dvipng ****** This program makes PNG and/or GIF graphics from DVI files as obtained from TeX and its relatives. If GIF support is enabled, GIF output is chosen by using the 'dvigif' binary or with the '--gif' option. It is intended to produce anti-aliased screen-resolution images as fast as is possible. The target audience is people who need to generate and regenerate many images again and again. The primary target is the preview-latex (X)Emacs package, a package to preview formulas from within (X)Emacs. Yes, you get to see your formulas in the (X)Emacs buffer, see . Another example is WeBWorK, an internet-based method for delivering homework problems to students over the internet, giving students instant feedback as to whether or not their answers are correct, see . A more recent addition to the dvipng-using applications out there is MediaWiki, the software behind Wikipedia and many other wikis out there. Dvipng is used to render mathematical formulae from version 1.8.0 of MediaWiki, see . Other applications may also benefit, like web applications as latex2html and WYSIWYG editors like LyX. Benefits of dvipng ================== The benefits of 'dvipng'/'dvigif' include * Speed. It is a very fast bitmap-rendering code for DVI files, which makes it suitable for generating large amounts of images on-the-fly, as needed in preview-latex, WeBWorK and others. * It does not read the postamble, so it can be started before TeX finishes. There is a '--follow' switch that makes dvipng wait at end-of-file for further output, unless it finds the POST marker that indicates the end of the DVI. * Interactive query of options. dvipng can read options interactively through stdin, and all options are usable. It is even possible to change the input file through this interface. * Supports PK, VF, PostScript Type1, and TrueType fonts, subfonts (i.e., as used in CJK-LaTeX), color specials, and inclusion of PostScript, PNG, JPEG or GIF images. * and more... Installation ============ Read 'INSTALL', included in the distribution. Usage ===== To use dvipng at its simplest, simply type dvipng foo where 'foo.dvi' is the output of TeX that you want to convert to PNG format. If there are four pages in 'foo.dvi', those pages will be output as 'foo1.png', 'foo2.png', 'foo3.png', and 'foo4.png', respectively. Many options are available (see the info manual). For a brief summary of available options, just type dvipng --help Availability ============ The dvipng package is available at Savannah, the GNU project site. Since dvipng is not part of the GNU project, although released under the GNU GPL, the web address is . Instructions for anonymous CVS access can be found at . Contacts ======== Bug reports should be sent to . Questions, suggestions for new features, pleas for help, and/or praise should go to . For more information on this mailing list, send a message with just the word 'help' as subject or body to or look at . Offers to support further development will be appreciated. For developer access, ask on . Copying ======= This program is released under the GNU Lesser General Public License version 3, see the COPYING file in the dvipng distribution or . Copyright (C) 2002-2014 Jan-AAke Larsson Todo ==== * Use gs interpreter library for speed and possibly for functionality. * Add more color models for xcolor compatibility * Enable a named pipe as DVI * Further speed improvements. * Other output specials and source specials. * Clean internal structures. Overhaul file handling. * Fix the SELFAUTO stuff at runtime rather than at build time