The device independent file format (DVI) is the output file format of the TeX typesetting program, designed by David R. Fuchs in 1979. Unlike the TeX markup files used to generate them, DVI files are not intended to be human-readable; they consist of binary data describing the visual layout of a document in a manner not reliant on any specific image format, display hardware or printer. DVI files are typically used as input to a second program (called a DVI driver) which translates DVI files to graphical data. For example, most TeX software packages include a program for previewing DVI files on a user's computer display; this program is a driver. Drivers are also used to convert from DVI to popular page description languages (e.g. PostScript, PDF) and for printing.
DVI is not a document encryption format, and TeX markup may be at least partially reverse-engineered from DVI files, although this process is unlikely to produce high-level constructs identical to those present in the original markup, especially if the original markup used high-level TeX extensions (e.g. LaTeX).
DVI differs from PostScript and PDF in that it does not support any form of font embedding. (Both PostScript and PDF formats can either embed their fonts inside the documents, or reference external ones.) For a DVI file to be printed or even properly previewed, the fonts it references must be already installed. Also, unlike PostScript (but like PDF), DVI is not a full, Turing-complete programming language, though it does use a limited sort of machine language.
Read more about Device Independent File Format: Specification, DVI Related Software
Famous quotes containing the words device, independent and/or file:
“Johnson did not answer ...; but talking for victory and determined to be master of the field, he had recourse to the device which Goldsmith imputed to him in the witty words of one of Cibber’s comedies. “There is no arguing with Johnson; for when his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt end of it.””
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“Men will say that in supporting their wives, in furnishing them with houses and food and clothes, they are giving the women as much money as they could ever hope to earn by any other profession. I grant it; but between the independent wage-earner and the one who is given his keep for his services is the difference between the free-born and the chattel.”
—Elizabeth M. Gilmer (1861–1951)
“Probably nothing in the experience of the rank and file of workers causes more bitterness and envy than the realization which comes sooner or later to many of them that they are “stuck” and can go no further.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)