dvisvgm
converts DVI files to the XML-based SVG format
see also :
tex - mf - mktexmf - grodvi
Synopsis
dvisvgm
[ options ] file [.dvi]
add an example, a script, a trick and tips
examples
dvisvgm file
Converts the first page of file.dvi to file.svg.
dvisvgm -z file
Converts the first page of file.dvi to file.svgz
with default compression level 9.
dvisvgm -p5 -z3 -ba4-l -onewfile file
Converts the fifth page of file.dvi to newfile.svgz
with compression level 3. The bounding box is set to DIN/ISO A4
in landscape format.
dvisvgm --transform="R20,w/3,2h/5 T1cm,1cm S2,3" file
Converts the first page of file.dvi to file.svg
where three transformations are applied.
source
DOC=${1}
DOC_BASENAME=$(basename ${DOC}
.html)
dvisvgm -p 1- -o %f-%p.svg -n "${DOC_BASENAME}.image.dvi" 2>&1 \
dvisvgm -p 1- -o %f-%p.svg -n "${DOC_BASENAME}.image.dvi" 2>&1 \
| tee "${DOC_BASENAME}.image.dvisvgm.log"
# These should always be sorted
SVG_IMAGES=($(grep -oE "${DOC_BASENAME}\.image-[0-9]+\.svg" "${DOC_BASENAME}.image.dvisvgm.log"))
source
then
dvisvgm -n1 ${filename}.dvi &>
/dev/null
fi
fi
# Conversion of the DVI file to a PNG
image
if [ -f
${filename}.dvi ]
description
The
command-line utility dvisvgm converts DVI
files, as generated by TeX/LaTeX, to the XML-based
scalable vector graphics format SVG. Since the current SVG
standard 1.1 doesn’t specify multi-page
graphics, dvisvgm creates separate SVG files for each DVI
page. Because of compatibility reasons, only the first page
is converted by default. In order to select a different page
or arbitrary page sequences, use option -p
which is described below.
dvisvgm should
properly convert all pages that are made up of fonts and
rules only. However, the utility also supports a couple of
DVI extensions defined in terms of DVI specials. For
a more detailed overview, see section support of
specials below.
As SVG is a
vector based graphics format, dvisvgm tries to convert the
glyph outlines of all used fonts into scalable path
descriptions. The fastest way to do that is to extract the
path information from PFB (PostScript Type 1) files. So, if
dvisvgm is able to find a PFB file for a required font, it
will read the necessary information from this file.
TeX’s
main source for font descriptions is Metafont though, which
produces bitmap output. That’s why not all obtainable
TeX fonts are available in PFB format. In these cases,
dvisvgm tries to vectorize Metafont’s output (GF
fonts) by tracing the glyph bitmaps. The results are not as
perfect as most (manually optimized) PFB outlines but are
nonetheless really nice in most cases.
options
-a,
--trace-all=[retrace]
This option forces dvisvgm to
trace not only the actually needed glyphs but all glyphs of
all bitmap fonts used in the DVI file. Since the tracing
results are stored in the font cache, all following DVI
conversions (without option
--trace-all) where these fonts are
involved, will be much faster. By default, dvisvgm traces
only the actually needed glyphs, and adds them to the cache.
The boolean option retrace determines how to handle
glyphs already stored in the cache. By default, these glyphs
are skipped. Setting argument retrace to yes
or true forces dvisvgm to trace the corresponding
bitmaps again.
Note
This option only takes affect if font caching is active.
Thus, --trace-all cannot be
combined with option --cache=none.
-b,
--bbox=fmt
Sets the bounding box of
the generated graphic to the specified format. The parameter
fmt takes either one of the format specifiers listed
below, or a sequence of four comma- or
whitespace-separated length values x1,
y1, x2 and y2. The latter define two
diagonal corners of the bounding box. Each length value
consists of a floating point number and an optional length
unit (pt, bp, cm, mm, in, or pc). If the unit is omitted,
TeX points (pt) are assumed.
It’s
also possible to give only one length value l. In
this case, the minimal bounding box is computed and enlarged
by adding (-l,-l) to the upper
left and (l,l) to the lower right
corner.
Alternatively,
the following format specifiers are supported:
International
DIN/ISO paper sizes
An, Bn,
Cn, Dn, where n is a non-negative
integer, e.g. A4 or a4 for DIN/ISO A4 format (210mm ×
297mm).
North
American paper sizes
invoice, executive, legal,
letter, ledger
Special
bounding box sizes
Page
orientation
The default page
orientation for DIN/ISO and American paper sizes is
portrait, i.e. width < height.
Appending -landscape or simply -l
to the format string switches to landscape mode
(width > height). For symmetry reasons you
can also explicitly add -portrait or
-p to indicate the default portrait format.
Note that these suffixes are part of the size string and not
separate options. Thus, they must directly follow the size
specifier without additional blanks. Furthermore, the
orientation suffixes can’t be used with dvi,
min, and none.
Note
Option -b, --bbox only affects the
bounding box and does not transform the page content. Hence,
if you choose a landscape format, the page won’t be
rotated.
-c,
--scale=sx[,sy]
Scales the page
content horizontally by sx and vertically by
sy. This option is equivalent to
-TSsx,sy.
-C,
--cache[=dir]
To speed up the
conversion process of bitmap fonts, dvisvgm saves
intermediate conversion information in cache files. By
default, these files are stored in $HOME/.dvisvgm/cache. If
you prefer a different location, use option
--cache to overwrite the default.
Furthermore, it is also possible to disable the font caching
mechanism completely with option
--cache=none. If argument dir is
omitted, dvisvgm prints the path of the default cache
directory and some information about the stored fonts.
Additionally, outdated and corrupted cache files are
removed.
--color
Enables colorization
of messages printed during the conversion process. The
colors can be customized via the environment variable
DVISVGM_COLORS. See the ENVIRONMENT section below for
further information.
-e,
--exact
If this option is
given, dvisvgm computes the precise bounding box of each
character. By default, the values stored in a font’s
TFM file are used to determine a glyph’s extent. As
these values are intended to realize optimal character
placements and are not designed to represent the exact
dimensions, they don’t necessarily correspond with the
bounds of the visual glyphs. Thus, width and/or height of
some glyphs may be larger than the respective TFM values. As
a result, this can lead to clipped characters at the bounds
of the SVG graphic. With option --exact,
dvisvgm analyzes the actual shape of each character and
derives a usually tight bounding box.
-h,
--help
Prints a short
summary of all available command-line options. This is
also the default action if dvisvgm is called without
parameters.
--libgs=filename
This option is only
available if the Ghostscript library is not directly linked
to dvisvgm and if PostScript support was not completely
disabled during compilation. In this case, dvisvgm tries to
load the shared GS library dynamically during runtime. By
default, it expects the library’s name to be libgs.so
(on Unix-like systems) or gsdll32.dll (Windows).
Option --libgs can be used to give a
different name. Alternatively, it’s also possible to
set the GS library name by the environment variable LIBGS.
The latter has less precedence than the command-line
option.
-l,
--list-specials
Prints a list of
registered special handlers and exits. Each handler
processes a set of special statements belonging to the same
category. In most cases, the categories are identified by
the prefix of the special statements. It’s usually a
leading word separated from the rest of the statement by a
colon or a blank, e.g. color or
ps.
--keep
Disables the removal
of temporary files as created by Metafont (usually .gf,
.tfm, and .log files).
-m,
--map-file=file
Sets the map file
used to look up font names and encodings. dvisvgm does not
provide its own map file but tries to read available ones
coming with dvips or dvipdfm. If option -m is
not given, dvisvgm looks for ps2pk.map, dvipdfm.map, and
psfonts.map (in this order). Without further options, the
file specified by option -m will be used
instead of the default maps. If you want dvisgvm to load the
given file additionally to the default maps, add a leading
+ to the file/path, e.g.
--map-file=+myfonts.map. For further
information about the map file formats, see the manuals of
dvips and dvipdfm.
-M,
--mag=factor
Sets the
maginfication factor applied in conjunction with Metafont
calls prior tracing the glyphs. The larger this value, the
better the tracing results. Nevertheless, large
magnification values can cause Metafont arithmetic errors
due to number overflows. So, use this option with care. The
default setting usually produces nice
results.
-n,
--no-fonts[=variant]
If this option is
given, dvisvgm doesn’t create SVG font elements
but uses paths instead. The resulting SVG files tends
to be larger but concurrently more compatible with most
applications that don’t support SVG fonts yet. The
optional argument variant selects the method how to
substitute fonts by paths. Variant 0 creates path and
use elements. Variant 1 creates path elements
only. Option --no-fonts implies
--no-styles.
-S,
--no-specials[=names]
Disable processing of
special commands embedded in the DVI file. If no further
parameter is given, all specials are ignored. To selectively
disable sets of specials, an optional comma-separated
list of names can be appended to this option. A name
is the unique identifier referencing the intended special
handler. Option --list-specials
lists all currently available handlers and their names. All
unsupported special statements are silently
ignored.
--no-styles
By default, dvisvgm
creates CSS styles and class attributes to reference fonts
because it’s more compact than repeatedly set the
complete font information in each text element. However, if
you prefer direct font references, the default behavior can
be disabled with option
--no-styles.
--no-mktexmf
Suppresses the
generation of missing font files. If dvisvgm can’t
find a font file through the kpathsea lookup mechanism, it
calls the external tools mktextfm or mktexmf by. This option
disables these calls.
-o,
--output=pattern
Sets the name pattern
of the output file. Parameter pattern is a string
that may contain the variables %f and %p.
%f stands for the base name of the DVI file, i.e. the
DVI filename without suffix, and %p is the current
page number. The default pattern is %f-%p.svg
if the DVI file consists of more than one page, and
%f.svg otherwise. That means, a DVI file
foo.dvi is converted to foo.svg if
foo.dvi is a single-page document. Otherwise,
multiple SVG files foo-01.svg,
foo-02.svg, etc. are produced. In Windows
environments, the percent sign indicates dereferenced
environment variables, and must therefore be protected by a
second percent sign, e.g.
--output=%%f-%%p.
-p,
--page=ranges
This option sets the
pages to be processed. Parameter ranges consists of a
comma-separated list of single page numbers and/or
page ranges. A page range is a pair of numbers separated by
a hyphen, e.g. 5-12. Thus, a page sequence might look
like this: 2-4,6,9-12,15. It doesn’t
matter if a page is given more than once or if page ranges
overlap. dvisvgm always extracts the page numbers in
ascending order and converts them only once. In order to
stay compatible with previous versions, the default page
sequence is 1. dvisvgm therefore converts only the first
page and not the whole document in case option
--page is omitted. Usually, page ranges
consist of two numbers denoting the first and last page to
be converted. If the conversion is to be started at page 1,
or if it should continue up to the last DVI page, the first
or second range number can be omitted, respectively.
Example: --page=-10 converts all
pages up to page 10, --page=10-
converts all pages starting with page 10. Please consider
that the page values don’t refer to the page numbers
printed on the page. Instead, the physical page count is
expected, where the first page always gets number
1.
-P,
--progress[=delay]
Enables a simple
progress indicator shown when time-consuming
operations like PostScript specials are processed. The
indicator doesn’t appear before the given delay (in
seconds) has elapsed. The default delay value is 0.5
seconds.
-r,
--rotate=angle
Rotates the page
content clockwise by angle degrees around the page
center. This option is equivalent to
-TRangle.
-s,
--stdout
Don’t write the
SVG output to a file but redirect it to
stdout.
-t,
--translate=tx[,ty]
Translates (moves)
the page content in direction of vector
(tx,ty). This option is equivalent to
-TTtx,ty.
-T,
--transform=commands
Applies a sequence of
transformations to the SVG content. Each transformation is
described by a command beginning with a capital
letter followed by a list of comma-separated
parameters. Following transformation commands are
supported:
T
tx[,ty]
Translates (moves)
the page in direction of vector (tx,ty). If
ty is omitted, ty=0 is assumed. The expected
unit length of tx and ty are TeX points (1pt =
1/72.27in). However, there are several constants defined to
simplify the unit conversion (see below).
S
sx[,sy]
Scales the page
horizontally by sx and vertically by sy. If
sy is omitted, sy=sx is
assumed.
R
angle[,x,y]
Rotates the page
clockwise by angle degrees around point
(x,y). If the optional arguments x and
y are omitted, the page will be rotated around its
center depending on the chosen page format. When option
-bnone is given, the rotation center is origin
(0,0).
KX
angle
Skews the page along
the x-axis by angle degrees. Argument
angle can take any value except 90+180k, where
k is an integer.
KY
angle
Skews the page along
the y-axis by angle degrees. Argument
angle can take any value except 90+180k, where
k is an integer.
FH
[y]
Mirrors (flips) the
page at the horizontal line through point (0,y).
Omitting the optional argument leads to y=h/2,
where h denotes the page height (see
pre-defined constants below).
FV
[x]
Mirrors (flips) the
page at the vertical line through point (x,0).
Omitting the optional argument leads to x=w/2,
where w denotes the page width (see
pre-defined constants below).
M
m1,...,m6
Applies a
transformation described by the 3×3 matrix
((m1,m2,m3),(m4,m5,m6),(0,0,1)),
where the inner triples denote the rows.
Note
All transformation commands of option -T,
--transform are applied in the order of
their appearance. Multiple commands can optionally be
separated by spaces. In this case the whole transformation
string has to be enclosed in double quotes. All parameters
are expressions of floating point type. You can either give
plain numbers or arithmetic terms combined by the operators
+ (addition), - (subtraction), *
(multiplication), / (division) or % (modulo)
with common associativity and precedence rules. Parentheses
may be used as well.
Additionally,
some pre-defined constants are
provided:
Furthermore,
you can use the length constants pt, mm,
cm and in, e.g. 2cm or 1.6in. Thus, option
-TT1in,0R45 moves the page content 1 inch to the right
and rotates it by 45 degrees around the page center
afterwards.
For
single transformations you can also use options
-c, -t and -r. Note
that the order in which these options are given is not
significant, i.e. you can’t use them to describe
transformation sequences. They are simply independent
shorthand options for common
transformations.
-v,
--verbosity=level
Controls the
type of messages printed during a dvisvgm
run:
Note
By adding these values you can combine the categories. The
default level is 7, i.e. all messages are
printed.
-V,
--version[=extended]
Prints the
version of dvisvgm and exits. If the optional argument is
set to yes, the version numbers of the linked
libraries are printed as well.
-z,
--zip[=level]
Creates a
compressed SVG file with suffix .svgz. The optional argument
specifies the compression level. Valid values are in the
range of 1 to 9 (default value is 9). Larger values cause
better compression results but take more computation
time.
Caution
This option cannot be combined with -s,
--stdout.
copying
Copyright © 2005-2012 Martin Gieseking. Free use of this software
is granted under the terms of the GNU General Public License
(GPL) version 3 or, (at your option) any later version.
environment
dvisvgm uses the kpathsea library for locating the files
that it opens. Hence, the environment variables described in the
library’s documentation influence the converter.
If dvisvgm was linked without the Ghostscript library, and if
PostScript support has not been disabled, the shared Ghostscript
library is looked up during runtime via dlopen(). The environment
variable LIBGS can be used to specify path and file name of the
library.
The pre-compiled Windows version of dvisvgm requires a working
installation of MiKTeX 2.9 or above. To enable evaluation of
PostScript specials, the original Ghostscript DLL
gsdll32.dll must be present and reachable through the
search path.
The environment variable DVISVGM_COLORS specifies the colors used
to highlight various parts of dvisvgm’s message output. It is
only evaluated if option --color is given. The value of
DVISVGM_COLORS is a list of colon-separated entries of the form
gg=BF, where gg denotes one of the color
group indicators listed below, and BF are two hexadecimal
digits specifying the background (first digit) and
foreground/text color (second digit). The color color values are
defined as follows: 0=black, 1=red, 2=green, 3=yellow, 4=blue,
5=magenta, 6=cyan, 7=gray, 8=bright red, 9=bright green, A=bright
yellow, B=bright blue, C=bright magenta, D=bright cyan, E=bright
gray, F=white. Depending on the terminal, the colors may differ.
Rather than changing both the text and background color, it’s
also possible to change only one of them: An asterisk (*) in
place of a hexadecimal digit indicates the default text or
background color of the terminal.
All malformed entries in the list are silently ignored.
Example: er=01:pi=*5 sets the colors of error messages
(er) to red (1) on black (0), and those of progress indicators
(pi) to cyan (5) on default background (*).
files
The location of the following files is determined by the kpathsea
library. To check the actual kpathsea configuration you can use
the kpsewhich utility.
resources
Project home page
http://dvisvgm.sourceforge.net
SourceForge project site
http://sourceforge.net/projects/dvisvgm
support of specials
dvisvgm supports several sets of special commands that can
be used to enrich DVI files with additional features, like color,
graphics or hyperlinks. The evaluation of special commands is
delegated to various handlers. Each handler is responsible for
all special statements of the same command set, i.e. commands
beginning with the same prefix. To get a list of actually
provided special handlers, use option --list-specials (see
above).
bgcolor
Special statement for changing the background/page color. Since
SVG 1.1 doesn’t support background colors, dvisvgm inserts a
rectangle of the chosen color. In the current version, this
rectangle always gets the size of the minimal bounding box. This
command is part of the color special set but is handled
separately in order to let the user turn it off. For an overview
of the command syntax, see the documentation of dvips, for
instance.
color
Statements of this command set provide instructions to change the
text/paint color. For an overview of the exact syntax, see the
documentation of dvips, for instance.
dvisvgm
dvisvgm offers its own small set of specials. The following list
gives a brief overview.
dvisvgm:raw text
Adds an arbitrary sequence of characters to the SVG output.
dvisvgm does not perform any validation here, thus the user has
to ensure that the resulting SVG is still valid. Parameter
text may contain the macros {?x}, {?y}, and
{?color} that are expanded to the current x or
y coordinate and the current color, respectively. Also,
macro {?nl} expands to a newline character.
dvisvgm:img width height file
Creates an image element at the current graphic position
referencing the given file. JPEG, PNG, and SVG images can be used
here. However, dvisvgm does not check the file format or the file
name suffix. The lengths width and height must be
given as plain floating point numbers in TeX point units (1in =
72.27pt).
dvisvgm:bbox n[ew] name
Defines or resets a local bounding box called name. The
name may consist of letters and digits. While processing a DVI
page, dvisvgm continuously updates the (global) bounding box of
the current page in order to determine the minimal rectangle
containing all visible page components (characters, images,
drawing elements etc.) Additionally to the global bounding box,
the user can request an arbitrary number of named local bounding
boxes. Once defined, these boxes are updated together with the
global bounding box starting with the first character that
follows the definition. Thus, the local boxes can be used to
compute the extent of parts of the page. This is useful for
scenarios where the generated SVG file is post-processed. In
conjunction with special dvisvgm:raw, the macro {?bbox
name} expands to the four values x,
y, w, and h (separated by spaces) specifying
the coordinates of the upper left corner, width, and height of
the local box name. If box name wasn’t previously
defined, all four values equal zero.
dvisvgm:bbox width height [depth]
Updates the bounding box of the current page by embedding a
virtual rectangle (x, y, width,
height) where the lower left corner is located at the
current DVI drawing position (x,y). If the optional
parameter depth is specified, dvisvgm embeds a second
rectangle (x, y, width, -depth). The
lengths width, height and depth must be
given as plain floating point numbers in TeX point units (1in =
72.27pt). Depending on size and position of the virtual
rectangle, this command either enlarges the overall bounding box
or leaves it as is. It’s not possible to reduce its extent. This
special should be used in conjunction with dvisvgm:raw in
order to update the viewport of the page properly.
dvisvgm:bbox a[bs] x1 y1 x2 y2
This variant of the bbox special updates the bounding box by
embedding a virtual rectangle
(x1,y1,x2,y2). The points
(x1,y1) and (x2,y2) denote two
diagonal corners of the rectangle given in TeX point units.
dvisvgm:bbox f[ix] x1 y1 x2 y2
This variant of the bbox special assigns an absolute (final)
bounding box to the resulting SVG. After executing this command,
dvisvgm doesn’t further alter the bounding box coordinates,
except this special is called again later. The points
(x1,y1) and (x2,y2) denote two
diagonal corners of the rectangle given in TeX point units.
The following TeX snippet adds two raw SVG elements to the output
and updates the bounding box accordingly:
\special{dvisvgm:raw <circle cx='{?x}' cy='{?y}' r='10'
stroke='black' fill='red'/>}
\special{dvisvgm:bbox 20 10 10}
\special{dvisvgm:raw <path d='M50 200 L10 250 H100 Z'
stroke='black' fill='blue'/>}
\special{dvisvgm:bbox abs 10 200 100 250}
em
These specials were introduced with the emTeX distribution by
Eberhard Mattes. They provide line drawing statements,
instructions for embedding MSP, PCX, and BMP image files, as well
as two PCL commands. dvisvgm supports only the line drawing
statements and ignores all other em specials silently. A
description of the command syntax can be found in the DVI driver
documentation coming with emTeX (see CTAN).
ps
The famous DVI driver dvips introduced its own set of specials in
order to embed PostScript code into DVI files, which greatly
improves the capabilities of DVI documents. One aim of dvisvgm is
to completely evaluate all PostScript snippets and to convert a
large amount of it to SVG. However, in contrast to dvips, dvisvgm
uses floating point arithmetics to compute the precise position
of each graphic element, i.e. it doesn’t round the corrdinates.
Therefore, the relative locations of the graphic elements may
slightly differ from those computed by dvips.
Since PostScript is a rather complex language, dvisvgm does not
try to implement its own PostScript interpreter but relies on
Ghostscript instead. If the Ghostscript library was not linked
while building dvisvgm, it is looked up and dynamically loaded
during runtime. In this case, dvisvgm looks for libgs.so
on Unix-like systems, and for gsdll32.dll on Windows. You
can override these default file names with the environment
variable LIBGS. The library must be installed and must be
reachable through the ld search path (*nix) or the PATH
environment variable (Windows). If it cannot be found, the
evaluation of PostScript specials is disabled. Use option
--list-specials to check whether PS support is available,
i.e. the entry ps is present.
tpic
The TPIC special set defines instructions for drawing simple
geometric objects. Some LaTeX packages, like eepic and tplot, use
these specials to describe graphics.
see also
tex ,
mf , mktexmf , grodvi , potrace, and the
kpathsea library info
documentation.
author
Written
by Martin Gieseking
<martin.gieseking[:at:]uos[:dot:]de>