DVI Viewers – Which DVI Viewer to Use on Linux?

dvilinuxviewers

Today, to my complete disbelief, I realized evince on Gnome 3 is not able to open DVI files. Which readers do you suggest, and why? It would prefer gnome applications of course, but I don't mind KDE/Qt either.

update: I'm on Fedora with TeX Live 2011.

Best Answer

By default, one needs to install the basic TeX packages from the Ubuntu repositories to view DVI files with Evince on Ubuntu. Similarly, one needs to install evince-dvi from the Fedora repositories to view DVI files with Evince on Fedora.

If you are using TeX Live installed directly from TUG, you may also use the xdvi provided.

Related Solutions

DVI Mode – Which TeX Programs Produce DVI Output?

Program name     links to      comment (used option)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
tex              tex           the original TeX, only dvi

etex             pdftex        dvi mode
eplain           pdftex        format eplain in dvi mode
latex            pdftex        format latex in dvi mode
pdftex           pdftex        pdf mode or dvi mode (-output-format dvi)
pdflatex         pdftex        format latex in pdf or dvi mode (-output-format dvi) 

luatex           luatex        in pdf or dvi mode (-output-format dvi)
lualatex         luatex        format latex in pdf or dvi mode (-output-format dvi)
dviluatex        luatex        dvi mode
dvilualatex      luatex        format latex in dvi mode

xetex            xetex         in pdf or xdv mode (-no-pdf)
xelatex          xetex         format latex in pdf or xdv mode (-no-pdf)

texexec          pdftex/xetex  cont-en format in pdf or dvi mode (--dvi)
context          luatex        cont-en format in pdf mode   

xmltex           pdftex        xml parser with dvi output
pdfxmltex        pdftex        xml parser in pdf or dvi mode (-output-format dvi)
jadetex          pdftex        Jade/OpenJade in dvi mode
pdfjadetex       pdftex        Jade/OpenJade in pdf or dvi mode (-output-format dvi)

mtex             pdftex        special format for polish in dvi mode          
pdfmtex          pdftex        special format for polish in pdf or dvi mode (-output-format dvi)
utf8mex          pdftex        special format for polish in dvi mode

cslatex          pdftex        special format for czech/slovak in dvi mode
pdfcslatex       pdftex        special format for czech/slovak in pdf or dvi mode (-output-format dvi)
csplain          pdftex        special plain format for czech/slovak in dvi mode
pdfcsplain       pdftex        special plain format for czech/slovak in pdf or dvi mode (-output-format dvi)

aleph            aleph         TeX with unicode for multiligual in dvi mode
lamed            aleph         aleph with format latex in dvi mode 

amstex           pdftex        special format in pdf or dvi mode (-output-format dvi)

texsis           pdftex        special format for physic papers in pdf or dvi mode (-output-format dvi)

xetex in xdv mode needs a xdvipdfmx driver, which is installed by default
aleph is no more maintained, it was a successor of omega and is now superseeded by luatex
lamed was a successor of lambda and now also superseeded by luatex

Beamer PDF – Specialized PDF Viewer for LaTeX-Beamer Presentations on Linux

So pdfpc on github (which is a forked and improved version of the pdf-presenter-console) is the closest thing I found.

Features

It has all the features I looked for. Regular slides on the projector, view of the next slide and the current one on the laptop. It pre-caches the slides for fast switch and can provide an overview with thumbnails for each slide (quick selection). It also plays videos. With the n one can edit notes that are stored in a text file in the same directory as the PDF, or it can show beamer slides on the side screen.

Usage

To use, one has to invoke pdfpc with a PDF file like this in terminal:

pdfpc presentation.pdf

Of course one can add it to the list of applications to open PDF's with in your file-manager to make it easier. There are command line options to interchange screens, set the timer, and have it count down instead of up.

The rest is straight forward and documented in the man pages. Ubuntu man-pages are outdated, so one should consult the man pages on the site. I made a request for importing LaTeX-Beamer notes.

The latest version (4.0 and up) supports LaTeX-Beamer notes. Just use --notes={left,right,top,bottom} to match the setting in your "beamer" document:

\usepackage{pgfpages}
\setbeameroption{show notes}
\setbeameroption{show notes on second screen=right}

With the above, you would use --notes=right.

Installation / Compilation

For Windows PCs it might be a pain in the rear to compile, since the requirements state:

Vala Compiler Version >=0.11.0

Gnu compiler collection

CMake Version >=2.6

Gtk+ 2.x

libPoppler with glib bindings

Which is a handful to install and get running. For Ubuntu, other Debian distros and Arch, it's a piece of cake as there are packages in the repositories.