[OS X TeX] problem using gs 6.52 with teTeX

[o.larroche at freesurf.fr]

> On Wednesday, March 6, 2002, at 11:09 , Olivier Larroche wrote:
> 
>>  - running xdvi (that I also compiled from source) on the same dvi 
>> files gives a
>> satisfactory display, which, as far as I understand, tends to mean
>> that  the
>> problem lies in dvips (that's the version that came with texshop, I
>> only replaced gs-related stuff).
> 
> That is a curious conclusion to draw. You replace gs with another 
> version and conclude dvips is at fault. I would say that the
> combination  of dvips+gs6.52 gives different results than dvips+gs6.02
> and that it is  most likely that something is wrong with your gs setup.
> On the other  hand, differences between gs6.52 and gs6.02 are not that
> big.
> 
> Having said that, I think it is good to test
> 	dvips -Ppdf
> or
> 	altpdftex --dviopts="-Ppdf"
> 
> If that helps, the 'problem' (in fact it is a setting) was there in the
> first place and you probably just didn't notice it.
> 
> Since I do not use X11, I cannot help you on this one and test it out. 
> But I do know that there are newer versions of gs available, e.g. 7.02.
> Before you go on trying to find out what is going on, you'd better 
> upgrade first if -Ppdf does not help.
> 
> Note: TeX produces device independent output (dvi) it is one of it's 
> strength. pdfTeX bypasses that by producing device-oriented output 
> directly. By using PDF as the output device a lot of
> device-independence  (read: vector formats for fonts) returns but it
> partly destroys TeX's  purpose because that output is somewhat inferior
> since the best results  for a particular device always remains using a
> dvi-to-dvice program with  only bitmapped fonts (the PDF is good enough
> for screen and ordinary  print, though).
> 
> A good solution would be to have two processes for creating output
> (just  like TeXview.app on the NeXT had): a "dvips+gs" using printer
> resolution  for print output and a "dvips -Ppdf + gs" (or the
> appropriate altpdftex  commands) for printer output.
> 
> A frontend could handle that by rerunning altpdftex (I don't think it
> is  possible to influence pdfTeX that way at this moment) with a
> different  setting when printing to a different pdf file and printing
> that file.
> 
> G
> 
Thank you for the tip about using dvips -Ppdf, it does work for me!
Still, for my own understanding (and may be other people's as well...), how
come I get a different result by running:
   dvips some.dvi -o => some.ps => ps2pdf some.ps => some.pdf
and
   dvips -Ppdf some.dvi -o => some.ps => ps2pdf some.ps => some.pdf
(in both cases I use my new version of gs/ps2pdf). Does dvips rely on any
gs-related settings in the first case and not in the second? Also if texshop
uses the second approach, then why does it display garbage whereas dvips
-Ppdf gives a normal result?

Thank you again anyway
Olivier Larroche



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