dvitype(1)

dvitype1

Translate a dvi file for humans to read

Usage

dvitype dvi_file [.dvi]

Overview

The dvitype program translates a DVI (DeVice Independent) file output by (for example) tex(1) or gftodvi(1), to a file that humans can read. It also serves as a DVI file-validating program (i.e., if dvitype can read it, it's correct) and as an example of a DVI-processing program for future device drivers.

The output from dvitype can include all commands, just the important ones, or none at all (in which case only errors are reported). A subinterval of pages may be selected, the magnification and resolution of the ``output device'' may be changed, and so on.

The .dvi extension is supplied if omitted from dvi_file. The output goes to stdout.

The odvitype program does the same job for Omega/Aleph's output, modified to support their .ofm font format.

Options

See tex(1) for details of command-line parsing.

-dpi=real

Set resolution to real pixels per inch; default 300.0.

-magnification=number

Override existing magnification with number.

-max-pages=number

Process number pages; default one million.

-output-level=number

Verbosity level, from 0 to 4; default 4.

-page-start=page-spec

Start at page-spec, for example `2' or `5.*.-2'.

-show-opcodes

Show numeric opcodes (in decimal).

The standard -help and -version options are also supported.

Environment

The environment variable TEXFONTS is used to search for the TFM files used in the DVI file. See tex(1) for the details of the searching. If TEXFONTS is not set, it uses the system default.

Releases

19 releases since Debian 1.1 (Buzz); the text changed 16 times.

  1. 1.1–1.2
  2. 1.3
  3. 2.0–2.1
  4. 2.2
  5. 3.0
  6. 3.1
  7. 4.0
  8. 5.0
  9. 6.0
  10. 7
  11. 8
  12. 9
  13. 10
  14. 11
  15. 12
  16. 13
  17. Arch

-dpi since Debian 7 (Wheezy); -magnification since Debian 7 (Wheezy); -max-pages since Debian 7 (Wheezy); -output-level since Debian 7 (Wheezy); -page-start since Debian 7 (Wheezy); -show-opcodes since Debian 7 (Wheezy).

Authors

Donald E. Knuth wrote the program, based on work by David Fuchs. It was published as part of the TeXware technical report from Stanford. Howard Trickey and Pavel Curtis originally ported it to Unix. Yannis Haralambous and John Plaice created the Omega version.

Public discussion list and bug reports: https://lists.tug.org/tex-k

From texlive-doc 2026.1-1 in Arch Linux 2026-11-01. Parsed by carta from the page's man source.