6. Mixing text and graphics with dvips.
In general, this section applies to any TeX or LaTeX document which
mixes text and graphics. teTeX, like most other TeX distributions, is
configured to request Computer Modern fonts by default. When printing
documents with Type 1 scalable fonts or graphics, font and graphics
imaging is the job of dvips. dvips can use either
Computer Modern bit mapped fonts or Type 1 scalable fonts, or any
combination of the two. First, let's concentrate on printing and
previewing some graphics.
You will probably want to follow this procedure any time a LaTeX source document has the statement
\includepackage{graphics}
in the document preamble. This statement tells LaTeX to include the
text of the graphics.sty package in the source document.
There are other commands to perform graphics operations, and the
statements in plain-TeX documents may not clue you in whether you need
to use dvips. The difference will be apparent in the
output, though, when the document is printed with missing figures and
other graphics.
So, for now, we'll concentrate on printing documents which use the
LaTeX graphics.sty package. You might want to take a look at
the original TeX input. It isn't included in the teTeX distribution,
but it is available at
~CTAN/macros/latex/packages/graphics/grfguide.tex.What the teTeX distribution does include is the
.dvi output
file, and it is already TeXed for you. There is a reason for this,
and it has to do with the necessity of including Type 1 fonts in the
output in order for the document to print properly. If you want to
LaTeX grfguide.tex, see the next section. For now, however,
we'll work on getting usable output using dvips.
The file grfguide.dvi is located in the directory
texmf/doc/latex/graphicsThe first step in outputting
grfguide.dvi is to translate it
to Postscript. The program dvips is used for this. It
does just exactly what its name implies. There are many options
available for invoking dvips, but the simplest (nearly)
form is
dvips -f -r <grfguide.dvi >grfguide.psThe
-f command switch tells dvips to operate as a
filter, reading from standard input and writing to standard output.
dvips output can be configured so its output defaults to
lpr.
If you can print Postscript directly to your printer via
lpr, you can simply type
dvips -r grfguide.dviThe
-r option tells dvips to output the pages in reverse
order so they stack correctly when they exit a printer. Use it or
not, as appropriate for your output device.
Depending on whether you still have the fonts that dvilj2
generated from the last document, dvips and metafont may
or may not need to create new fonts needed by grfguide.dvi.
Eventually, though, dvips will output a list of the pages
translated to Postscript, and you will have your Postscript output
ready to be rendered on whatever output device you have available.
If you're lucky (and rich), then you have a Postscript-capable printer
already and will be able to print grfguide.ps directly. You
can either spool the output to the printer using lpr. If
for some reason your printer software doesn't work right with
Postscript files, you can, in a pinch, simply dump the file to
printer, with
cat grfguide.ps >/dev/lp0or whichever port your printer is attached to, though this is not recommended for everyday use.
If you want or need to invoke Ghostscript manually, this is the standard procedure for its operation. The first thing you want to do is invoke Ghostscript to view its command line arguments, like this:
gs -help | lessYou'll see a list of supported output devices and sundry other commands. Pick the output device which most nearly matches your printer. I generally produce black-and-white text and use the
cdjmono driver, which drives a color Deskjet in monochrome
(black and white) mode.
The command line I would use is:
gs -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=cdjmono -sOutputFile=/tmp/gs.out grfguide.ps -c quitThis will produce my HP-compatible output in the
/tmp
directory. It's a good idea to use a directory like /tmp,
because gs can be particular about access permissions, and
you can't (and shouldn't) always count on being logged in as
root to perform these steps. Now you can print the file:
lpr /tmp/gs.outObviously, this can all go into a shell script. On my system, I have two simple scripts written,
pv and pr, which simply
outputs the Postscript file either to the display or the printer.
Screen previewing is possible without X, but it's far from ideal. So,
it's definitely worth the effort to install XFree86 to view the output
on the screen..
The order of commands in a gs command line is significant,
because some of the options tell Ghostscript to look for pieces of
Postscript code from its library.
The important thing to remember is that grfguide.dvi makes
requests for both Computer Modern bit mapped and Type 1 scaled fonts.
If you can mix scalable and bit mapped fonts in a document, you're
well on the way to becoming a TeXpert.
6.1 What if my printer isn't supported?
The teTeX distribution comes with only a limited selection of DVI
output drivers: dvips, drivers for Hewlett Packard
LaserJets, and nothing else. You have two options if you have a
printer which isn't LaserJet-compatible: You can use dvips
and Ghostscript, which I would recommend anyway, for reasons already
mentioned, or you can investigate other dviware sources.
A limited number of DVI drivers have been ported to Linux and are available as pre-built binaries. They are located in the Linux archives at ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/tex/dvi/.
The master dviware libraries are maintained at the University of Utah archives. If you can't find a DVI driver there that supports your printer, chances are that it doesn't exist. You can also write your own DVI driver using the templates available there. The library's URL is ftp://ftp.math.utah.edu/pub/tex/dvi/.
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