[tex-k] Re: Bug#53927: (fwd) tetex-bin: /usr/info/dvips.info.gz out of date to /usr/lib/texmf/tex/plain/dvips/dvips.tex

[Frank Küster]

Hilmar Preusse <hille42 at web.de> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> a long time ago, we've got in the DBTS a bug report about dvips.info
> to be out of date compared with dvips.tex (both from the sources of
> teTeX). My opinion is that it is rather the opposite: dvips.tex is
> out of date compared with dvips.texi and Karl Berry wrote already 10
> years ago:
>
> Fri Feb 12 08:34:45 1993  Karl Berry  (karl at cs.umb.edu)
>
>         * dvips.1: Don't refer to dvips.tex.
>
> I guess it was already obsolete at this time. I've contacted that
> submitter. He replied, that dvips.tex still contains some paragraphs,
> which could not be found in dvips.texi. Therefore the question to
> you: Is that functionality described in dvips.tex still contained in
> dvips? 

I think it is still contained, but that it is described there, too. The
submitter said:

,----
| But is missing
| the following paragraph:
| 
| The dvips default landscape configuration is presently as though
| the paper were rotated ninety degrees counterclockwise; this seems
| to be the convention adopted by previewers that the author is
| familiar with.  If for some reason you need your landscape orientation
| to be rotated clockwise, simply include at the top of your TeX file
| or in some included macro file
| \special{! /landplus90 true store}
| [...]
`----

While this is missing in dvips.texi, the general mechanism is described:

,----
| 5.3.3 Literal headers: `!' `\special'
| -------------------------------------
| 
| You can download literal PostScript header code in your TeX document,
| for use with (for example) literal graphics code that you include later.
| The text of a `\special' beginning with an `!' is copied into the
| output file.  [...]
| 
|   For example:
| 
|      \special{! /reset { 0 0 moveto} def}
`----

I do not think that it is necessary or even a good idea to clutter the
manual with arbitrary PostScript code examples - and arbitrary it seems
to be, because nobody else ever complained about this feature being
missing. Furthermore, most previewers can handle that well, e.g. with
menu entries like "landscape" and "seascape" as in gv.

> Christoph Martin wrote to Thomas Esser:
>
> The problem is still present in version 1.0 and there are more
> paragraphs missing.

I had a short look over dvips.dvi from dvips.tex, and I did not find
anything particularly interesting that's missing in
dvips.texi. Therefore, I would suggest the following patch:

--- tetex-src-beta-2.96.6.20040715/texk/dvipsk/tex/dvipsmac.tex.orig    Tue Jul 20 13:23:18 2004
+++ tetex-src-beta-2.96.6.20040715/texk/dvipsk/tex/dvipsmac.tex Tue Jul 20 13:22:26 2004
@@ -45,4 +45,7 @@
 \centerline{FAX: (415) 327--3329}
 \smallskip
 \centerline{[This manual describes version 5.58.]}
+\smallskip
+\centerline{[\it This manual is outdated and no longer maintained. It is
+  kept mainly because of its historical value.]}
 \bigskip

(or to delete the file).

Regards, Frank


-- 
Frank Küster, Biozentrum der Univ. Basel
Abt. Biophysikalische Chemie