[tex-live] Re: tex-live Digest, Vol 8, Issue 45

[Hans Hagen]

At 14:32 26/09/2003 +0200, you wrote:

> > It is certainly time to abandon dvi and get on with other things like XML,
>
>Uggg, no, no, no. I LIKE dvi. It is fast, much much faster than stupid
>pdf. I am writing a lot and I like to view my files with xdvi to get
>things as automatic reload and fast fast fast drawing. I can work with
>xdvi even via a remote line, but NOT using acro**** or .pdf.

hm, one reason for me for abandoning dvi is the fact that i cannot show all 
(type1) fonts and graphics, and acrobat is not that slow

>Contrary to pdf it IS device independent, while pdf (version 4 version 5
>version 6 subversions, version linux, version windows, viewing problems,
>argggg) is just pain in the ...

hm, i know of problems, but not so much with tex docs; esp since the pdf 
produced by pdftex is quite simple; most problems are related to fonts, and 
tex users do nasty things with fonts (dvi-ps suffers from that as well); it 
maybe that the mac/linux viewers lack behind, but GS is pretty good 
nowadays, we only need someone to make that more widget aware.

dvi is pretty system dependent: one needs a tex system comparable to the 
one used by the author, as well as files in the same encoding, in order to 
view the files; also, one has to distribute graphics; if we want to draw 
new users to tex, dvi is no option, esp nowadays when people publish on the 
web, use color, nice fonts, special features etc.

also, tex live is not so much meant for user swith their own setup who can 
manage all their fonts and resources etc, but (from the user groups 
perspective) meant for tjose who depend on others for their installation; 
fo rthem, pdf is the way to go (unless the tex community comes up with 
dvi++ with embedded fonts, graphics, accompanied bij viewers that can 
handle color, transparency, shading, interactive features, forms, etc

Hans
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