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From: furuta@uw-beaver (Richard Furuta)
Newsgroups: net.text
Subject: Re: TeX on average crts.
Message-ID: <1346@uw-beaver>
Date: Thu, 27-Jun-85 04:20:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: uw-beave.1346
Posted: Thu Jun 27 04:20:24 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 28-Jun-85 01:29:48 EDT
References: <3285@dartvax.UUCP> <212@sdcarl.UUCP>
Reply-To: furuta@uw-beaver.UUCP (Richard furuta)
Distribution: net
Organization: U of Washington Computer Science
Lines: 26
Summary: 


I have seen one program, written by folks at Ohio State University for
Tops-20, that dumps DVI into a file.  What they do is to round off the DVI
file's notion of where the character goes to the resolution of the fixed
width character set that they assume is being used to print out the file.
If there already is a character in that position on the file page then they
discard one or the other (I don't recall which).  In other words, they throw
away font and size distinctions.  The result is a pretty jumbled up sequence
with missing characters, etc., but it's vaguely readable and is useful when
you're trying to figure out alignments and page breaks without printing an
actual copy.  If you set the DVI file with a fixed width type face, of
course, things would probably work out pretty well.

The other possibility would be to do something like David Fuchs' DVI to
Epson driver on the PC.  Scan through the DVI file, dumping characters when
you see them.  A useful extension would be to put in the line breaks.
This'd allow you to at least read little parts of the DVI file.

Both of these sound like they'd be potentially simple modifications of
DVItype.

What I really want is for someone to write me a screen previewer for the
Macintosh.  At that point, I'd claim that bitmapped screens *were* generally
available for everyone and that these hacks didn't require more attention.

					--Rick