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 [
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 dvise-
lect 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 indi-
cated 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 in-
cluded in dviselect's output if all its \count values match any one of
the ranges listed on the command line. For example, the command ``dvis-
elect *.1,35:'' might select everything in chapter 1, as well as pages
35 and up. ``dviselect 10:30'' would select pages 10 through 30 (inclu-
sive). ``: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 num-
bers. Even/odd specifiers, however, are legal; ``dviselect =even'' se-
lects 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 val-
ues shall be accepted; and a period indicates that the next \count
should be examined. If fewer than 10 ranges are specified, the remain-
ing \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 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 registers. Chapters normally begin on new pages, and do not suf-
fer 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 ad-
justed upward, this has not proven to be a problem.
DVISELECT(1)
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