Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)

  
 
  

home | help
DVISELECT(1)		     General Commands Manual		    DVISELECT(1)

NAME
     dviselect - extract pages from DVI files

SYNOPSIS
     dviselect [ -s ] [ -i infile ] [ -o outfile ] list of pages [ infile [ out-
     file ] ]

DESCRIPTION
     Dviselect selects pages from a DVI file produced by TeX, creating a new DVI
     file usable by any of the TeX conversion programs, or even by dviselect it-
     self.

     A	range  is a string of the form even, odd, or first:last where both first
     and last are optional numeric strings, with negative numbers indicated by a
     leading underscore character ``_''.  If both first and  last  are	omitted,
     the  colon  may also be omitted, or may be replaced with an asterisk ``*''.
     A page range is a list of ranges separated by periods.  A list of pages  is
     described by a set of page ranges separated by commas and/or white space.

     Dviselect	actually  looks  at the ten count variables that TeX writes; the
     first of these (\count0) is the page number, with \count1	through  \count9
     having  varied  uses  depending on which macro packages are in use.  (Typi-
     cally \count1 might be a chapter or section number.)  A page is included in
     dviselect's output if all its \count values match any  one  of  the  ranges
     listed on the command line.  For example, the command ``dviselect *.1,35:''
     might select everything in chapter 1, as well as pages 35 and up.	``dvise-
     lect  10:30''  would select pages 10 through 30 (inclusive).  ``:43'' means
     everything up to and including page 43 (including negative-numbered pages).
     To get all even-numbered pages,  use  ``even'';  to  get  all  odd-numbered
     pages,  use  ``odd''.   If  a  Table of Contents has negative page numbers,
     ``:_1'' will select it.  Note that ``*'' must be quoted from the shell; the
     empty string is more convenient to use, if harder to read.

     Instead of \count values, dviselect can also select by ``absolute page num-
     ber'', where the first page is page 1, the second page  2,  and  so  forth.
     Absolute  page numbers are indicated by a leading equal sign ``=''.  Ranges
     of absolute pages are also allowed: ``dviselect  =3:7''  will  extract  the
     third  through  seventh  pages.   Dot  separators are not legal in absolute
     ranges, and there are no negative absolute page numbers.	Even/odd  speci-
     fiers,  however,  are  legal; ``dviselect =even'' selects every other page,
     starting with the second.

     More precisely, an asterisk or an empty string implies no limit;  an  equal
     sign  means absolute page number rather than \counts; a leading colon means
     everything up to and including the  given	page;  a  trailing  colon  means
     everything from the given page on; the word ``even'' means only even values
     shall  be	accepted;  the	word  ``odd'' means only odd values shall be ac-
     cepted; and a period indicates that the next \count should be examined.  If
     fewer than 10 ranges are specified, the remaining \counts	are  left  unre-
     stricted  (that is, ``1:5'' and ``1:5.*'' are equivalent).  A single number
     n is treated as if it were the range n:n.	An arbitrary number of page  se-
     lectors may be given, separated by commas or whitespace; a page is selected
     if any of the selectors matches its \counts or absolute page number.

     Dviselect	normally  prints  the page numbers of the pages selected; the -s
     option suppresses this.

AUTHOR
     Chris Torek, University of Maryland

SEE ALSO
     dviconcat(1), latex(1), tex(1)
     MC-TeX User's Guide
     The TeXbook

BUGS
     A leading ``-'' ought to be allowed for negative numbers, but  it	is  cur-
     rently used as a synonym for ``:'', for backwards compatibility.

     Section or subsection selection will sometimes fail, for the DVI file lists
     only  the \count values that were active when the page ended.  Clever macro
     packages can alleviate this by making use of other ``free''  \count  regis-
     ters.   Chapters  normally  begin on new pages, and do not suffer from this
     particular problem.

     The heuristic that decides which arguments are page selectors and which are
     file names is often wrong.  Using shell redirection or the -i  and  -o  op-
     tions is safest.

     Dviselect	does  not adjust the parameters in the postamble; however, since
     these values are normally used only to size certain structures in the  out-
     put  conversion  programs, and the parameters never need to be adjusted up-
     ward, this has not proven to be a problem.

								    DVISELECT(1)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=dviselect&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD+Ports+15.1.quarterly>

home | help