Synopsis:
dvi2bitmap [flags] dvi-file
This program is intended to conform to the DVI processing standard.
The dvi-file argument is the name of a DVI file to be
converted to a bitmap. dvi2bitmap looks for the file both with and
without the default extension .dvi.
You may also read the DVI file from the standard input by
giving the DVI file as "-", thus
is an alternative way of reading the file (rather pointless in this case, but it shows the principle; see Section 3.2 for further discussion). For more arcane purposes, the DVI file may also be specified ascat myfile.dvi | dvi2bitmap -
<osfile>dvi-file
(which is entirely equivalent), or
<osfd>integer, where the given integer specifies an
open file descriptor; specifying "-" as the input file is
equivalent to <osfd>0The motivation for this program was the need for a helper program to produce small bitmaps for inclusion in web pages. Accordingly, the program's underlying usage model is that one would generate a file of TeX or LaTeX material, convert it to a DVI file using TeX, and convert the result to a collection of bitmap files. The input text will typically be equations, but any other TeX material will work as well. For example, the processor which generates the HTML could spit out a file such as
\documentclass{article}
\pagestyle{empty}
\begin{document}
$E=mc^2$
\newpage
% etc...
\end{document}I hope that the program is (or can be made to be) flexible enough to support other modes of use.