dvitype(1) General Commands Manual dvitype(1)
NAME
dvitype, odvitype - translate a dvi file for humans to read
SYNOPSIS
dvitype dvi_file[.dvi]
DESCRIPTION
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.
SEE ALSO
gftype(1), pktype(1).
Donald E. Knuth, TeXware.
DVI structure topic on CTAN: https://ctan.org/topic/dvi-struc
Package page on CTAN: https://ctan.org/pkg/dvitype
Section in the Web2c manual:
https://tug.org/texinfohtml/web2c.html#dvitype-invocation
Typeset source code, including the DVI file format description:
https://ctan.org/pkg/knuth-pdf
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
Web2C 2026 22 January 2026 dvitype(1)
texlive-bin 2026.78235 - Generated Thu Mar 5 15:36:22 CST 2026