[tex-live] tl doc formats

[John R. Culleton]

On Saturday 09 September 2006 06:47, David Kastrup wrote:
> Axel Kielhorn <A.Kielhorn at web.de> writes:
> > Am 08.09.2006 um 08:40 schrieb David Kastrup:
> >> Staszek Wawrykiewicz <staw at gust.org.pl> writes:
> >>
> >> Uh, we are talking about TeXlive here?  The DVD with a live TeX system
> >> including viewers on it?  So why wouldn't they be able to read the
> >> documentation before installing the whole stuff?
> >>
> >>> pdf seems the best for that.
> >>
> >> TeXlive contains DVI viewers.  It does not contain PDF viewers.  So I
> >> really don't understand how you gather that the users will be able to
> >> view PDF without problems, but not DVI, if what they have is a TeXlive
> >> DVD.
> >
> > IIRC there are no DVI-Viewers for MacOS. There is xdvi, but you need
> > to install the X11 system to use it. Viewing PDF is supported by the
> > OS.
>
> I suppose someone with actual exposure to MacOS and TeXlive should be
> able to address that.
>
> >> We are not talking about different TeX distributions here but about
> >> TeXlive.  So we need only worry about the viewers in that.
> >
> > Which are missing for at least one supported OS.
>
> Which would be a large shortcoming.  There are quite a few things that
> work _only_ via the DVI route, like PStricks.

With Context PSTRicks and metapost are accommodated by multiple
passes.  Context is of course very slow as compared to other TeX versions
because of the multiple passes and voluminous messages. 

Getting back to the question of speed, perhaps pdftex without
etex should still be maintained, Right now pdftex is just a synonym for
pdfetex, which is not needed by most users. Without the etex
added pdftex would be smaller and presumably faster. 

Of course I would like to see a thing called "pstex" which went
from source to PostScript, but that is just a dream. 

-- 
John Culleton
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