okular/doc/index.docbook

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<bookinfo>
<title>kdvi TeX DVI viewer - User Manual</title>
<authorgroup>
<author>
<firstname>Markku</firstname>
<surname>Hihnala</surname>
<affiliation>
<address><email>mah@ee.oulu.fi</email></address>
</affiliation>
</author>
<author>
<firstname>Stefan</firstname>
<surname>Kebekus</surname>
<affiliation>
<address><email>mah@ee.oulu.fi</email></address>
</affiliation>
</authorgroup>
<date>25/05/2000</date>
<releaseinfo>1.00.00</releaseinfo>
<keywordset>
<keyword>KDE</keyword>
<keyword>DVI</keyword>
<keyword>TeX</keyword>
<keyword>LaTeX</keyword>
<keyword>device-independent</keyword>
<keyword>viewer</keyword>
<keyword>dvi viewer</keyword>
<keyword>kdvi</keyword>
<keyword>xdvi</keyword>
</keywordset>
</bookinfo>

<chapter id="usage">
<title>usage</title>

<para>kdvi is a plugin for the kviewshell program which allows kviewshell to
display dvi-files which are produced by the TeX typesetting system. More
information about TeX and DVI can be found on the homepage of the TeX user
group. kdvi 0.9 supports the inclusion of PostScript graphics and it supports
hyperlinks. More details and the technical specifications can be found
in a separate document.</para>

<para>kdvi 0.9 is based on based on the stand-alone-program kdvi 0.4.3 by
Markku Hihnala. That program in turn base based on xdvik version 18f which
has many authors.</para>

<para>For convenience there exists a command kdvi which calls kviewshell
with the kdvi-plugin preloaded. The viewer may thus be started using
the command 
<literal remap="verb">
kdvi somepath/paper.dvi
</literal>
or without a file name as kviewshell will then allow a file to be
opened from a dialog or a menu of recently used files. This menu can
also be popped up by clicking the File button with the right mouse
button.</para>

<para>The usual parameters handled by Qt and KDE applications also work:
<literal remap="verb">
kdvi -style windows -display :0 -geometry 400x400+0+0 -caption "DVI"
</literal>
For integration with TeX the opened DVI file is automatically reloaded
when changed.</para>


</chapter>
<chapter id="keyboard">
<title>The option dialog</title>

<h2>first page</h2>
The following picture shows the options dialog of kdvi.
<center>
<p><graphic fileref="optionrequester1.png"></graphic></center>


<table WIDTH="100%" NOSAVE >
<tr NOSAVE>
<td VALIGN=TOP NOSAVE><b>Resolution/</b>
<br><b>Metafont mode</b></td>

<td>These options specify the fonts which kdvi will use for rendering.
By carefully optimizing the settings here it is possible to improve on
the display. However, unless you are an expert in MetaFont and know what
you are doing, it is absolutely no good idea to change these options. Save
values are "600" and "ljfour" for good quality or "300" and "cx" for medium
quality and faster display.</td>
</tr>

<tr NOSAVE>
<td VALIGN=TOP NOSAVE><b>Generate fonts</b></td>

<td>Check this if you want kdvi to call the MetaFont program in the likely
case that kdvi wants to display documents which use fonts which are not
yet readily made. You most certainly want to set this option.</td>
</tr>

<tr NOSAVE>
<td VALIGN=TOP NOSAVE><b>PK font path</b></td>

<td>If this is not empty, it point to a list of directories to be searched
for pk-fonts, e.g.&nbsp;
<pre><font face="Courier New,Courier">/var/lib/texmf/fonts/pk/ljfour/:/some/other/place</font></pre>
You can make kdvi search recursively by adding an extra / at the end of
directory name:&nbsp;
<pre>/var/lib/texmf/fonts//&nbsp;</pre>
This works like xdvi's XDVIFONTS environment variable. There is also good
(gnu info) documentation available for the kpathsea library that kdvi uses
for font searching. This makes kdvi usable when you have some other tex
system than <font face="Courier New,Courier">tetex</font> and don't have
the <font face="Courier New,Courier">texmf.cnf</font> file. Again this
option is strikly for the experts only.</td>
</tr>
</table>

<h2>
second page</h2>
The following picture shows the second options dialog of kdvi.
<center>
<p><img SRC="optionrequester2.png" height=234 width=358></center>

<table WIDTH="100%" NOSAVE >
<tr NOSAVE>
<td VALIGN=TOP NOSAVE><b>PostScript</b></td>

<td>If this options is checked, kdvi will display PostScript graphics which
are embedded into the dvi file. If an external PostScript file could not
be found, kdvi will draw a red warning box in its place. Unfortunately,
rendering PostScript graphics is very slow in the current version of kdvi.
We will improve on the speed in later versions. If this option is off,
kdvi will either draw a grey box as a placeholder for the graphics, or
it will leave the space blank.
<br><b>Note:</b> there is no standard way to embed PostScript graphics
into a dvi file. It may therefore happen that kdvi cannot properly display
a graphic which works fine with other programs. Older versions of xdvi
and dvips support the execution of external commands. This is a hight security
risk and therefore deliberately not implemented in kdvi. Technical information
about supported ways to include PostScript can be found in an external
document.</td>
</tr>

<tr NOSAVE>
<td VALIGN=TOP NOSAVE><b>Hyperlinks</b></td>

<td>Check this if you want kdvi to display hyperlinks. The appropriate
parts of the text will be underlined in blue.</td>
</tr>
</table>

</chapter>

<chapter id="Movingaround">
<title>Moving around</title>

<para>You can scroll the page with various ways: Using keyboard <xref linkend="keyboard">, using the scrollbars, using the scroller
widget located above the page list or by dragging the display with
left mouse button.</para>

<para>The Page menu provides commands for changing the displayed page. A
primitive dialog is available to enter a page number. The scroller
widget allows you to move to the next or the previous page by clicking
the right or middle mouse button. The page list can be clicked with
the left mouse button to select a page.</para>

<para>The button bar provides buttons to change pages: First, Previous,
Advance, Next and Last.  In the middle of these is the Advance button
which can be used to easily read through many partly displayed pages:
it scrolls down until at the bottom of page and then to the top of the
next page.</para>
</chapter>

<chapter id="Changingmagnification">
<title>Changing magnification</title>

<para>The View menu offers entries to step through available magnifications:
Zoom in and Zoom out. The available magnifications corresponds to the
base resolution of the used pk-font and its reductions by integer
factors.</para>

<para>The button bar presents these same commands plus two fixed
magnifications for quick selection. You can use these to switch
between a readable text size and a magnified view (there is no
separate magnifier window) or between a readable size and a full page
view. You can configure these fixed sizes with preferences dialog.</para>

<para>One non-obvious feature is the selection of scaling center. You can
select with left mouse button the point on the page that does not move
(if possible) when changing the magnification. Use this by clicking
with left mouse button at the detail you want to see magnified and
then push the magnified view button.</para>
</chapter>

<chapter id="Markingpages">
<title>Marking pages</title>

<para>You can mark pages for printing. The marks are visible in the page list.</para>

<para>The current page can be marked by selecting the entry 'Mark page' from
the RMB popup menu of the viewing area. The page list gives more
options for marking: you can mark all, even, odd or current page and
unmark current or all pages and toggle marks using the RMB popup menu
of page list. Clicking or dragging the middle mouse button also
toggles the marks.</para>
</chapter>

<chapter id="Printing">
<title>Printing</title>

<para>This version has a print setup dialog (available from the print
dialog) that lets you configure the printing method, n-up program,
printer names and spooler command. Printing method selects the
external program to use for printing.  Available choices are dvips and
dvilj4. If you use dvips, you can also have an n-up program called to
make 2 or 4 pages per sheet. Select psnup (preferred) or mpage (may
work) if you have that installed in your system.</para>

<para>You may add printer names that will be available in the print dialog.</para>

<para>And last you can change the spooler command (defaults to lpr) that is
supposed to read standard input. Option -P is appended when printing
to nondefault printer.</para>

<para>Having setup printing you can use the print dialog where you can
select the pages to be printed, which printer or file to use for
output and more.</para>
</chapter>

<chapter id="QampA">
<title>Q &amp; A</title>

<para>Q: Why is kdvi not displaying anything but a busy cursor?
A: It is
possible, that kdvi is searching for the pk-fonts from wrong places,
and this can be very time consuming if these include network mounted
filesystems. You can check for this with strace and see below for a
cure.</para>

<para>Q: What can I do when kdvi does not find my PK-fonts?
A: You must have correct settings for resolution and Metafont mode. 
If this does not help, you may set the field
'PK Font Path' in Preferences/Fonts to point to the  list of directories
to be searched for pk-fonts:
/var/lib/texmf/fonts/pk/ljfour/:/some/other/place
You can make kdvi search recursively by adding an extra / at the end of
directory name:
/var/lib/texmf/fonts//
(This works like xdvi's XDVIFONTS environment variable.
There is also good (gnu info) documentation available for the kpathsea library
that kdvi uses for font searching.)
This makes kdvi usable when you have some other tex system than tetex and don't
have the texmf.cnf file.</para>

<para>Q: How do I get the font generation to work?
A: If you like to enable automatic font generation using MakeTeXPK,
you must also supply correct Metafont mode in preferences dialog.
When automatic pk-font generation is disabled (menu option)
the missing fonts will be logged to file missfont.log in the current directory.
It is a good idea to check that the font generation commands in
missfont.log are correct before enabling font generation.</para>
</chapter>

<chapter id="BUGS">
<title>BUGS</title>

<para>Known bugs:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para> Changes in paper size only get applied correctly after restart.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para> When showing PS the gs process seems to hang sometimes. Killing gs helps.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para> When showing PS the rendered image is not always updated. Scrolling the
view helps.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para> You need to have xdvi installed and accessible via the program search path.
You can replace the actual file with an empty executable though.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>

<para>Unknown bugs:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Probably many</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
</chapter>

<chapter id="TODO">
<title>TO DO</title>

<para><itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Document info dialog</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>More paper types, currently only those from xdvi are available</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Better onitemne help</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Internal printing using QPrinter</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Redirect error messages to a window (partly done)</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Better Postscript handling (currently not very robust)
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>anti-aliasing</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>More background processing to keep the UI responsive</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Magnifier window </para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Two page view</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Support for more TeX specials</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Network URL support</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>

<para>Anything else?  Feel free to make suggestions and report any problems you have.</para>

<para>Markku Hihnala
<ulink url="mailto:mah@ee.oulu.fi">mah@ee.oulu.fi</ulink></para>
</chapter>
</book>
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