NAME¶
dviselect - extract pages from DVI files
SYNOPSIS¶
dviselect [
-s ] [
-i infile ] [
-o
outfile ]
list of pages [
infile [
outfile ] ]
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 itself.
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.
(Typically \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.
``dviselect 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
number'', 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 specifiers, 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 accepted;
and a period indicates that the next \count should be examined. If fewer than
10 ranges are specified, the remaining \counts are left unrestricted (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 selectors 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 currently
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 registers. 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 options 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 output
conversion programs, and the parameters never need to be adjusted upward, this
has not proven to be a problem.