From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: tlaronde@polynum.com
Date: Tue,  9 Nov 2010 16:58:21 +0100
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net>
Message-ID: <20101109155821.GB7891@polynum.com>
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Subject: [9fans] dvips(1) for Plan9: done
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Hello,

With some delay, as usual, the work is done and now dvips(1) is up and
running in kerTeX 0.8.0.0.

As an "advertising" feature, I have put on the site a (poor resolution)
jpeg conversion of Tomas Rokicki test page (generated on Plan9 so it
works...) just to give you the incentive to look.

Next step (and last for first complete release) will be MetaPost.

Here is an extract of the README file to give you a taste of the work
and modifications. But mind you, it is called README, and I really mean
it ;-)

----------8<
KerTeX dvips(1) is a modified version. Shall be noted mainly:

	- This a pure C89 version; all system dependent code has been
	removed.
		Specially, dvips(1) doesn't try anymore to send PostScript
	directly to the spooler : it produces a the PostScript
	program. Period. And it sends it, by default, to stdout.
	So, whether redirect to a file:

$ kertex/dvips file.dvi >file.ps

	or:

$ kertex/dvips -o file.ps file.dvi

	or transfer to the spooler:

$ kertex/dvips file.dvi | lpr

		Only the directory separator and the system encoding are
	handled. But this is done by the R.I.S.K. infrastructure, and not
	the dvips code by itself (adaptations should be made if necessary
	to the R.I.S.K parameter files and the code should be left alone).
	The main goal was to still support ebcdic.

	- The support for "backtick commands" has been removed: the commands
	embedded in a dvi file and supposed to be executed directly via
	system or popen are not handled. (This is an important security risk
	and furthermore the result can be achieved by the user via
	preprocessing.)

	- The automatic generation of missing fonts (METAFONT) is still
	here, but it is not on by default: you have to specify the (new)
	option "-G" to get it. If the automatic generation was not set or
	if it fails for a missing font, the command line to use is sent as a
	comment on stderr for the user to have hints about what and how to
	do. It shall be noted that the missfont.log that was previously
	written to hold this information is no longer created.
		By principle, dvips(1) creates streams (on stdout and stderr)
	and does not write anything by default. Hence it can be used "flying
	over" a read-only directory.

	- emTeX and TPIC \special's handling is removed.

	- Support for HyperTeX (for PDF hyperlinks) is included.

	- Support for Adobe T1 works. By default (in the dvips.cnf file),
	the T1 version of the Computer Modern are used. The use
	of the fonts is set by map files, that specify the name used by TeX,
	the name to use in PostScript, perhaps a different encoding, and
	perhaps a file to embed in the PostScript code.
		All is a question of configuration (map files), and the simpler
	is to read Tomas Rokicki's manual, included in source form in the
	KerTeX distribution.
---------->8

Enjoy! (Well, I hope...)
--
        Thierry Laronde <tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com>
                      http://www.kergis.com/
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