Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!rutgers!mailrus!ames!sgi!msc@canth.SGI.COM
From: msc@canth.SGI.COM (Mark Callow)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: DVI previewer for Iris
Summary: dvi to PostScript
Message-ID: <23756@sgi.SGI.COM>
Date: 20 Dec 88 19:03:14 GMT
References: <8812192139.AA09927@uunet.UU.NET>
Sender: daemon@sgi.SGI.COM
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA
Lines: 27


No one has mentioned using a dvi to PostScript tool along with psview
as a mechanism to preview TeX documents.  I recently posted a message
to comp.windows.news regarding my experiences with various dvitops
tools.  To save you (and me answering your questions) time here is a 
summary:

I tried 3 different dvi to PostScript packages sent to me by various
customers with the complaint that they don't work with psview.
On investigation I discovered that they will only work on an Apple
LaserWriter.  They won't work with Display PostScript; they may not even
work with other (Adobe and non-Adobe) PostScript printers.  Why?
Because they fiddle with LaserWriter specific details as outlined in
Appendix D of the Red Book.  In other words they aren't portable.

The machine dependencies extend in one case to expecting that the factory
set password in the LaserWriter is unchanged.  This package is attempting
to load some stuff into the LaserWriter environment so that it doesn't
have to send it for every document.  But the code is buggy so it always loads
its preamble.  The effort is questionable to begin with.  It certainly doesn't
belong in every document produced.  It belongs, if anywhere, in a print
spooler that know what kind of printer its dealing with.
--
From the TARDIS of Mark Callow
msc@sgi.sgi.com, ...{ames,decwrl,sun}!sgi!msc
"There is much virtue in a window.  It is to a human being as a frame is to
a painting, as a proscenium to a play.  It strongly defines its content."