Re: [Dvi2bitmap-users] Question about dvi2bitmap: generating bitmap of entire page

[Norman G. <no...@as...>]

Shreevatsa, hello.

On 5 Apr 2017, at 21:44, Shreevatsa R wrote:

> I have a question about the dvi2bitmap tool from 2005 (so glad that 
> someone
> has written this!)

What a delightful surprise! -- it's been a while since I last thought 
about dvi2bitmap.

> When I try
>
> ./dvi2bitmap --process=nocrop ../hello.dvi
>
> I get a bitmap of size 934 x 1688 pixels. At the default resolution of 
> 110
> pixels (ibmvga mode), I would expect 935 x 1210 pixels instead 
> (8.5*110 x
> 11*110). I'm not sure why there's one pixel less in the horizontal
> direction, and 478 additional pixels (about 4.35 inches) that appear 
> to be
> appended to the bottom of the page.

dvi2bitmap doesn't really have any idea how big the output bitmap is 
(the DVI format doesn't include information on paper size, slightly 
unexpectedly), so it starts off with a rough but fairly generous 
estimate.  This works fine in the (more common) case where you plan to 
tightly crop the output anyway.

However you can specify an output bitmap size with options --height and 
--width (both in pixels), or indeed option --paper-size.

Just for old-times' sake I implemented the papersize=<height>,<width> 
special which originated with dvips, but which is more widely 
recognised.  I'll release a v1.1 when that's tidy.

If you try using --paper-size=usletter, as suggested above, you'll 
discover, as I did, that dvi2bitmap thinks that USLetter paper is 8" x 
8"; it seems that this has been wrong for a while, and no-one has 
noticed.

Best wishes,

Norman


-- 
Norman Gray  :  https://nxg.me.uk
SUPA School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow, UK