.TH XDVIPSK 1 "06 February 2026"
.SH NAME
xdvipsk \- convert a TeX DVI file to PostScript (dvips extexsion)
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B xdvipsk
.RI [ OPTIONS ]
.IR file [\fB.dvi\fP]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B xdvipsk
has a few base extensions:
.TP
.B - bitmap images
allows flexible inclusion of bitmap images.
.I xdvipsk
accepts
.IR BMP ,
.IR PCX ,
.IR TIFF ,
.IR JPEG ,
.I PNG
formats and is able to perform the same actions as with
.I EPS
images: scaling, rotating, trim, viewport.
.sp
.I xdvispk.def
(extended `dvips.def`) driver for graphics package does not yet implement
the operations of clipping, trimming and viewport.
.TP
.B - OpenType fonts
adds
.B OpenType
font support. Map files with information about
.I OpenType
fonts used in .dvi files are produced by LaTeX package
.I luafontmaps.
.sp
PostScript header file
.I xdvips-cid.pro
is used for inclusion of
.B OpenType
fonts in PostScript files. It is an analogue of
.I texps.pro
that is used in case of
.I Type1
fonts.
.TP
.B - mapfile, mapline specials 
accepts font map special commands with prefixes
\fImapfile\fP and \fImapline\fP
to supplement font mapping provided in
.I psfonts.map
tables.
.I mapfile
is used for reading a font map file consisting of one or more font map lines.
The name of the map file is given together with an optional leading modifier character (+).  
There is a companion special type
.I mapline
that allows to scan single map lines;
its map line argument has the same syntax as the map lines from a map file.  
.sp
Both specials can be used concurrently. The operation mode is selected by
an optional modifier character (+) in front. This modifier defines how
the individual map lines are going to be handled, and how a collision
between an already registered map entry and a newer one is resolved;  
either ignoring a later entry with a warning in case modifier charcter is given,  
or replacing an existing entry in case no modifier character is given.  
.TP
.B - Lua callbacks
adds
.B Lua callbacks
for
.I specials
(prescan, scan),
\fIafter prescan\fP,
.IR drawchar ,
.IR drawrule ,
.IR stack ,
\fIdvips exit\fP.
.sp
.I xdvipsk
reads Lua script file
.I xdvipsk.lua
if it is found by `kpse` and looks for these Lua functions:

.B prescan_specials_callback(\fIspecial\fP, \fItable\fP)
.IR special -
original special data,
.I table
with keys: `hh`, `vv`, `pagenum`.

.B scan_specials_callback(\fIspecial\fP, \fItable\fP)
.IR special -
original special data,
.I table
with keys: `hh`, `vv`, `pagenum`

.B after_prescan_callback(\fItable\fP)
.I table
with keys: `hpapersize`, `vpapersize`, `hoff`, `voff`, `actualdpi`, 
`vactualdpi`, `num`, `den`, `mag`, `totalpages`

.B after_drawchar_callback(\fItable\fP)
.I table
with keys: `charcode`, `cid`, `pixelwidth`, `rhh`, `rvv`, `dir`, `lastfont`,
`tounicode`

.B after_drawrule_callback(\fItable\fP)
.I table
with keys: `hh`, `vv`, `dir`, `rw`, `rh`

.B process_stack_callback(\fItable\fP)
.I table
with keys: `cmd`, `hh`, `vv`, `dir`

.B dvips_exit_callback(\fItable\fP)
.I table
with keys: `exitcode`, `log_records_count`

Return values for specials defines processing behaviour:

.I - non empty string
defines modified `dvi special` to be processed;

.I - true value
means processing original `dvi special` in default way;

.I - empty string | false value
means skipping `dvi special`.

Default `Lua` script file can be changed by command line argument
.I -lua  
or command
.I luascript
in
.B xdvipsk
config files.
.TP
.B - ToUnicode CMaps
.B ToUnicode CMaps
support through adding
.B GlyphNames2Unicode
dictionary to
.B T1
and
.B OpenType
fonts.
.sp
.I GlyphNames2Unicode
is an undocumented dictionary which Adobe PostScript printer driver uses to communicate
with Adobe Distiller. In this dictionary the keys are glyph names,
the values are Unicode UTF-16 codes of them.  
The dictionary is stored in the 
.I FontInfo
dictionary under the key
.IR GlyphNames2Unicode .
Ghostscript recognises it and uses to generate `ToUnicode CMaps` with `pdfwrite`.
.PP
A bit OBSOLETE info can be found at 
\fIhttps://tug.org/TUGboat/tb38-2/tb119tolusis.pdf\fP
.PP
Development sources: \fIhttps://github.com/vtex-soft/xdvipsk.git\fP
.SH OPTIONS
Extra
.B xdvipsk
options are marked with \fI[+]\fP.
.TP
.B -
Read additional options from standard input after processing the command line.
.TP
.B --help
Print a usage message and exit.
.TP
.B --version
Print the version number and exit.
.TP
.B -a
Conserve memory by making three passes over the .dvi file instead of two
and only loading those characters actually used. Generally only useful
on machines with a very limited amount of memory, like some PCs.
.TP
.B -A
Print only the odd pages. This option uses TeX page numbers, not
physical page numbers.
.TP
.B -b num
Generate
.I num
copies of each page, but duplicating the page body rather than using the
.I /#copies
PostScript variable. This can be useful in conjunction with a header file setting
.I bop-hook
to do color separations or other neat tricks.
.TP
.B -B
Print only the even pages. This option uses TeX page numbers, not
physical page numbers.
.TP
.B -bitmapfontenc [on,off,strict]
Turns bitmap font encoding to \fIoff\fP, \fIon\fP (no warnings for missing bitmap font encodings),
or \fIstrict\fP (with warnings for missing bitmap font encodings).
.TP
.B -c num
Generate
.I num
consecutive copies of every page, i.e., the output is
uncollated. This merely sets the builtin PostScript variable
.I /#copies
Default is 1. (For collated copies, see the
.I -C
option below.)
.TP
.B -C num
Create
.I num 
copies, but collated (by replicating the data in the PostScript file).
Slower than the
.I -c
option, but easier on the hands, and faster than resubmitting the same
PostScript file multiple times.
.TP
.B -d num
Set the debug flags, showing what
.B dvips
is doing. This will work unless Dvips has been compiled without 
the 'DEBUG' option (not recommended). *Note Debug options::,
for the possible values of \fInum\fP.
Use '-d -1' as the first option for maximum output.
.TP
.B -D num
Set both the horizontal and vertical resolution to 
.IR num ,
given in dpi (dots per inch). This affects the choice of bitmap fonts that
are loaded and also the positioning of letters in resident
PostScript fonts. Must be between 10 and 10000. This affects both
the horizontal and vertical resolution. If a high
resolution (something greater than 400 dpi, say) is selected, the
.I -Z
flag should probably also be used. If you are using fonts made with
Metafont, such as Computer Modern,
.B mktexpk
needs to know about
the value for
.I num
that you use or Metafont will fail.  See the
.I modes.mf
file (<https://ctan.org/pkg/modes>) for a list of
resolutions and mode names for most devices.
.TP
.B -e num
Maximum drift in pixels of each character from its 'true'
resolution-independent position on the page. The default value of
this parameter is resolution dependent (it is the number of entries
in the list [100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 800, 1000, 1200, 1600, 2000, 2400, 2800, 3200, ...]
that are less than or equal to the
resolution in dots per inch).  Allowing individual characters
to 'drift' from their correctly rounded positions by a few pixels,
while regaining the true position at the beginning of each new
word, improves the spacing of letters in words.
.TP
.B -E
Generate an EPSF file with a tight bounding box. This only looks
at marks made by characters and rules, not by any included
graphics. In addition, it gets the glyph metrics from the
.I tfm
file, so characters that print outside their enclosing
.I tfm
box may confuse it. In addition, the bounding box might be a bit too loose
if the character glyph has significant left or right side bearings.
Nonetheless, this option works well enough for creating small EPSF
files for equations or tables or the like. (Of course,
.B dvips
output, especially when using bitmap fonts, is resolution-dependent
and thus does not make very good EPSF files, especially if the
images are to be scaled; use these EPSF files with care.)  For
multiple page input files, also specify '-i' to get each page as a
separate EPSF file; otherwise, all the pages are overlaid in the
single output file.
.TP
.B -f
Run as a filter.  Read the
.I .dvi
file from standard input and write the PostScript to standard output.
The standard input must be seekable, so it cannot be a pipe.  If you
must use a pipe, write a shell script that copies the pipe output to a
temporary file and then points
.B dvips
at this file.  This option also disables the automatic reading of the
.I PRINTER
environment variable; use
.B '-P$PRINTER'
after the
.B -f
to read it anyway. It also turns off the automatic sending of
control-D  (ASCII code 4) if it was turned on with the
.B -F
option or in the configuration file; use
.B -F
after the
.B -f
to send it anyway.
.TP
.B -F
Write control-D (ASCII code 4) as the very last character of the
PostScript file. This is useful when
.B dvips
is driving the printer
directly instead of working through a spooler, as is common on
personal systems. On systems shared by more than one person, this
is not recommended.
.TP
.B -G
Shift non-printing characters (ASCII 0-32, 127) to higher-numbered
positions. This was useful to work around bugs in old versions of
Adobe's PDF reader. It's more likely to cause problems nowadays.
.TP
.B -h name
Prepend
.I name
as an additional header file, or, if 
.I name
is '-', suppress inclusion of default header files. If
.B -h
is given multiple times, the headers are included in the order given.
Any definitions in the header file get added to the PostScript
.IR userdict .
.TP
.B \fI[+]\fP-H
Turbo mode for
.B PS
graphics
.TP
.B -i
Make each section be a separate file; a "section" is a part of the
document processed independently, most often created to avoid
memory overflow. The filenames are created replacing the suffix of
the supplied output file name by a three-digit sequence number.
This option is most often used in conjunction with the
.I -S
option which sets the maximum section length in pages; if
.I -i
is specified and
.I -S
is not, each page is output as a separate file.
For instance, some phototypesetters cannot print more than ten or
so consecutive pages before running out of steam; these options can
be used to automatically split a book into ten-page sections, each
to its own file.
On the other hand, if your document uses very large fonts or very
large included figures, Dvips might take it upon itself to split
the output into unwanted sections, to try to avoid overflowing
printer memory.
.TP
.B \fI[+]\fP-I p
Resize mode for emTeX graphics
.TP
.B -j
Download only needed characters from Type 1 fonts. This is the
default in the current release. Some debugging flags trace this operation.
You can also control partial downloading on a per-font basis, via the
.B psfonts.map
file.
.B \fI[+]\fP-J
Download OpenType fonts partially.
.TP
.B -k
Print crop marks. This option increases the paper size (which should be
specified, either with a paper size special or with the
.I -T
option) by a half inch in each dimension. It translates each page by a
quarter inch and draws cross-style crop marks. It is mostly useful with
typesetters that can set the page size automatically.
This works by downloading 'crop.pro'.
.TP
.B -K
This option causes comments in included PostScript graphics, font files,
and headers to be removed. This is sometimes necessary to get around
bugs in spoolers or PostScript post-processing programs. Specifically,
the %%Page comments, when left in, often cause difficulties. Use of
this flag can cause some included graphics to fail, since the PostScript
header macros from some software packages read portions of the input
stream line by line, searching for a particular comment. This option
has been turned off by default because PostScript previewers and
spoolers have been getting better.
.TP
.B -l [=]num[.SEQ]
The last page printed will be the first one numbered
.I num
Default is the last page in the document.  If the
.I num
is prefixed by an equals sign, then it (and any argument to the
.I -p
option) is treated as a sequence number, rather than a value to compare
with
.I \ecount0
values.  Thus, using
.I -l =9
will end with the ninth page of the document, no matter what the pages
are actually numbered.
.sp
On the other hand, if
.I num
is suffixed by 
.IR .SEQ ,
the SEQth occurrence of
.I num
is used; for example,
.I -l 99.2
says to end processing with the second page numbered 99 in the document.
.TP
.B -L
By default or with
.BR -L1 ,
the last 'papersize' special wins; with
.BR -L0 ,
the first special wins.
.TP
.B -landscaperotate
When looking for matching paper sizes, permit rotation of page
content on the page to match the given size; the default, as of
.B Dvips 2022.1,
is not to do this. It should not be needed in modern
systems with normal print spoolers, and can be harmful when
converting to PDF (*note Config file paper sizes::). This option
accepts an optional suffix of 0 (to explicitly disable) or 1 (to
explicitly enable); if the option is specified without a suffix, it
enables the behavior.
.TP
.B \fI[+]\fP-lua name 
Lua script file
.I name
.TP
.B -m
Specify manual feed for printer, if supported by the output device.
.TP
.B -mode mode
Use
.I mode
as the Metafont device name for path searching and font
generation. This overrides any value from configuration files. With
the default paths, explicitly specifying the mode also makes the program
assume the fonts are in a subdirectory named
.IR mode .
.TP
.B -M
Turns off automatic font generation ('mktexpk'). If 'mktexpk', the
invocation is appended to a file
.I missfont.log
by default in the
current directory. You can then execute the log file to create the
missing files after fixing the problem. If the current directory
is not writable and the environment variable or configuration file
value 'TEXMFOUTPUT' is set, its value is used. Otherwise, nothing
is written. The name
.I missfont.log
is overridden by the 'MISSFONT_LOG' environment variable
or configuration file value.
.TP
.B -n num
At most
.I num
pages will be printed. Default is 100000.
.TP
.B -N
Turns off structured comments such as '%%Page';
this might be necessary on some systems
that try to interpret PostScript comments in weird ways, or on some
PostScript printers. Old versions of TranScript in particular cannot
handle modern Encapsulated PostScript.
Beware: This also disables page movement,
etc., in PostScript viewers such as Ghostview.
.TP
.BR -noomega
This will disable the use of Omega extensions when interpreting DVI
files. By default, the additional opcodes
.I 129
and
.I 134
are recognized by dvips as Omega or pTeX extensions and interpreted as
requests to set 2-byte characters.
.TP
.BR -noptex
This will disable the use of pTeX extensions when interpreting DVI files.
By default, the additional opcodes
.I 130
and
.I 135
are recognized by dvips as pTeX extensions and interpreted as requests to
set 3-byte characters, and
.I 255
as request to change the typesetting direction.
.sp
The only drawback is that the virtual font array will (at least temporarily)
require 65536 or more positions instead of the default 256 positions, i.e.,
the memory requirements of dvips will be somewhat larger. If you find this
unacceptable or encounter another problem with the Omega or pTeX extensions,
you can switch off the pTeX extension by using
.BR -noptex ,
or both by using
.B -noomega
(but please do send a bug report if you find such problems - see the bug
address in the
.B AUTHORS
section below).
.TP
.BR \fI[+]\fP-noluatex
Disable LuaTeX extensions
.TP
.BR \fI[+]\fP-noToUnicode
Disable ToUnicode CMap file generation for OpenType fonts
.TP
.B -o name
Send output to the file
.IR name .
If
.B -o is specified without
.I name
(i.e., it is the last thing on the command line), the default is
.I FILE.ps
where the input DVI file was
.IR FILE.dvi .
If
.B -o
isn't given at all, the configuration file default is used.
.sp
If
.I name
is '-', output goes to standard output. If the first
character of
.I name
is '!' or '|', then the remainder will be used as
an argument to
.IR popen ;
thus, specifying
.I |lpr
as the output file
will automatically queue the file for printing as usual.  (The
MS-DOS version will print to the local printer device 'PRN' when
.I name
is
.I |lpr
and a program by that name cannot be found.)
.sp
.B -o
disables the automatic reading of the
.I PRINTER environment
variable, and turns off the automatic sending of control-D. See the
.B -f
 option for how to override this.
.TP
.B -O offset
Move the origin by
.IR X-OFFSET,Y-OFFSET ,
a comma-separated pair of dimensions such as
.I .1in,-.3cm
(*note papersize special::).  The
origin of the page is shifted from the default position (of one
inch down, one inch to the right from the upper left corner of the
paper) by this amount. This is usually best specified in the
printer-specific configuration file.
.sp
This is useful for a printer that consistently offsets output pages
by a certain amount. You can use the file 'testpage.tex' to
determine the correct value for your printer. Be sure to do
several runs with the same 'O' value--some printers vary widely
from run to run.
.sp
If your printer offsets every other page consistently, instead of
every page, your best recourse is to use
.I bop-hook
(*note PostScript hooks::).
.TP
.B -p [=]num[.SEQ]
Exactly analogous to
.I -l
(q.v.), but specifying the first page number to be printed (processed).
.TP
.B -pp pagelist
Print pages
.I FIRST
through
.IR LAST ;
equivalent to
.IR -p FIRST -l LAST ,
except that multiple
.I -pp
options accumulate, unlike
.I -p
and
.IR -l .
The '-' separator can also be ':'.
.TP
.B -P PRINTER
Read the configuration file
.I config.PRINTER
(
.I PRINTER.cfg
on MS-DOS), which typically sets the output name 
(most likely 'o |lpr -PPRINTER'), resolution, Metafont mode, and perhaps other
printer-specific defaults. It works best to put sitewide defaults
in the one master
.I config.ps
file and only things that vary from
printer to printer in the
.I config.PRINTER
files;
.I config.ps
is read before
.IR config.PRINTER .
.sp
A configuration file for eventual creation of Adobe PDF files is
provided in
.I config.pdf
and thus can be loaded with
.IR -Ppdf .
It will try to include Type 1 outline fonts into the PostScript file
(*note Hypertext caveats::).
.sp
If no
.I -P
or
.I -o
is given, the environment variable
.I PRINTER
is checked. If that variable exists, and a corresponding
.I config.PRINTER
(
.I PRINTER.cfg
on MS-DOS) file exists, it is read.
*Note Configuration file searching::.
.TP
.B -q
Run in quiet mode. Don't chatter about pages converted, etc.; report
nothing but errors to standard error.
.TP
.B \fI[+]\fP-Q
Skip VTeX private specials.
.TP
.B -r
Output pages in reverse order. By default, page 1 is output first.
.TP
.B -R[0|1|2]
Run securely.
.B -R2
disables both shell command execution in
.I \especial{}
(via '`', *note Dynamic creation of graphics::) and
config files (via the 'E' option, *note Configuration file
commands::) and opening of any absolute or '..'-relative filenames.
.BR -R1 ,
the default, forbids shell escapes but allows absolute filenames.
.B -R0
allows both.
.TP
.B -s
Causes the entire global output to be enclosed in a save/restore pair.
This causes the file to not be truly conformant, and is thus not
recommended, but is useful if you are driving the printer directly and
don't care too much about the portability of the output.
.TP
.B -S num
Set the maximum number of pages in each `section'. This option is most
commonly used with the
.I -i
option; see that documentation above for more information.
.TP
.B -t papertype
This sets the paper type to
.IR papertype .
The
.I papertype
should be defined in one of the configuration files, along with the
appropriate code to select it.  (Currently known types include
.BR letter ,
.BR legal ,
.BR ledger ,
.BR a4 ,
.BR a3 ).
You can also specify a
.I papertype
of
.IR landscape ,
which rotates a document by 90 degrees.
To rotate a document whose paper type is not the default, you
can use the
.I -t
option twice, once for the paper type, and once for
.IR landscape .
In general, you should not use any
.I -t
option when using a
.I papersize
special, which some LaTeX packages (e.g., 'hyperref') insert.
One exception is when using a nonstandard paper size that is
not already defined in
.IR config.ps ;
in this case, you need to specify
.IR -t unknown .
Another exception is when producing multi-page files for
further processing; use
.I -t nopaper
to omit any paper size information in the output. (If you
just have a single page document, you can use
.I -E
to get pure EPSF output.)
.TP
.B -T papersize
Set the paper size to
.IR papersize ,
a comma-separated pair of dimensions such as '.1in,-.3cm' (*note papersize special::).
It overrides any paper size special in the DVI file. Be careful, as
the paper size will stick to a predefined size if there is one
close enough. To disable this behavior, use
.IR -tunknown.
.TP
.B title s
Use
.I s
as the title in the generated PostScript ('%%Title').
If not specified, the default is the basename of the input file;
for example, running 'dvips /foo/bar.dvi' will have
a '%%Title' of 'bar.dvi'.
.TP
.B -u psmapfile
Set
.I psmapfile
to be the file that dvips uses for looking up PostScript font aliases. If
.I psmapfile
begins with a
.B +
character, then the rest of the name is used as the name of the map file,
and the map file is appended to the list of map files (instead of replacing
the list).  In either case, if
.I psmapfile
has no extension, then
.B .map
is added at the end.
.TP
.B -U
Disable a PostScript virtual memory saving optimization that stores the
character metric information in the same string that is used to store
the bitmap information. This is only necessary when driving the Xerox
4045 PostScript interpreter.  It is caused by a bug in that interpreter
that results in `garbage' on the bottom of each character. Not
recommended unless you must drive this printer.
.TP
.B -v
Print the
.B dvips
version number and exit.
.TP
.B -V
Download non-resident PostScript fonts as bitmaps. This requires
use of 'mtpk' or 'gsftopk' or 'pstopk' or some combination thereof
to generate the required bitmap fonts; these programs are supplied
with Dvips. The bitmap must be put into 'psfonts.map' as the
downloadable file for that font. This is useful only for those
fonts for which you do not have real outlines, being downloaded to
printers that have no resident fonts, i.e., very rarely.
.TP
.B \fI[+]\fP-W
Extended search for emTeX graphics.
.TP
.B -x num
Set the magnification ratio to
.IR num/1000 .
Overrides the magnification specified in the DVI file.
Must be between 10 and 100000. It is recommended that you use standard
magstep values (1095, 1200, 1440, 1728, 2074, 2488, 2986, and so on)
to help reduce the total number of PK files generated.
.I num
may be a real number, not an integer, for increased precision.
.TP
.B -X num
Set the horizontal resolution in dots per inch to
.IR num .
.TP
.B -y num
Set the magnification ratio to
.IR num /1000
times the magnification specified in the .dvi file.
See
.B -x
above.
.TP
.B -Y num
Set the vertical resolution in dots per inch to
.IR num .
.TP
.B -z
Pass
.B html
hyperdvi specials through to the output for eventual
distillation into PDF. This is not enabled by default to avoid
including the header files unnecessarily, and use of temporary files in
creating the output.
.TP
.B -Z
Compress bitmap fonts in the output file, thereby reducing the size
of what gets downloaded.  Especially useful at high resolutions or
when very large fonts are used.  May slow down printing, especially
on early 68000-based PostScript printers.  Generally recommend
today, and can be enabled in the configuration file (*note
Configuration file commands::).
.SH "SEE ALSO"
afm2tfm(1), tex(1), mf(1), dvips(1), dvitype(1), lpr(1), 
.IR dvips.texi ,
README.overview.md,
https://tug.org/dvips, https://github.com/vtex-soft/xdvipsk.
.SH ENVIRONMENT
Xvipsk uses the same environment variables and algorithms for finding
font files as TeX and its friends do.  See the documentation for the
Kpathsea library for details.  (Repeating it here is too cumbersome.)
.PP
KPATHSEA_DEBUG: Trace Kpathsea lookups; set to -1 for complete tracing.
.PP
PRINTER: see above.
.SH NOTES
PostScript is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated.
.SH AUTHOR
Dvips created by
Tomas Rokicki; extended to virtual fonts
by Don Knuth. Path searching and configuration modifications by
Karl Berry.
.PP
Main extensions by Arūnas Povilaitis;
fonts management by Mindaugas Piešina;
lua callbacks, configuration, and maintenance by Sigitas Tolušis.
.PP
Maintained in TeX Live; please send bug reports or other correspondence
related to dvips to tex-k@tug.org (https://lists.tug.org/tex-k)
and related xdvipsk to tex-dev@vtex.lt (https://github.com/vtex-soft/xdvipsk)