Provided by: dvipng_1.18-1_amd64 
NAME
dvipng - A DVI-to-PNG translator
SYNOPSIS
dvipng [options] filename
dvipng [options] [filename] -
DESCRIPTION
This program makes PNG and/or GIF graphics from DVI files as obtained from TeX and its relatives.
If GIF support is enabled, GIF output is chosen by using the dvigif binary or with the --gif option.
The benefits of dvipng/dvigif include
* Speed. It is a very fast bitmap-rendering code for DVI files, which makes it suitable for generating
large amounts of images on-the-fly, as needed in preview-latex, WeBWorK and others.
* It does not read the postamble, so it can be started before TeX finishes. There is a --follow switch
that makes dvipng wait at end-of-file for further output, unless it finds the POST marker that
indicates the end of the DVI.
* Interactive query of options. dvipng can read options interactively through stdin, and all options
are usable. It is even possible to change the input file through this interface.
* Supports PK, VF, PostScript Type1, and TrueType fonts, subfonts (i.e., as used in CJK-LaTeX), color
specials, and inclusion of PostScript, PNG, JPEG or GIF images.
* and more...
OPTIONS
Many of the parameterless options listed here can be turned off by suffixing the option with a zero (0);
for instance, to turn off page reversal, use -r0. Such options are marked with a trailing *.
- Read additional options from standard input after processing the command line.
--help
Print a usage message and exit.
--version
Print the version number and exit.
-bd num
-bd color_spec
-bd 'num color_spec'
Set the pixel width of the transparent border (default 0). Using this option will make the image
edges transparent, but it only affects pixels with the background color. Giving a color_spec will set
the fallback color, to be used in viewers that cannot handle transparency (the default is the
background color). The color spec should be in TeX color \special syntax, e.g., 'rgb 1.0 0.0 0.0'.
Setting the fallback color makes the default border width 1 px.
--bdpi num
This option only has an effect when using bitmapped (PK) fonts. The option sets the base (Metafont)
resolution, both horizontal and vertical, to num dpi (dots per inch). This option is necessary when
manually selecting Metafont mode with the --mode option (see below).
-bg color_spec
Choose background color for the images. This option will be ignored if there is a background color
\special in the DVI. The color spec should be in TeX color \special syntax, e.g., 'rgb 1.0 0.0 0.0'.
You can also specify 'Transparent' or 'transparent' which will give you a transparent background with
the normal background as a fallback color. A capitalized 'Transparent' will give a full-alpha
transparency, while an all-lowercase 'transparent' will give a simple fully transparent background
with non-transparent antialiased pixels. The latter would be suitable for viewers who cannot cope
with a true alpha channel. GIF images do not support full alpha transparency, so in case of GIF
output, both variants will use the latter behaviour.
-d num
Set the debug flags, showing what dvipng (thinks it) is doing. This will work unless dvipng has been
compiled without the "DEBUG" option (not recommended). Set the flags as you need them, use -d -1 as
the first option for maximum output.
-D num
Set the output resolution, both horizontal and vertical, to num dpi (dots per inch).
One may want to adjust this to fit a certain text font size (e.g., on a web page), and for a text
font height of font_px pixels (in Mozilla) the correct formula is
<dpi> = <font_px> * 72.27 / 10 [px * TeXpt/in / TeXpt]
The last division by ten is due to the standard font height 10pt in your document, if you use 12pt,
divide by 12. Unfortunately, some proprietary browsers have font height in pt (points), not pixels.
You have to rescale that to pixels, using the screen resolution (default is usually 96 dpi) which
means the formula is
<font_px> = <font_pt> * 96 / 72 [pt * px/in / (pt/in)]
On some high-res screens, the value is instead 120 dpi. Good luck!
--depth*
Report the depth of the image. This only works reliably when the LaTeX style preview.sty from
preview-latex is used with the active option. It reports the number of pixels from the bottom of the
image to the baseline of the image. This can be used for vertical positioning of the image in, e.g.,
web documents, where one would use (Cascading StyleSheets 1)
<IMG SRC="<filename.png>" STYLE="vertical-align: -<depth>px">
The depth is a negative offset in this case, so the minus sign is necessary, and the unit is pixels
(px).
--dvinum*
Set this option to make the output page number be the TeX page numbers rather than the physical page
number. See the -o switch.
-fg color_spec
Choose foreground color for the images. This option will be ignored if there is a foreground color
\special in the DVI. The color spec should be in TeX color \special syntax, e.g., 'rgb 1.0 0.0 0.0'.
--follow*
Wait for data at end-of-file. One of the benefits of dvipng is that it does not read the postamble,
so it can be started before TeX finishes. This switch makes dvipng wait at end-of-file for further
output, unless it finds the POST marker that indicates the end of the DVI. This is similar to tail -f
but for DVI-to-PNG conversion.
--freetype*
Enable/disable FreeType font rendering (default on). This option is available if the FreeType2 font
library was present at compilation time. If this is the case, dvipng will have direct support for
PostScript Type1 and TrueType fonts internally, rather than using gsftopk for rendering the fonts. If
you have PostScript versions of Computer Modern installed, there will be no need to generate
bitmapped (PK) variants on disk of these. Then, you can render images at different (and unusual)
resolutions without cluttering the disk with lots of bitmapped fonts. One reason to disable FreeType
font rendering would be to generate identical output on different platforms, since FreeType uses the
native renderer and therefore can give slightly different output on each platform.
--gamma num
Control the interpolation of colors in the greyscale anti-aliasing color palette. Default value is
1.0. For 0 < num < 1, the fonts will be lighter (more like the background), and for num > 1, the
fonts will be darker (more like the foreground).
--gif*
The images are output in the GIF format, if GIF support is enabled. This is the default for the
dvigif binary, which only will be available when GIF support is enabled. GIF images are palette
images (see the --palette option) and does not support true alpha channels (see the --bg option). See
also the --png option.
--height*
Report the height of the image. This only works reliably when the LaTeX style preview.sty from
preview-latex is used with the active option. It reports the number of pixels from the top of the
image to the baseline of the image. The total height of the image is obtained as the sum of the
values reported from --height and --depth.
-l [=]num
The last page printed will be the first one numbered num. Default is the last page in the document.
If num is prefixed by an equals sign, then it (and the argument to the -p option, if specified) is
treated as a physical (absolute) page number, rather than a value to compare with the TeX \count0
values stored in the DVI file. Thus, using -l =9 will end with the ninth page of the document, no
matter what the pages are actually numbered.
--mode mode
This option only has an effect when using bitmapped (PK) fonts. Use mode as the Metafont device name
for the PK fonts (both for path searching and font generation). This needs to be augmented with the
base device resolution, given with the --bdpi option. See the file <ftp://ftp.tug.org/tex/modes.mf>
for a list of resolutions and mode names for most devices.
-M* This option only has an effect when using bitmapped (PK) fonts. It turns off automatic PK font
generation (mktexpk).
--nogs*
This switch prohibits the internal call to GhostScript for displaying PostScript specials. --nogs0
turns the call back on.
--nogssafer*
Normally, if GhostScript is used to render PostScript specials, the GhostScript interpreter is run
with the option -dSAFER. The --nogssafer option runs GhostScript without -dSAFER. The -dSAFER option
in Ghostscript disables PostScript operators such as deletefile, to prevent possibly malicious
PostScript programs from having any effect.
--norawps*
Some packages generate raw PostScript specials, even non-rendering such specials. This switch turns
off the internal call to GhostScript intended to display these raw PostScript specials. --norawps0
turns the call back on.
-o name
Send output to the file name. A single occurrence of %d or %01d, ..., %09d will be exchanged for the
physical page number (this can be changed, see the --dvinum switch). The default output filename is
file%d.png where the input DVI file was file.dvi.
-O x-offset,y-offset
Move the origin by x-offset,y-offset, a comma-separated pair of dimensions such as .1in,-.3cm. The
origin of the page is shifted from the default position (of one inch down, one inch to the right from
the upper left corner of the paper) by this amount.
-p [=]num
The first page printed will be the first one numbered num. Default is the first page in the document.
If num is prefixed by an equals sign, then it (and the argument to the -l option, if specified) is
treated as a physical (absolute) page number, rather than a value to compare with the TeX \count0
values stored in the DVI file. Thus, using -p =3 will start with the third page of the document, no
matter what the pages are actually numbered.
--palette*
When an external image is included, dvipng will automatically switch to truecolor mode, to avoid
unnecessary delay and quality reduction, and enable the EPS translator to draw on a transparent
background and outside of the boundingbox. This switch will force palette (256-color) output and make
dvipng revert to opaque clipped image inclusion. This will also override the --truecolor switch if
present.
--picky*
No images are output when a warning occurs. Normally, dvipng will output an image in spite of a
warning, but there may be something missing in this image. One reason to use this option would be if
you have a more complete but slower fallback converter. Mainly, this is useful for failed figure
inclusion and unknown \special occurrences, but warnings will also occur for missing or unknown color
specs and missing PK fonts.
--png*
The images are output in the PNG format. This is the default for the dvipng binary. See also the
--gif option.
-pp firstpage-lastpage
Print pages firstpage through lastpage; but not quite equivalent to -p firstpage -l lastpage. For
example, when rendering a book, there may be several instances of a page in the DVI file (one in
"\frontmatter", one in "\mainmatter", and one in "\backmatter"). In case of several pages matching,
-pp firstpage-lastpage will render all pages that matches the specified range, while -p firstpage -l
lastpage will render the pages from the first occurrence of firstpage to the first occurrence of
lastpage. This is the (undocumented) behaviour of dvips. In dvipng you can give both kinds of
options, in which case you get all pages that matches the range in -pp between the pages from -p to
-l. Also multiple -pp options accumulate, unlike -p and -l. The - separator can also be :. Note that
-pp -1 will be interpreted as "all pages up to and including 1", if you want a page numbered -1 (only
the table of contents, say) put -pp -1--1, or more readable, -pp -1:-1.
-q* Run quietly. Don't chatter about pages converted, etc. to standard output; report no warnings (only
errors) to standard error.
-Q num
Set the quality to num. That is, choose the number of antialiasing levels for bitmapped fonts (PK),
to be num*num+1. The default value is 4 which gives 17 levels of antialiasing for antialiased fonts
from these two. If FreeType is available, its rendering is unaffected by this option.
-r* Toggle output of pages in reverse/forward order. By default, the first page in the DVI is output
first.
--strict*
The program exits when a warning occurs. Normally, dvipng will output an image in spite of a warning,
but there may be something missing in this image. One reason to use this option would be if you have
a more complete but slower fallback converter. See the --picky option above for a list of when
warnings occur.
-T image_size
Set the image size to image_size which can be either of bbox, tight, or a comma-separated pair of
dimensions hsize,vsize such as .1in,.3cm. The default is bbox which produces a PNG that includes all
ink put on the page and in addition the DVI origin, located 1in from the top and 1in from the left
edge of the paper. This usually gives whitespace above and to the left in the produced image. The
value tight will make dvipng only include all ink put on the page, producing neat images.
--truecolor*
This will make dvipng generate truecolor output. Note that truecolor output is automatic if you
include an external image in your DVI, e.g., via a PostScript special (i.e., the graphics or graphicx
package). This switch is overridden by the --palette switch.
-v* Enable verbose operation. This will currently indicate what fonts is used, in addition to the usual
output.
--width*
Report the width of the image. See also --height and --depth.
-x num
This option is deprecated; it should not be used. It is much better to select the output resolution
directly with the -D option. This option sets the magnification ratio to num/1000 and overrides the
magnification specified in the DVI file. Must be between 10 and 100000. It is recommended that you
use standard magstep values (1095, 1200, 1440, 1728, 2074, 2488, 2986, and so on) to help reduce the
total number of PK files generated. num may be a real number, not an integer, for increased
precision.
-z num
Set the PNG compression level to num. This option is enabled if your libgd is new enough. The default
compression level is 1, which selects maximum speed at the price of slightly larger PNGs. For an
older libgd, the hard-soldered value 5 is used. The include file png.h says "Currently, valid values
range from 0 - 9, corresponding directly to the zlib compression levels 0 - 9 (0 - no compression, 9
- "maximal" compression). Note that tests have shown that zlib compression levels 3-6 usually perform
as well as level 9 for PNG images, and do considerably fewer calculations. In the future, these
values may not correspond directly to the zlib compression levels."
NOTES
The full manual is accessible in info format, on most systems by typing
info dvipng
COPYRIGHT
This program is released under the GNU Lesser General Public License version 3, see the COPYING file in
the dvipng distribution or <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
Copyright (c) 2002-2015, 2019 Jan-AAke Larsson
dvipng 1.18 2025-02-02 DVIPNG(1)