[pstricks] DVI previews and PDF building stops working with PSTricks in my setup

[Carsten Vogel]

Am 01.07.2011 06:48, schrieb Jorge Ramos:
> Carsten: It is obvoius that I don't understand Latex for I don't know
> the difference between DVI and dvips... in Texniccenter I have enabled
> either Latex->DVI when previewing or Latex->PDF for building the final
> document. What about the reccomended programs? latex? latex? (was
> typed two times?)
>
> May I add that I want to use Pstricks to build great figures for my
> documents but, then again, DVI stops working when enabled nor can I
> build PDF's.
>
> sorry for the inconvenience,


It's okay that you keep describing your problems.

There are better explainations in the web, but I will try rougly.

.tex
    is source code "text"
.dvi
    is the "first" step "device-independent", but rather historical
.ps
    is PostScript(tm) by Adobe, you can take a look at that in editor or 
the "result" in ghostview program.
.pdf
    is Portable Document Format(tm) by Adobe, as you can use lots or 
different programs, but no longer an editor AFAIK


So keep in mind you need to run programs e.g. in the console. The 
"editor" manages those processes.
You could open a console in your working-dir (assuming you wrote work.tex)

latex work.tex   ... produces: work.dvi
again: latex work.tex ... produces work.dvi an files needed for table of 
contents, e.g.
dvips work.dvi  ... produces work.ps  (this is something you can already 
take a look at using ghostview (gv))
ps2pdf work.ps  ... produces work.pdf (this is the file you should 
consider take a look at)

texniccenter is in my humble option not first choice.
I suggest using texmaker that offers "quick build" using what I 
described above.
Nevertheless seek in what ever method you use the steps I described 
above since -- again -- dvi is NOT the format of choice specificly using 
pstricks.

I suggest you seek "l2short" in order to get a rough plot of latex and 
better understanding of our comments.

Cheers,
Carsten