DVI viewer

If you are using a computer running any version of Microsoft Windows, and need to be able to view “DVI” files (typically scientific papers), then the installation program below should solve your problem.

The only catch is that any images or diagrams will not be displayed.

You must follow these instructions religiously if you want the viewer to install properly. It is a very old program (1992!), but provides good results, as long as you follow these instructions.

You need to install the program from a “Command Prompt” or “MS-DOS Prompt”. If you do not know what this is, then you will need to get some help to install it. However, once it is installed, you can just double-click DVI files in Windows Explorer to view them.

1. Open a “Command Prompt” or “MS-DOS Prompt”.

2. Create a temporary directory. For example,

 c:
 cd \
 md \instdvi
 cd \instdvi
 

3. Click here and save dvi_view_setup.exe into the directory you created. It is about 2 MB in size.

4. Go to the Command Prompt. Unpack the setup program by running it:

 dvi_view_setup
 

5. Install it by running the setup file:

 setup
 
 

Once the program is installed, you should be able to view any DVI file by just double-clicking on it in Windows Explorer.

The first time you run the program, it needs to generate some required fonts. It takes a minute or so, and it only needs to do this once.

The viewer starts up by default in 250 dpi resolution. This gives you a reasonable view of most documents, and works on all Windows machines (even Windows 3.1!).

For higher-quality viewing, go to the Resolution menu, and change the resolution to 600 dpi. After the new fonts are generated, go to the Zoom menu and click ‘5’ or ‘4’ (depending on your screen resolution). This gives you a good resolution for reading most papers.

If you want to see entire pages, you will need to change the Resolution back to something lower. (A bit inconvenient, but I didn’t write the program!)

If at any time you accidentally (or otherwise) interrupt the font-generation process using Ctrl-C or Ctrl-Break, you’ll need to go into the Options menu, Missing Fonts, and click the middle option “Execute command”. If you do not do this, fonts will not be automatically generated, and other fonts will be substituted, giving poor results.

The viewer can print to most printers, but since it does it in an old (but portable) way, namely, as page images, it may take some time to print. Sometimes it also needs to generate fonts for the resolution of the printer itself (which may be different from your chosen screen resolution).

Any problems, contact me at jpcostella@hotmail.com.