SERGEY LESENKO
Institute for High Energy Physics, Protvino (Moscow Region),
Russia
lesenko@mx.ihep.su
and
LAURENT SIEBENMANN
Université de Paris-Sud, France
lcs@topo.math.u-psud.fr
Abstract:
The free DVIPDF program of the first author converts from
TEX's output DVI files to Adobe's PDF (= Portable
Document Format). Although DVIPDF has existed as a prototype
for about three years, the uses to which it will be put by the TEX
community are only gradually emerging.
This article presents one concrete application. DVIPDF has been adapted under the Windows 9X/NT operating systems to permit instant viewing of DVI files with Adobe's free Acrobat Reader.
The purpose of this mechanism is to combine the excellent size-economy and polyvalence of TEX's DVI norm with the high performance of Acrobat Reader. The immediate benefit (and the original motivation) has been to greatly extend the capacity of CD-ROMs for scientific literature. Great cost advantages are expected for those who connect to the web through a telephone modem, and for scientific research libraries on the web that have many mirror sites worldwide.
Since the 1980s, it has been traditional for PostScript printing to include such auxiliary graphics files as EPS (= Encapsulated PostScript) along with a DVI file. These should now be presented, instead, as graphics files of various ``optimal'' norms: JPEG or PNG for bitmaps, and PDF for vector graphics (these are not difficult to convert to EPS if needs be).
Hopefully, it will become possible to reasonably fully exploit the rich potential of Acrobat Reader with this mechanism. Hopefully, it will also soon be possible to adapt this mechanism to other platforms, such as UNIX and Macintosh.