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Happy to provide context if you tell me what to provide... The "output device" is... my monitor? The toolchain is TeXLive for generating the files, and the us

Happy to provide context if you tell me what to provide... The "output device" is... my monitor? The toolchain is TeXLive for generating the files, and the usual viewer for each file type on Windows (Acrobat Reader for PDFs, and Evince for DVI). If you think it's Evince's fault I'd love to hear better alternatives, because I haven't found a single viewer that views DVIs any differently. And for input files, you can generate files via LaTeX pretty easily: % DVI: latex thisfile.tex % PDF: pdflatex thisfile.tex \documentclass{article} \usepackage{lipsum} \begin{document}\lipsum\end{document} If this is using it "sub-optimally" then I guess I don't know how to use it "optimally", and I'm happy to hear how. Remember, though, at the end of the day, I'm just an end-user. I just know that every time I try to view DVI and PS files I have to tear my eyes out, and that I don't have this struggle with PDFs. I neither know which particular person or place in the pipeline to assign the blame to, nor does knowing that make it any easier for me to read the text...

drfuchs 7y ago
Presumably Evince could do a better job of it then.
- mehrdadn 7y ago
  What viewer would you recommend then? Would you mind posting a screenshot coming from the optimal viewer you have in mind? Like I said, I haven't found any viewer that does a better job.
  - drfuchs 7y ago
    I’m not current, so I don’t know if anyone has bothered to do a dvi viewer optimized for today’s display technology. Given the billions of dollars invested in the pdf ecosystem, though, it’s a reasonable place to live.
    - mehrdadn 7y ago
      > I’m not current, so I don’t know if anyone has bothered to do a dvi viewer optimized for today’s display technology. Oh, if that's the problem, then please just point to a better viewer for yesterday's display technology. Or even a decade ago's. I'll find you an older monitor from whatever era you had a good viewing experience on and try it on that. Because I'm one hundred percent sure an older display technology is not going to make it look better. You can see above that above pointed out that it's looked awful since 2003. I can vouch that it's consistently been awful since over a decade ago, and PDFs have consistently been fine... on every kind of display and resolution I've tried. I've absolutely never, ever had a good experience viewing DVIs.
      - drfuchs 7y ago
        1982 DataDisc displays that Knuth developed everything on? Sorry you’re unhappy, but given that dvi is literally a dump of TeX’s internal results on layout positioning, it contains all the information that any other system could possibly use. Perhaps your concerns have more to do with font rendering?
        jfk13 7y ago
        Indeed -- I think it's clear dataflow's main issue is with the font rendering. The image shows subpixel antialiasing on the PDF version, and not on the DVI, so naturally they look quite different. But that's nothing to do with DVI itself; it's entirely the responsibility of the renderer.
        mehrdadn 7y ago
        I find these responses baffling. I'm just an end-user. All I see is that every time I get a DVI file, I want to tear my eyes out, no matter where or when I open it. First my assessment gets questioned, then when I spend time installing software and compiling an example just to demonstrate the concrete problem upon request -- which I have no reason to believe was novel or previously unknown in any way -- I'm promptly shut down and told to respect the file format and instead blame all the viewers in existence. Great -- so what was/am I supposed to do with this information? Are my eyes supposed to see the file clearly now that the blame got assigned somewhere? Or am I supposed to write my own DVI viewer tomorrow afternoon? How is this intended to be helpful?

drfuchs 7y ago

Presumably Evince could do a better job of it then.

mehrdadn 7y ago
What viewer would you recommend then? Would you mind posting a screenshot coming from the optimal viewer you have in mind? Like I said, I haven't found any viewer that does a better job.
- drfuchs 7y ago
  I’m not current, so I don’t know if anyone has bothered to do a dvi viewer optimized for today’s display technology. Given the billions of dollars invested in the pdf ecosystem, though, it’s a reasonable place to live.
  - mehrdadn 7y ago
    > I’m not current, so I don’t know if anyone has bothered to do a dvi viewer optimized for today’s display technology. Oh, if that's the problem, then please just point to a better viewer for yesterday's display technology. Or even a decade ago's. I'll find you an older monitor from whatever era you had a good viewing experience on and try it on that. Because I'm one hundred percent sure an older display technology is not going to make it look better. You can see above that above pointed out that it's looked awful since 2003. I can vouch that it's consistently been awful since over a decade ago, and PDFs have consistently been fine... on every kind of display and resolution I've tried. I've absolutely never, ever had a good experience viewing DVIs.
    - drfuchs 7y ago
      1982 DataDisc displays that Knuth developed everything on? Sorry you’re unhappy, but given that dvi is literally a dump of TeX’s internal results on layout positioning, it contains all the information that any other system could possibly use. Perhaps your concerns have more to do with font rendering?
      - jfk13 7y ago
        Indeed -- I think it's clear dataflow's main issue is with the font rendering. The image shows subpixel antialiasing on the PDF version, and not on the DVI, so naturally they look quite different. But that's nothing to do with DVI itself; it's entirely the responsibility of the renderer.
        mehrdadn 7y ago
        I find these responses baffling. I'm just an end-user. All I see is that every time I get a DVI file, I want to tear my eyes out, no matter where or when I open it. First my assessment gets questioned, then when I spend time installing software and compiling an example just to demonstrate the concrete problem upon request -- which I have no reason to believe was novel or previously unknown in any way -- I'm promptly shut down and told to respect the file format and instead blame all the viewers in existence. Great -- so what was/am I supposed to do with this information? Are my eyes supposed to see the file clearly now that the blame got assigned somewhere? Or am I supposed to write my own DVI viewer tomorrow afternoon? How is this intended to be helpful?