Introduction

This is another DVI to SVG converter (and is written in Python).

When I was started to write this program I just want to export mathematical expressions. But since DVI is just a set of commands that puts characters and move magic current point around a page, pydvi2svg is able to convert any kind of document.

There is partial support for color.sty specials.

Why another converter? Because programs I've checked — if they worked of course — embeded SVG font in the file. This is not supported by most SVG viewer/editor programs, including Inkscape that I use often. Because of that pydvi2svg embeds glifs as a paths and simply links to them. It works perfectly. Tested with gqview, rsvg, Inkscape, Firefox 1.5-2.0 and Opera 9.

Samples

1. Article borrowed from English Wikipedia about DVI file format. Font face used: Computer Modern.

   • TeX
   • DVI
   • SVG page 1 i 2

2. Article borrowed from polish Wikipedia about Antykwa Półtawskiego — the original polish font face. Of course if you open SVG you will see this font "in action".

   • TeX
   • DVI
   • SVG

Wikipedia articles are licensed under GNU GFDL license.

Prerequisites

• Python interpreter, version 2.4
• If you need additional SVG fonts, you will need TeX installation (all its' utilities, fonts, etc.) and:
  • fnt2meta — pydvi2svg utility to convert Type1 fonts; if you don't need METAFONT, just Type1 fonts this utility should be enough
  • free, multiplatform font editor Fontforge that is able to save SVG fonts (pydvi2svg uses Fontforge to convert Type1 fonts)
  • mftrace and autotrace or potrace — to convert METAFONT fonts to SVG

Installation

Following archives are needed:

1. pydvi2svg.tar.bz2 — source files of pydvi2svg & SVGfrags
2. fonts.tar.bz2 — Computer Modern fonts converted to SVG

If you have them, then:

$ tar -xjf pydvi2svg.tar.bz2
$ tar -xjf fonts.tar.bz2

After correct installation directory tree should looks as follow:

pydvi2svg
 |
 +- cache           - empty dir
 +- conv            - dvi2svg program files
 +- frags           - SVGfrags program files
 +- enc             - set of *.enc files
 +- fonts
     |
     +- cm          - set of *.svg files

Now you can create symbolic link to pydvi2svg.py (and/or svgfrags.py) in some directory listed from $PATH, for example:

sudo ln -sf <full path to script>/dvi2svg.py /usr/local/bin/

If realpath utility is present in your system, then:

sudo ln -sf `realpath pydvi2svg/dvi2svg.py` /usr/local/bin

Program options

dvi2svg.py [OPTION] file.dvi [target SVG/dir]

For example:

dvi2svg.py file.dvi                   # output: file.svg
dvi2svg.py file.dvi test.svg          # output: test.svg
dvi2svg.py file.dvi dir/              # output: dir/file.svg
dvi2svg.py file.dvi dir/test.svg      # output: dir/test.svg

You can set as many input-output pairs as you want, for example:

dvi2svg.py file1.dvi file2.dvi output2.svg file3.dvi outputdir

Options:

--pages [list]

List of document pages or page ranges to convert. List's element are separated by colons. Examples:

--pages 1,2,3,4,7       # convert pages 1, 2, 3, 4 and 7
--pages 1-4,7           # above shorter
--pages 7-              # convert all pages starting from 7th
--pages -10             # convert pages 1-10

By default all pages are converted.

--enc-method [list]

Choose methods used to determine font encoding:

• cache (or c) — encoding is readed from file enc/font.info (or is set with option --enc)
• TFM (or t) — encoding is readed from TFM associated with font
• AFM (or a) — encoding is readed from AFM associated with font
• MAP (or m) — scans all .map files and try to find encoding used by other programs (like dvipis); it is quite slow, but could bring good results if Type1 fonts are used
• guess (or g) — scans all known encodings (stored in files enc/*) and hit best one, i.e. encoding that covers all or almost all characters defined in font; it could find more then one encoding — in this case propositions are printed and programs do not perform any action; you have to try proposed encodings by passing them with --enc switch

Default value: cache,tfm,afm

--enc [list]

Override (or set) encoding of selected fonts. Elements are separated with colons, and has format font name:encoding name. For example:

--enc cmr12:ot1,pltt12:pltt

--scale [non-negative number]

Change default scale of document

Default value: 1.0

--paper-size [value]

value:

• page format name, like A4, B3, etc. (see Wikipedia); for example --paper-size A4, --paper-size=B5

• string query — all known names are printed and program exits

• string bbox — paper size is set to bounding box of page; additionaly margin around bbox can be set:

  • bbox:margin — all margin equal
  • bbox:marginx,marginy — margin left & right equal marginx, margin top & bottom equal marginy
  • bbox:margin_left,margin_right,margin_top,margin_bottom

  for example --paper-size=bbox:10, --paper-size bbox:5,20, --paper-size=bbox:10,20,30,40

Default value: A4

--always-number

Append page number to output name even if one page is converted.

--single-file

All pages are saved in single file. (By default pages are saved in separate files).

--no-fontforge

Never use Fontforge (even if it is present)

--no-fnt2meta

Never use fnt2meta (even if it is present)

--verbose

Print all messages.

--pretty-xml

"Pretty formatting" of SVG (files become larger, but are easy to read).

Solving common problems

<font>
        <glyph name="..." d="..."/>
        <glyph name="..." d="..."/>
        ...
</font>

<font>
        <glyph name="...">
                <path d="..."/>
        </glyph>
        <glyph name="...">
                <path d="..."/>
        </glyph>
        ...
</font>

font_name        encoding_name        designsize

pltt12           pltt                 12.000000

Brief overview

SVG target could be (case A):

• Quoted text phrase, for example "some text" — all occurrences of some text are replaced by adequate TeX expression.
• XML id attribute — <text> node that has such id is replaced with adequate TeX expression.
• point(x, y) — put TeX expression at arbitrary position.

Additionally SVG target could refer to rectangular area, where TeX expression is placed (case B):

• XML id attribute refers to element <rect>, <circle> or <ellipse> (bounding box of these objects are considered).
• rect(x, y, width, height) — arbitrary defined rectangle.

TeX expression could be:

• Quoted string, like "$\sin x + \cos x = 1$"
• Word this (unquoted!) — if SVG target is text or id refers to <text> node, then TeX expression gets value of SVG target. In other words TeX expression are read from SVG document.

Additional options

position ::= px ["," py]

scale: "fit" | (sx ["," sy])

Command line options

-i, --input

SVG input file

-o, --output

SVG input file

-r, --rules

name of text file that contains replacement pairs

--no-strip

By default leading & trailing spaces in strings (target string & SVG text) are stripped — this options disabled it

--keep-tex

Do not remove temporary TeX files (useful for debugging)

--keep-dvi

Do not remove temporary DVI files; if rules file are not changed, then DVI can be resued

--no-hide-text-obj

By default replaced text nodes are hide, i.e. property display gets value none — this option disables it.

--remove-text-obj

Remove replaced text nodes.

-f, --force-overwrite

By default SVGfrags do not overwrite existing files — this option turns off protection.

--traceback

In case of error whole Python traceback is printed; it is useful just for debugging.

SVGfrags accepts also following pydvi2svg options:

• --enc
• --enc-repl
• --no-fontforge
• --no-fnt2meta

Example

Substitution list:

"TeX & LaTeX" => "\TeX\ \& \LaTeX"
        scale: 4

"$\sin x + \cos x = 1$" => this
        scale: 3

"equation2" => "$f(x) = \frac{x^3 - 5}{x^2 + 4} \cdot \frac{1}{x}$"
        scale: 3

"left" => this
        scale: uniform, length 20

"center" => this
        scale: uniform, length 20

"right" => this
        scale: uniform, length 20

"top" => "top"
        position: left, top
        scale: uniform, length 20

"center2" => "center"
        position: left, center
        scale: uniform, length 20

"bottom" => "bottom"
        position: left, bottom
        scale: uniform, length 20

#title => "\LaTeX/\TeX\ \& \texttt{SVGfrags}"
        position: center, center
        margin: 1
        scale: fit

#scaletowidth => "\[P(t) = \sum_{i=0}^n p_i B_i^n (t)\]"
        scale: width(this)

#scaletoheight => "\[\frac{1}{\frac{1}{\frac{1}{x}}}\]"
        position: 0.7
        scale: uniform, height(this)

#nonuniform => "\[\frac{1}{x^2 + 1} + \frac{\sin x}{\log_2 x}\]"
        scale: width(this), height(this)

#settowidth => "$\sin x$"
        scale: width(#scaletowidth), height(#nonuniform)

% eof

Sample source image I've drawn in Inkscape

Result

Result (marked bounding boxes and reference points of TeX expressions