Viewing and printing DVI files

Viewing and printing DVI files

You must have a program on your computer which is capable of viewing and printing DVI files. For a list of available softwares, TeX packages, fonts, etc. see the TeX Users Group.

Although any viewer works, we recommend using the DVIWIN viewer under Microsoft Windows 3.x or later and xdvi under Unix systems. The DVIWIN program can be downloaded from CTAN. Since there are so many Unix flavors, there is no point in publishing the executable xdvi in all possible binary formats, you can rather download the source code of the xdvi program from CTAN and compile it yourself. You also have to have the appropriate fonts on your computer. We recommend using MetaFont to generate the appropriate fonts or downloading some complete font packages from the TeX Users Group. The DVIWIN and xdvi programs should be set up so that they know where to look for the fonts, please read their help to find out how to do that.

In order to make your browser start the viewer automatically you have to set a new MIME type in your browser. If you use Netscape:

In the Options menu choose General Preferences.
Select the folder Helpers.
Click the Create New Type... button and fill out the dialogbox Configure New Mime Type:
- file/MIME type : application
- subtype : x-dvi
Click the OK button.
Fill out dvi for file extensions.
Click radiobutton Launch The Application at Action.
Find your DVIWIN executable file with the Browse button and click OK if found.
Leave General Preferences.

If you have Internet Explorer:

In the View menu choose Options.
Select the folder Programs.
Click the File Types button and then the Add button.
Fill out the dialogbox:
- Description : DVI files
- MIME type : application/x-dvi
- Suffixes : dvi
- Encoding : binary
Find your DVIWIN executable file with the Browse button and click OK if found.
Leave Options.

If everything is set up correctly, then (when you click on a link to a DVI file) your browser will dowload the DVI file and start your viewer automatically. From the viewer you can now view and print the file.

If you used e-mail to download a paper in DVI format, then first you need to decode the e-mail encoding you selected (MIME, BinHex, or UUEncode), if your e-mail reader did not do it already. Then you have the plain non-encoded DVI file and you can start your viewer to view or print it.