[OS X TeX] xdvi and/or acrobat reader with darwin ports emacs

[Will Robertson]

On 23 Jan 2005, at 4:58 PM, Chris Skeels wrote:

> On Jan 23, 2005, at 10:26 AM, Curtis Clifton wrote:
>> But I don't understand why what is under the hood makes any 
>> difference whatsoever, beyond your commercial interest, other than 
>> speed.
>
> With all due respect, your understanding not withstanding, such a 
> snide response is completely out of order and sullies this list!

I agree with Curtis on this, actually. I didn't find his response 
snide, but email is a tricky medium over which to gain understanding.

>> So that is my question:  For DVI previewing, aside from speed, what 
>> are the differences in _user visible features_ between MacDviX and 
>> TeXniscope?
>
> The simple fact of the matter is that pdftex will not always handle 
> things that can be dealt with via a dvips type route and so all of 
> those issues carry over immediately.

But TeXniscope has nothing to do with pdftex! Its intended use was 
originally to preview DVI documents, which most certainly don't need to 
come from pdftex. (The fact that it's turned into an ace pdf viewer is 
simply a happy coincidence.)

> Also, to dismiss the speed issue is extremely disingenuous.  I am a 
> very big fan of TeXniscope but I have also seen moderately sized 
> documents (35 pages), with a few graphs in them, clog it up to the 
> point of being unusable relative to a "true dvi previewer".

In that case, this is one of the points I was interested in. I assume 
you mean that it's slow to load up the documents, rather than to browse 
them -- I've found pdf navigation in TeXniscope to be as good as in 
Preview.app (as it should be), except for the obvious lack of searching 
etc. which will be fixed in Mac OS X 10.4.

>> It's a legitimate question and simple saying the TeXniscope is not a 
>> "true dvi previewer" is not an answer.
>
> In a sense it is, although maybe not for someone whose life is built 
> around pdftex.  Not everybody's is and the differences can be quite 
> marked.

I reiterate, it has nothing to do with pdftex. If it is as slow as you 
claim converting dvi then it is certainly an excuse to want to use 
xdvi.

Another question might be: how does its speed compare with MacXDvi?
 From my long-ago experience, I would prefer to use TeXniscope over that.

Regards,
Will

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