance to scroll the image. If the parameter contains
a decimal point, the distance is given in wheel units; other‐
wise, pixels. A negative value scrolls left, a positive value
scrolls right. Not all mice support horizontal scrolling; this
is mostly for touchpads, trackpads, etc.
text-selection()
This action allows you to mark a rectangular region of text in
the DVI file. The text is put into the X selection buffer and
can be pasted into other applictions (e.g. text editors). This
works similar to the Plain text option in the Save dialog; see
the discussion there for more information on encoding issues.
ruler()
This action creates a cross-shaped ruler. Moving the mouse and
holding the button down drags the ruler and lets you measure
distances on the page. See the section Ruler Mode for more in‐
formation on this.
UNBOUND ACTIONS
The following actions are not bound to a key by default, but are avail‐
able for customization.
quit-confirm()
Pops up a confirmation window to quit xdvi. To bind it to the
`q' key instead of the default `quit()' action, put the follow‐
ing into your ~/.Xdefaults file:
xdvi.mainTranslations: #override\
<Key>q: quit-confirm()\n
down-or-next()
Similar to unpause-or-next(): Moves down two-thirds of a window-
full, or to the next page if already at the bottom of the page.
shrink-to-dpi()
This action takes one (required) argument. It sets the shrink
factor to an integer so as to approximate the use of fonts with
the corresponding number of dots per inch. If xdvi is using
fonts scaled for p dots per inch, and the argument to shrink-to-
dpi is n, then the corresponding shrink factor is the ratio p/n,
rounded to the nearest integer.
user-exec()
This action takes one (required) argument. Runs an external pro‐
gram specified by the argument, which is tokenized on white‐
space. The XDVI_FILE environment variable is set to the absolute
pathname of the DVI file, so that the program can find the DVI.
As an example, to establish the key `m' as a keybinding that re‐
generates the DVI file with `make', put the following into your
~/.Xdefaults file:
xdvi.mainTranslations: #override\
<Key>m: user-exec(xdvi-remake)\n
where `xdvi-remake' names a program in your PATH analogous to
`cd $(dirname $XDVI_FILE) && make $(basename $XDVI_FILE)'. (See
also the section SIGNALS for a way to get xdvi to reload the DVI
file once it has been regenerated.)
CUSTOMIZATION
Key and mouse button assignments can be changed by setting the main‐
Translations resource to a string of translations as defined in the
documentation for the X toolkit. The actions should take the form of
action names listed in the KEYSTROKES and MOUSE ACTIONS sections.
An exception to this are the Motif keys osfPageUp (PgUp), osfPageDown
(PgDown), osfBeginLine (Home) and osfEndLine (End) which are currently
not customizable in the Motif version.
Key actions will usually be without arguments; if they are passed an
argument, it represents the optional number or `prefix argument' typed
prior to the action.
Some key actions may take special arguments, as follows: The argument
of goto-page may be the letter `e', indicating the action of going to
the end of the document. The argument of set-shrink-factor may be the
letter `a', indicating that the shrink factor should be set to the
smallest value such that the page will fit in the window, or one of the
signs `+' or `-', indicating that the shrink factor should be increased
or decreased, respectively. Finally, actions that would perform a tog‐
gle, such as set-keep-flag, may receive an argument `t', indicating
that the action should toggle regardless of the current prefix argu‐
ment.
Mouse actions should refer only to ButtonPress events (e.g.,
<Btn1Down>:magnifier(*1)). The corresponding motion and release events
will be handled internally. A key action may be bound to a mouse
event, but not vice versa.
Usually the string of translations should begin with ``#override'', in‐
dicating that the default key and mouse button assignments should not
be discarded.
When keys or mouse buttons involving modifiers (such as Ctrl or Shift)
are customized together with their non-modified equivalents, the modi‐
fied keys should come first, for example:
xdvi.mainTranslations: #override \
Shift<Key>s: select-dvi-file()\n\
Ctrl<Key>s: save()\n\
<Key>s: find()\n
Because xdvi needs to capture pointer motion events, and because the X
Toolkit translations mechanism cannot accommodate both motion events
and double-click events at the same time, it is not possible to specify
double-click actions in xdvi customizations. For information on this
and other aspects of translations, see the X Toolkit Intrinsics docu‐
mentation.
There is no command-line option to set the mainTranslations resource,
since changing this resource on the command line would be cumbersome.
To set the resource for testing purposes, use the -xrm command-line op‐
tion provided by the X toolkit. For example, xdvi-xrm 'XDvi.main‐
Translations: #override "z":quit()' ... or xdvi-xrm 'XDvi.mainTrans‐
lations: #override <Key>z:quit()' ... will cause the key `z' to quit
xdvi.
Some resources are provided to allow customization of the geometry of
the Xaw command buttons. Again, they are not changeable via command-
line options, other than via the -xrm option. All of these resources
take integer values.
buttonSideSpacing
The number of pixels to be placed on either side of the buttons.
The default value is 6.
buttonTopSpacing
The number of pixels between the top button and the top of the
window. The default value is 50.
buttonBetweenSpacing
The number of pixels between the buttons. The default value is
20.
buttonBetweenExtra
The number of pixels of additional space to be inserted if the
buttonTranslations resource string contains an extra newline
character. The default value is 50.
buttonBorderWidth
The border width of the button windows. The default value is 1.
PAGE LIST
The scrollable page list on the right of the main window allows you to
jump directly to a page in the DVI file.
Mouse-1
Jumps to the page the mouse is located on.
Mouse-2
[toggle-mark()] Toggle the mark of the current page. The marks
are used by the `Print' and `Save to file' dialogs to select on‐
ly marked pages from the DVI file.
When the mouse pointer is inside the page list, the mouse wheel switch‐
es to the next or previous page.
SCROLLBARS
The scrollbars (if present) behave in the standard way: pushing Button
2 in a scrollbar moves the top or left edge of the scrollbar to that
point and optionally drags it; pushing Button 1 moves the image up or
right by an amount equal to the distance from the button press to the
upper left-hand corner of the window; pushing Button 3 moves the image
down or left by the same amount.
The scrollbars can be removed via the -expertmode flag/keystroke (which
see).
MAGNIFIER
By default, the mouse buttons 1 to 5 will pop up a ``magnifying glass''
that shows an unshrunken image of the page (i.e. an image at the reso‐
lution determined by the option/X resource pixels or mfmode) at varying
sizes. When the magnifier is moved, small ruler-like tick marks are
displayed at the edges of the magnifier (unless the X resource de‐
layRulers is set to false, in which case the tick marks will always be
displayed). The unit of the marks is determined by the X resource
tickUnits (mm by default). This unit can be changed at runtime via the
action switch-magnifier-units(), by default bound to the keystroke `t'
(see the description of that key, and of switch-magnifier-units() for
more details on the units available).
The length of the tick marks can be changed via the X resource tick‐
Length (4 by default). A zero or negative value suppresses the tick
marks.
PAGE HISTORY
Xdvi keeps a history of viewed pages, and you can move through the his‐
tory and delete items using the keys [ (pagehistory-back()), ] (page‐
history-forward()), Ctr-[ (pagehistory-delete-backward()) and Ctr-]
(pagehistory-delete-forward()).
When one of the history commands is used, the page history is displayed
in the status line at the bottom of the window, with the current list
item marked by square brackets `[', `]' and a left and right context of
at most 10 items. File boundaries are marked by `#'.
The size of the history can be customized with the X resource pageHis‐
torySize (the default size is 1000 items). If the size is set to 0, the
history commands are disabled.
HYPERLINKS
The actions do-href() and do-href-newwindow() (by default bound to
Mouse-1 and Mouse-2 if the pointer is currently located on a hyperlink)
can be used to open the link target in the same window (do-href()) or
in a new window (do-href-newwindow()).
If the link target is not a file on the local disk, xdvi tries to
launch a web browser (as specified by the -browser command line option,
the BROWSER environment variable or the wwwBrowser X resource, in this
order) to retrieve the document. See the description of the BROWSER en‐
vironment variable, below, for an example setting.
If the file is a local file, xdvi tries to determine if it is a DVI
file. If it is, xdvi will try to display the file; otherwise it will
try to determine the MIME type of the file, and from that an applica‐
tion suitable for opening the file. This is done by parsing the files
specified by the environment variable EXTENSIONMAPS for a mapping of
filename extensions to MIME types, and the files determined by the en‐
vironment variable MAILCAPS for a mapping of MIME types to application
programs. See the descriptions of these variables in the section ENVI‐
RONMENT, below, for a more detailed description and the default values
of these variables. If no suitable files are found, a set of built-in
default MIME types and applications is used.
Xdvi currently uses no heuristics apart from the filename suffix to de‐
termine the mime type of a file. If a filename has no suffix, the value
of the resource noMimeSuffix is used (by default application/x-un‐
known). If the suffix doesn't match any of the suffixes in mime.types,
the value of the resource unknownMimeSuffix is used (by default appli‐
cation/x-unknown). If the mailcap entries do not list a viewer for a
given mime type, xdvi will show a warning popup. If you want to avoid
this warning, and for example want to always use the netscape browser
for unknown MIME types, you could add the following line to your
~/.mailcap file:
application/xdvi-unknown; \
netscape -raise -remote 'openURL(%s,new-window)'
STRING SEARCH
The keystroke Ctrl-f or the menu entry File > Find ... (or the `Binoc‐
ulars' symbol in the toolbar, for Motif) opens a dialog window to
search for a text string or a regular expression in the DVI file. The
keystroke Ctrl-g jumps to the next match (like pressing the `Find' but‐
ton in the search window).
By default, the matches are highlighted in inverted color. If the dis‐
play isn't running in TrueColor, or if the X resource matchHighlightIn‐
verted is set to false or the command-line option -nomatchinverted is
used, xdvi will instead draw a rectangle in highlight color (see the
-hl option) around the match.
If a match crosses a page boundary, only the part on the first page is
highlighted. Xdvi will scan up to 2 adjacent pages to match strings
crossing page boundaries; but note that header or footer lines, or in‐
tervening float pages will be treated as parts of the scanned text.
Such text will usually cause multi-page matching to fail.
This emphasizes the fact that searching in the formatted text (the DVI
output) works differently from searching in the source text: Searching
in the DVI file makes it easier to skip formatting instructions, and
makes it possible to search for e.g. hyphenation and equation numbers;
but sometimes the formatting results can also get in the way, e.g. in
the case of footnotes. In these cases it's better to search in the TeX
source instead. The use of source specials will make switching between
the xdvi display and the editor with the TeX source easier; see the
section SOURCE SPECIALS below for more information on this.
The text extracted from the DVI file is in encoded in UTF-8 (you can
view that text by saving the file in UTF-8 format via the File > Save
as ... menu item). If xdvi has been compiled with locale, nl_langin‐
fo() and iconv support, the search term is converted from the character
set specified by the current locale into UTF-8. (See the output of lo‐
cale -a for a list of locale settings available on your system). If
nl_langinfo() is not available, but iconv is, you can specify the input
encoding for iconv via the X resource textEncoding (see the output of
iconv -l for a list of valid encodings). If iconv support is not avail‐
able, only the encodings ISO-8859-1 and UTF-8 are supported (these
names are case-insensitive).
Ideographic characters from CJKV fonts are treated specially: All white
space (spaces and newlines) before and after such characters is ignored
in the search string and in the DVI file.
To match a newline character, use \n in the search string; to match the
string \n, use \\n.
If the checkbox Regular Expression is activated, the string is treated
as a regular expression in extended POSIX syntax, with the following
properties:
- a? matches a zero or one times.
- a* matches a zero or more times.
- a+ matches a one or more times. Note that * and + are greedy, i.e.
they match the longest possible substring.
- The pattern . matches any character except for newline. To also
match a newline, use `(.|\n)'.
- a{n} matches a exactly n times.
- a{n,m} matches a at least n and no more than m times.
- a|b matches a or b. Brackets can be used for grouping, e.g.:
(a|b)|c.
- The string matched by the nth group can be referenced by \n, e.g.
\1 refers to the first match.
- The characters ^ and $ match the beginning and the end of a line,
respectively.
- [abc] matches any of the letters a, b, c, and [a-z] matches all
characters from a to z.
- Each item in a regular expression can also be one of the following
POSIX character classes:
[[:alnum:]] [[:alpha:]] [[:blank:]] [[:cntrl:]] [[:digit:]]
[[:graph:]] [[:lower:]] [[:print:]] [[:space:]] [[:upper:]]
These can be negated by inserting a ^ symbol after the first brack‐
et: [^[:alpha:]]
For more details on POSIX regular expressions, see e.g. the IEEE
Std 1003.1 standard definition available online from:
http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007904975/basedefs/xbd_chap09.html
- As a non-standard extension, the following Perl-like abbreviations
can be used instead of the POSIX classes:
Symbol Meaning POSIX Class
\w an alphanumeric character [[:alnum:]]
\W a non-alphanumeric character [^[:alnum:]]
\d a digit character [[:digit:]]
\D a non-digit character [^[:digit:]]
\s a whitespace character [[:space:]]
\S a non-whitespace character [^[:space:]]
- The following characters are special symbols; they need to be es‐
caped with \ in order to match them literally: ( ) [ ] . * ? + ^ $
\.
- Matches of length zero are silently skipped.
The dialog also provides checkboxes to:
- search backwards;
- match in a case-sensitive manner (the default is to ignore case,
i.e. a search string Test will match both the strings test and TEST
in the DVI file);
- ignore line breaks and hyphens: This removes all hyphens at the
ends of lines and the following newline characters, and replaces
all remaining newline characters by white spaces. So hyphenated
words will appear as one word to the search, and a search for two
words with a space in between will also match the words if they are
separated by a linebreak.
Note that the hyphen removal may cause unwanted side effects for
compound words containing hyphens that are wrapped after the hy‐
phen, and that replacing the newlines affects the interpretation of
regular expressions as follows: The . pattern will also match new‐
lines, and ^ and $ won't match begin and end of lines any more.
(Since currently there is no option for turning off the greediness
of * and +, turning on this option will usually result in matches
that are longer than desired.)
The current checkbox settings are saved in the ~/.xdvirc file.
PRINT DIALOG
The print dialog window allows you to print all pages, marked pages
(click or drag Mouse-2 in the page list to mark them), or a range of
pages. Note that the page numbers always refer to physical pages, so if
you're using the option `use TeX pages', you may want to disable it to
make it easier to determine the correct page numbers (or avoid this
problem altogether by marking the pages to be printed).
The value of the Printer text filed is passed to dvips via the -o!
mechanism, as a single argument after the `!'. Any arguments listed in
the Dvips options field are segmented at whitespaces and passed as sep‐
arate arguments to dvips. If you e.g. want to print the file 2-up, you
should enter the following string into the Printer field:
psnup -2 -q | lpr -Plp
There are several resources for customizing the behaviour and the de‐
fault entries of the print dialog:
dvipsPrinterString
dvipsOptionsString
These can be used to provide default entries for the Printer and
the Dvips options text fields, respectively. If no paper size is
specified in the DVI file (via e.g. \usepackage[dvips]{geometry}
- this is the preferred method), the input field is initialized
with the current value of the command line option/X resource pa‐
per. E.g., the option -paper a4r is translated into the dvips
options -t a4 -t landscape. Note that no check is performed
whether dvips actually understands these options (it will ignore
them if it can't); currently not all options used by xdvi are
also covered by dvips.
dvipsHangTime
dvipsFailHangTime
These specify the time (in milliseconds) that the printing
progress window will stay open after the dvips process has ter‐
minated. The value of dvipsHangTime is used if the process ter‐
minates successfully; dvipsFailHangTime is used if it terminates
with an error. The default values are 1.5 and 5 seconds, respec‐
tively. If both values are negative, the window will stay open
until it is closed by the user.
SAVE DIALOG
This dialog allows you to save all or selected/marked pages in the cur‐
rent DVI file. You can save in one of the following formats:
- PostScript (uses dvips to convert the DVI file to a PostScript
file, just like when printing to a PostScript file).
- PDF (first uses dvips to convert the DVI file to a PostScript file,
then uses ps2pdf to convert the PostScript file to PDF).
- Plain text in ISO-8859-1 or UTF-8 encoding. The latter will pre‐
serve more of the special LaTeX characters e.g. from mathematical
mode. Note however that e.g. only few of LaTeX's mathematical sym‐
bols can be rendered correctly as text; so this funcionality works
best for plain text documents. If a character cannot be displayed
in the selected charset, it is replaced by `\' followed by the
hexadecimal character code. If a character is not recognized at
all, it is replaced by `?'.
The programs for PostScript and PDF conversion can be customized via
the command line options or X resources -dvipspath/.dvipsPath and
-ps2pdfpath/.ps2pdfPath, respectively; see the explanation of these op‐
tions above for more details.
MODES
The keystroke Ctrl-m [switch-mode()] switches between three different
mouse bindings, which can also be activated via the Modes menu (in Mo‐
tif, this is a submenu of the Options menu called Mouse Mode). The de‐
fault mode at startup can be customized via the X resource mouseMode or
the command-line option -mousemode. The default startup mode is Magni‐
fier Mode.
Note: The modes are implemented by changing the magnifier() action.
Switching the mode will not work if Mouse-1 has been customized to an
action sequence that does not contain the magnifier() action.
Magnifier Mode
In this mode, the mouse buttons 1 to 5 pop up a ``magnifying
glass'' that shows an unshrunken image of the page (i.e. an im‐
age at the resolution determined by the option/X resource pixels
or mfmode) at varying sizes. When the magnifier is moved, small
ruler-like tick marks are displayed at the edges of the magnifi‐
er (unless the X resource delayRulers is set to false, in which
case the tick marks are always displayed). The unit of the
marks is determined by the X resource tickUnits (mm by default).
This unit can be changed at runtime via the action switch-magni‐
fier-units(), by default bound to the keystroke `t' (see the de‐
scription of that key, and of switch-magnifier-units() for more
details on the units available).
The length of the tick marks can be changed via the X resource
tickLength (4 by default). A zero or negative value suppresses
the tick marks.
Text Selection Mode
This mode allows you to select a rectangular region of text in
the DVI file by holding down Mouse-1 and moving the mouse. The
text is put into the X primary selection so that it can be past‐
ed into other X applications with Mouse-2 as usual.
If xdvi has been compiled with locale, nl_langinfo() and iconv
support, the selected text is converted into the character set
of the current locale (see the output of locale -a for a list of
locale settings available on your system). If nl_langinfo() is
not available, but iconv is, you can specify the input encoding
for iconv via the X resource textEncoding (see the output of
iconv -l for a list of valid encodings). If iconv support is not
available, only the encodings ISO-8859-1 and UTF-8 are supported
(these names are case-insensitive).
Note that UTF-8 is the only encoding that can render all charac‐
ters (e.g. mathematical symbols) of a DVI file. If ISO-8859-1 is
active, characters that cannot be displayed are replaced by `\'
followed by the hexadecimal character code. For other encod‐
ings, such characters may trigger iconv error messages. If a
character is not recognized at all, it is replaced by `?'.
To extract larger portions of text, you can alternatively save
selected pages or the entire file in text format via the File >
Save as ... menu.
Ruler Mode
This mode provides a simple way of measuring distances on the
page.
When this mode is activated, the mouse cursor changes into a
thin cross, and a larger, cross-shaped ruler is drawn in the
highlight color at the mouse location. The ruler doesn't have
units attached to it; instead, the current distance between the
ruler and the mouse cursor is continuously printed to the sta‐
tusline.
When activating Ruler Mode, the ruler is at first attached to
the mouse and can be moved around. It can then be positioned at
a fixed place by clicking Mouse-1. After that, the mouse cursor
can be moved to measure the horizontal (dx), vertical (dy) and
direct (shortest) (dr) distance between the ruler center point
and the mouse.
Clicking Mouse-1 again will move the ruler to the current mouse
position, and holding down Mouse-1 will drag the ruler around.
In Ruler Mode, the following special keybindings extend or re‐
place the default bindings:
o [ruler-snap-origin()] Snap the ruler back to the origin
coordinate (0,0).
t [overrides switch-magnifier-units()] Toggle between vari‐
ous ruler units, which can be specified by the X resource
tickUnits (`mm' by default).
P [overrides declare-page-number()] Print the distances
shown in the statusline to standard output.
TOOLBAR (Motif only)
The Motif toolbar can also be customized. The XPM file used for the
toolbar icons can be specified via the resource toolbarPixmapFile,
which should contain a filename that can be found in one of XFILE‐
SEARCHPATH or XDVIINPUTS (see the section FILE SEARCHING below for more
information on these variables). Xdvi will try to split this pixmap
horizontally into n pieces, where each piece is as wide as the pixmap
is high and is treated as an image for toolbar button n. This means
that each icon should be a square, and that the entire pixmap should
have width n x h if h is the height of the pixmap.
The resource toolbarTranslations can be used to map icons/buttons to
specific actions. The resource should contain a string separated by
newline characters, similar to the resources mainTranslations and menu‐
Translations. Every line must contain either a spacer definition, or
an icon definition:
A spacer definition is a string SPACER(n), where n is the number of
pixels inserted as separator to the following button.
An icon definition is a colon-separated list containing the following
elements:
- the index of an icon in the pixmap file (starting from zero);
- a long tooltip string, displayed in the status area;
- a short tooltip string, displayed as popup;
- a sequence of actions to be performed when the corresponding tool‐
bar button is pushed.
To illustrate this, the default value of toolbarTranslations looks as
follows:
xdvi.toolbarTranslations: \
SPACER(5)\n\
0:Open a new document (Key\\: Ctrl-f):\
Open file:select-dvi-file()\n\
SPACER(10)\n\
1:Reread this document (Key\\: R):\
Reread file:reread-dvi-file()\n\
SPACER(10)\n\
2:Go to the first page of this document (Key\\: 1g):\
Go to first page:goto-page(1)\n\
3:Go to the previous page of this document (Key\\: p):\
Go to previous page:back-page(1)\n\
4:Go to the next page of this document (Key\\: n):\
Go to next page:forward-page(1)\n\
5:Go to the last page of this document (Key\\: g):\
Go to last page:goto-page()\n\
SPACER(10)\n\
6:Enlarge the display (Key\\: Ctrl-+):Zoom in:\
set-shrink-factor(+)\n\
7:Shrink the display (Key\\: Ctrl--):Zoom out:\
set-shrink-factor(-)\n\
SPACER(10)\n\
8:Jump back to the previous hyperlink (Key\\: B):\
Back hyperlink:htex-back()\n\
SPACER(10)\n\
10:Print this document:Print:print()\n\
SPACER(10)\n\
11:Toggle marks for odd pages (Key\\: 1m):\
Toggle odd:toggle-mark(1)\n\
12:Toggle marks for even pages (Key\\: 2m):\
Toggle even:toggle-mark(2)\n\
13:Toggle mark for current page (Key\\: 2m):\
Toggle current:toggle-mark()\n\
14:Unmark all pages (Key\\: 0m):\
Unmark all:toggle-mark(0)\n\
SPACER(10)\n\
18:Display fonts darker (Key\\: Alt-Ctrl-+):\
Fonts darker:change-density(5)\n\
19:Display fonts lighter (Key\\: Alt-Ctrl--):\
Fonts lighter:change-density(-5)\n
When the mouse remains over a toolbar button for a certain period, a
`tooltip' window is shown, describing what the button does using the
short tooltip string from the above resource. At the same time, the
long tooltip string is displayed in the statusline. The appearance and
behaviour of these tooltips can be customized via the following re‐
sources:
tipShell.background
Background color of the tooltip window.
tipShell.fontSet
Font used for the tooltip.
tipShell.waitPeriod
The time (in milliseconds) the mouse pointer needs to be over
the button before the tooltip is shown. Set it to a negative
value to suppress the tooltips altogether.
GREYSCALING AND COLORMAPS
The greyscale anti-aliasing feature in xdvi will not work at its best
if the display does not have enough colors available. This can happen
if other applications are using most of the colormap (even if they are
iconified). If this occurs, then xdvi will print an error message and
turn on the -copy option. This will result in overstrike characters
appearing wrong; it may also result in poor display quality if the num‐
ber of available colors is very small.
Typically this problem occurs on displays that allocate eight bits of
video memory per pixel. To see how many bits per pixel your display
uses, type xwininfo in an xterm window, and then click the mouse on the
root window when asked. The ``Depth:'' entry will tell you how many
bits are allocated per pixel.
Displays using at least 15 bits per pixel are typically TrueColor visu‐
als, which do not have this problem, since their colormap is permanent‐
ly allocated and available to all applications. (The visual class is
also displayed by xwininfo.) For more information on visual classes
see the documentation for the X Window System.
To alleviate this problem, therefore, one may (a) run with more bits
per pixel (this may require adding more video memory or replacing the
video card), (b) shut down other applications that may be using much of
the colormap and then restart xdvi, or (c) run xdvi with the -install
option.
One application which is often the cause of this problem is Netscape.
In this case there are two more alternatives to remedying the situa‐
tion. One can run ``netscape -install'' to cause Netscape to install a
private colormap. This can cause colors to change in bizarre ways when
the mouse is moved to a different window. Or, one can run ``netscape
-ncols 220'' to limit Netscape to a smaller number of colors. A small‐
er number will ensure that other applications have more colors avail‐
able, but will degrade the color quality in the Netscape window.
HANDLING OF POSTSCRIPT FIGURES
Xdvi can display Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) files included in the
dvi file. Such files are first searched for in the directory where the
dvi file is, and then using normal Kpathsea rules. There is an excep‐
tion to this, however: if the file name begins with a backtick (`),
then the remaining characters in the file name give a shell command
(often zcat) which is executed; its standard output is then sent to be
interpreted as PostScript. Since the execution of arbitrary shell com‐
mands with the user's permissions is a huge security risk, evaluation
of these backtick commands is disabled by default. It needs to be acti‐
vated via the -allowshell command-line option. NOTE: You should never
use this option when viewing documents that you didn't compile your‐
self. The backtick specials are not needed for uncompressing gzipped
PostScript files, since xdvi can do that on the fly if the filename
ends with .eps.gz or .eps.Z (and if the first bytes of the file indi‐
cate that the file is indeed compressed). This is both safer and more
flexible than the backtick approach, since the default file searching
rules will apply to such filenames too.
TYPE 1 FONTS
Using FreeType (version 2), xdvi can render PostScript<tm> Type 1 fonts
directly, without the route via TeX pixel (pk) fonts. The advantage of
this is that only one size of each font needs to be stored on disk.
Unless the -notype1fonts option is used, xdvi will try to render every
font using FreeType. Only as a fallback will it invoke an external pro‐
gram (like mktexpk, which in turn may invoke utilities like ps2pk or
gsftopk) to generate a pixel font from the Type 1 source. The direct
rendering of the Computer Modern fonts should work out-of-the box,
whereas other Type 1 fonts such as the 35 `standard' PostScript<tm>
fonts resident in printers may need to be made accessible for use with
xdvi, unless your system administrator or TeX distribution has already
done so (which is the case e.g. for current TeX Live systems). For the
35 PostScript<tm> resident fonts, xdvik will search using the Fontmap
provided with Ghostscript, if necessary. Also, the xdvik distribution
comes with a utility called t1mapper to make these fonts available for
xdvi; see the manual page for t1mapper(1) for usage details. This pro‐
gram is likely to be dropped in the future, however, since it is proba‐
bly not needed anymore.
SPECIALS (GENERALLY)
Any of the specials used by xdvi may be preceded by the characters
``xdvi:''. Doing so does not change the behavior of the special under
xdvi, but it tells other dvi drivers (such as e.g. dvips) to ignore the
special.
SOURCE SPECIALS
Some TeX implementations or macro packages provide the facility to au‐
tomatically include so-called `source specials' into a DVI file. These
contain the line number, eventually a column number, and the filename
of the .tex source. This makes it possible to jump from a .dvi file to
the corresponding place in the .tex source and vice versa (also called
`inverse search' - jumping from the DVI file to the TeX file is also
known as `reverse search', and jumping from the TeX file to the DVI
file as `forward search').
To be usable with xdvi, source specials in the dvi file must have one
of the following formats:
src:line[ ]filename
src:line:col[ ]filename
src:line
src:line:col
src::col
If filename or line are omitted, the most recent values are used. The
first source special on each page must be in one of the first two
forms, since defaults are not inherited across pages.
You will need a TeX implementation that provides an appropriate switch
(e.g. -src) or a macro package (such as srcltx.sty or srctex.sty,
available from CTAN:macros/latex/contrib/supported/srcltx/) to insert
such source specials into the DVI file.
For reverse search, the combination Ctrl-Mouse 1 will make xdvi open an
editor (the value of the -editor command line option) with the file and
the line number of the .tex source. See the description of the -editor
option for more information and example settings.
For forward search, xdvi has a -sourceposition option that makes xdvi
jump to the page in the DVI file corresponding to the given line (or
the closest line having a source special) of the specified file and
highlight the found region. See the description of the -sourceposition
option for more details.
More information on setting up various editors for use with source spe‐
cials can be found at:
http://xdvi.sourceforge.net/inverse-search.html
PAPERSIZE SPECIALSxdvi accepts specials to set the paper size for the document. These
specials should be of the form
papersize=[*]width,height
where width and height give the width and height of the paper, respec‐
tively. Each of these should appear in the form of a decimal number
followed by any of the two-letter abbreviations for units accepted by
TeX (pt, pc, in, bp, cm, mm, dd, cc, or sp). If an asterisk (*) ap‐
pears just before the width, then the measurements refer to the docu‐
ment dimensions (e.g., pt as opposed to truept). This allows a macro
package to vary the page size according to elements of the document;
e.g.,
\special{xdvi: papersize=*\number\wd\mybox sp,
\number\ht\mybox sp}
Except for the asterisk, this format is compatible with dvips.
The last papersize special on a page determines the size of that page.
If there is no such special on a given page, the most recent papersize
is used, or, if there are no papersize specials on any preceding page,
then the value of the paper resource (or -paper option on the command
line) is used. Thus the paper size may vary for different pages of the
dvi file.
If the paper resource (or -paper command-line option) begins with a
plus sign (`+'), then all papersize specials in the dvi file are ig‐
nored.
COLOR SPECIALS
The color specials supported by xdvi are the same as those supported by
dvips, except that the literal PostScript color specification (as in
the AggiePattern example in the dvips documentation) is not supported.
There are also some restrictions due to the way xdvi's drawing rou‐
tines are implemented; e.g. the \colorbox and \fcolorbox macros don't
work with xdvi. See the section LIMITATIONS below for more information
on these restrictions. Xdvi supports the same list of named colors as
dvips does, namely:
Apricot, Aquamarine, Bittersweet, Black, Blue, BlueGreen, BlueViolet,
BrickRed, Brown, BurntOrange, CadetBlue, CarnationPink, Cerulean, Corn‐
flowerBlue, Cyan, Dandelion, DarkOrchid, Emerald, ForestGreen, Fuchsia,
Goldenrod, Gray, Green, GreenYellow, JungleGreen, Lavender, LimeGreen,
Magenta, Mahogany, Maroon, Melon, MidnightBlue, Mulberry, NavyBlue,
OliveGreen, Orange, OrangeRed, Orchid, Peach, Periwinkle, PineGreen,
Plum, ProcessBlue, Purple, RawSienna, Red, RedOrange, RedViolet, Rho‐
damine, RoyalBlue, RoyalPurple, RubineRed, Salmon, SeaGreen, Sepia,
SkyBlue, SpringGreen, Tan, TealBlue, Thistle, Turquoise, Violet, Viole‐
tRed, White, WildStrawberry, Yellow, YellowGreen, YellowOrange.
Note that these names are case sensitive.
The documentation of the LaTeX color package provides more details on
how to use such specials with LaTeX; see the dvips documentation for a
detailed description of the syntax and semantics of the color specials.
SIGNALS
When xdvi receives a SIGUSR1 signal, it rereads the dvi file.
ENVIRONMENT
Xdvik uses the same environment variables and algorithms for searching
for font files as TeX and friends. See the documentation for the
Kpathsea library, kpathsea.dvi, for a detailed description of these.
In addition, xdvik accepts the following variables:
DISPLAY
Specifies which graphics display terminal to use.
KPATHSEA_DEBUG
Trace Kpathsea lookups; set it to -1 (= all bits on) for com‐
plete tracing.
EXTENSIONMAPS
A list of files to be searched for mime types entries (as for
Acrobat Reader). Earlier entries in one of these files override
later ones. If this variable is not set, the following default
path is used:
$HOME/.mime.types:/etc/mime.types:\
/usr/etc/mime.types:/usr/local/etc/mime.types
MAILCAPS
A list of files to be searched for mailcap entries, as defined
by RFC 1343. See this RFC or the mailcap(4) manual page for a
detailed description of the mailcap file format. Currently, on‐
ly the following mailcap features are supported:
test=command
The entry is only used if command can be executed via the
system() call and if the system() call returns with value
0 (success). The command string may contain the format
string %s, which will be replaced by the file name.
needsterminal
If this flag is used, the command will be executed in a
new xterm window by prepending ``xterm -e '' to the com‐
mand string.
All other fields in the mailcap entry are ignored by xdvi. Ear‐
lier entries in one of these files override later ones. If the
variable is not defined, the following default path is used:
$HOME/.mailcap:/etc/mailcap:/usr/etc/mailcap:\
/usr/local/etc/mailcap
For security reasons, some special characters (i.e.: ( ) ` \ ;)
are escaped in the argument before passing it to system().
BROWSER
Determines the web browser used to open external links (i.e.,
all URLs that don't start with the `file:' scheme and are not
relative links in the local DVI file), and to open links for
which no viewer has been specified in the mailcap files. The
value of this variable is a colon-separated list of commands.
Xdvi will try each of them in sequence until one succeeds (i.e.
doesn't immediately return with status 0). This allows you to
specify your favourite browser at the beginning, and fallback
browsers at the end. Every occurrence of %s in the string is re‐
placed by the target URL; every occurrence of %% is replaced by
a single %. If no %s is present, the URL string is added as an
extra argument.
An example setting is:
netscape -raise -remote 'openURL(%s,new-window)':xterm -e lynx
%s:xterm -e wget %s:lynx %s:wget %s
See
http://www.catb.org/~esr/BROWSER/
for more details on the BROWSER environment variable.
GS_LIB A colon-separated list of directories to search for Fontmap
files, etc., as used for Ghostscript. It has the same meaning
as it does when running Ghostscript. In xdvik, it is used when
searching for font files when the map file does not give a file
name for the font (this should be quite rare). The command gs
-h will list the default value that Ghostscript uses. See also
the XDVI_GS_LIB environment variable (below).
XDVI_GS_LIB
This has the same effect as GS_LIB but affects only xdvi. Use
this when you want to use a different value for GS_LIB when run‐
ning xdvi, but use either the compiled-in default value or some
other value when running Ghostscript. If both GS_LIB and XD‐
VI_GS_LIB are set, then xdvi uses XDVI_GS_LIB. To use the de‐
fault value compiled in to xdvi while still retaining the abili‐
ty to set GS_LIB for use with Ghostscript, you can set XD‐
VI_GS_LIB to the empty string.
TMPDIR The directory to use for storing temporary files created when
uncompressing PostScript files.
XEDITOR
Determines the editor command used for source special `reverse
search', if neither the -editor command-line option nor the .ed‐
itor resource are specified. See the description of the -ed‐
itor command line option for details on the format.
VISUAL Determines an editor to be opened in an xterm window if neither
of -editor, .editor, or XEDITOR is specified.
EDITOR Determines an editor to be opened in an xterm window if neither
of -editor, .editor, XEDITOR or VISUAL is specified.
WWWBROWSER
Obsolete; use BROWSER instead.
LIMITATIONSxdvi accepts many but not all types of PostScript specials accepted by
dvips. For example, it accepts most specials generated by epsf and ps‐
fig. It does not, however, support bop-hook or eop-hook, nor does it
allow PostScript commands to affect the rendering of things that are
not PostScript (for example, the ``NEAT'' and rotated ``A'' examples in
the dvips manual). These restrictions are due to the design of xdvi;
in all likelihood they will always remain.
LaTeX2e rotation specials are currently not supported.
MetaPost files containing included text are not supported.
Xdvi's color handling doesn't support the \colorbox and \fcolorbox
macros; this is not likely to change in the near future. This also
means that e.g. colored tables (as created by the colortbl package) may
render incorrectly: Text in colors different from the default fore‐
ground color may not be displayed. When the page is redrawn (e.g. after
using the magnifier), the background color of the cells may overdraw
the text.
FILES
$HOME/.xdvirc
A file that holds all settings that the user changed via the
keys, the `Options' and the Xaw `Modes' menu and the dialogs, as
X resources. These resources override the settings in
$HOME/.Xdefaults. This file is ignored if the -q option is used
or the noInitFile X resource is set.
config.xdvi
An optional configuration file for the Type 1 font setup, which
specifies dvips-style map files specific to xdvik. If used, it
should be present in the directory determined by the TEXCONFIG
environment variable. Its format is similar to configuration
files for dvips, except that it is only scanned for the names of
map files (p and p+ directives).
SEE ALSOX(1), dvips(1), mktexpk(1), ps2pk(1), gsftopk(1), t1mapper(1), mail‐
cap(4), the Kpathsea documentation, and the Xdvik home page at
http://xdvi.sourceforge.net/.
AUTHORS
Eric Cooper, CMU, did a version for direct output to a QVSS. Modified
for X by Bob Scheifler, MIT Laboratory for Computer Science. Modified
for X11 by Mark Eichin, MIT SIPB. Additional enhancements by many oth‐
ers.
The current maintainer of the original xdvi is Paul Vojta, U.C. Berke‐
ley.
Code for the xdvik variant has been contributed by many people, whose
names are scattered across the source files. Xdvik is hosted on
CTAN:dviware/xdvik and on SourceForge; for the most up-to-date informa‐
tion, please visit:
http://xdvi.sourceforge.net
Please report all bugs to the SourceForge bug tracker:
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=add&group_id=23164&atid=377580
Xdvik 22.87.03 2016-04-02 XDVI(1)
