DVITYPE(1)                  General Commands Manual                 DVITYPE(1)

NAME
       dvitype, odvitype - translate a dvi file for humans to read

SYNOPSIS
       dvitype dvi_file[.dvi]

DESCRIPTION
       The dvitype program translates a DVI (DeVice Independent) file output
       by (for example) tex(1) or gftodvi(1), to a file that humans can read.
       It also serves as a DVI file-validating program (i.e., if dvitype can
       read it, it's correct) and as an example of a DVI-processing program
       for future device drivers.

       The output from dvitype can include all commands, just the important
       ones, or none at all (in which case only errors are reported). A
       subinterval of pages may be selected, the magnification and resolution
       of the ``output device'' may be changed, and so on.

       The .dvi extension is supplied if omitted from dvi_file.  The output
       goes to stdout.

       The odvitype program does the same job for Omega/Aleph's output,
       modified to support their .ofm font format.

OPTIONS
       See tex(1) for details of command-line parsing.

       -dpi=real
              Set resolution to real pixels per inch; default 300.0.

       -magnification=number
              Override existing magnification with number.

       -max-pages=number
              Process number pages; default one million.

       -output-level=number
              Verbosity level, from 0 to 4; default 4.

       -page-start=page-spec
              Start at page-spec, for example `2' or `5.*.-2'.

       -show-opcodes
              Show numeric opcodes (in decimal).

       The standard -help and -version options are also supported.

ENVIRONMENT
       The environment variable TEXFONTS is used to search for the TFM files
       used in the DVI file.  See tex(1) for the details of the searching.  If
       TEXFONTS is not set, it uses the system default.

SEE ALSO
       gftype(1), pktype(1).
       Donald E. Knuth, TeXware.

       DVI structure topic on CTAN: https://ctan.org/topic/dvi-struc
       Package page on CTAN: https://ctan.org/pkg/dvitype
       Section in the Web2c manual:
       https://tug.org/texinfohtml/web2c.html#dvitype-invocation
       Typeset source code, including the DVI file format description:
       https://ctan.org/pkg/knuth-pdf

AUTHORS
       Donald E. Knuth wrote the program, based on work by David Fuchs. It was
       published as part of the TeXware technical report from Stanford. Howard
       Trickey and Pavel Curtis originally ported it to Unix. Yannis
       Haralambous and John Plaice created the Omega version.

       Public discussion list and bug reports: https://lists.tug.org/tex-k

Web2C 2026                      22 January 2026                     DVITYPE(1)