dvisvgm – A fast DVI to SVG converter

Description

dvisvgm is a utility for TeX/LaTeX users. It convertsDVI,EPS, andPDF files to theXML-based scalable vector graphics format SVG.The latest releases support standard DVI files (version 2) as well as DVI outputcreated by pTeX in vertical mode (version 3),and XeTeX (versions 5 to 7, also known as XDV).

To get an impression of the conversion results, have a look at theexamples created with dvisvgm.

Short overview of the main features:

• Complete font support including virtual fonts, evaluation of font encodings, CMap files, sub-font definitions and font maps.
• Glyph outlines of all required fonts are embedded into the generated SVG files.
• The font data can be embedded in SVG, TrueType, WOFF, or WOFF2 format.
• Glyph outlines of fonts that are not available in a vector format are generated on-the-fly by vectorizing METAFONT's bitmap output.
• dvisvgm allows to replace font elements by paths so that applications without SVG font support are enabled to render dvisvgm's output properly.
• Computes tight bounding boxes for the generated graphics, but supports common paper formats and arbitrary user-defined sizes as well.
• Option --eps allows to convert EPS files to SVG.
• Option --pdf allows to convert PDF documents to SVG.
• Intersections of clipping paths can be computed directly instead of delegating this task to the SVG renderer. This increases the compatibility of the generated SVG files.
• Approximates PostScript color gradient fills not directly supported by SVG 1.1.
• The generated SVG structure and data can be improved with the built-in SVG optimizer.
• Optionally creates compressed SVGZ files.
• Provides options for applying page transformations, like translation, rotation, scaling, and skewing.
• Evaluates several specials including color, emTeX, tpic, hyperref/HyperTeX, papersize, PDF hyperlink and mapfile, as well as PostScript specials.
• The converter was successfully tested on various Linux (TeX Live) and Windows (MiKTeX, W32TeX) systems.
• dvisvgm has been added to TeX Live, W32TeX, MiKTeX, and MacPorts. It is therefore available for a wide range of operating systems.

Usage

For detailed information about the command-line interface and all availableoptions of dvisvgm, see the manual page.

Dependencies

dvisvgm relies on the following free libraries:

• Clipper
  To compute the intersection of two curved paths, dvisvgm flattens the paths topolygons, intersects them using a slightly modified version of Clipper, and reconstructsthe curves afterwards. A slightly modified version of Clipper is bundled with the sources.

• FontForge library
  dvisvgm can be built with optional WOFF support that allows to embed the font datain WOFF or TrueType format rather than as SVG. The FontForge library provides the requiredfunctions to create font files in these formats. A reduced version of the library is bundledwith the dvisvgm sources.

• FreeType 2
  This library is used to extract the glyph outlines from vector fonts (PFB, OTF, TTF).

• Ghostscript
  The PostScript special handler requires the Ghostscript shared library libgs.so.N (Linux)or gsdll32.dll/gsdll64.dll (Windows) to be installed. If the configure scriptfinds the corresponding Ghostscript development files on the system, itdirectly links against libgs.so.N, where N is the library's ABI version.Otherwise, the library is looked up during runtime, and the PostScript support isenabled only if the shared library can be found. Due to incompatible changes of theGhostscript API, dvisvgm requires Ghostscript 8.31 or later.

• Kpathsea
  This library is part of the Web2C package and is usually installed inconjunction with a TeX distribution. Kpathsea provides functions for searchingfiles in the large texmf tree. Please ensure that you use the kpathsea versioncoming with or matching your TeX system.

• OpenSSL crypto librarydvisvgm comes with a bundled implementation of the MD5 hash algorithm which can optionallybe replaced with the corresponding function of the OpenSSL crypto library. If theconfiguration script finds the OpenSSL development files on the build system, it linksagainst libcrypto instead of the bundled MD5 module.

• potracelib
  Peter Selinger's bitmap tracing library is utilized to vectorize Metafont'sbitmap output. It's also bundled with the dvisvgm sources.

• ttfautohint
  dvisvgm can optionally be built with ttfautohint support to replace the autohintingfunctionality of FontForge. Since it's still an experimental feature, ttfautohint supportis disabled by default. To enable it, run configure with option --with-ttfautohint.

• woff2 and brotli
  These Google libraries are bundled with the dvisvgm sources. They are usedto create WOFF2 files from TrueType fonts.

• xxHash
  The xxHash library provides a fast hash algorithm. dvisvgm uses it to createunique integer values from PostScript character names in order to store them ina compact way together with their Unicode points. A recent version of xxHash isbundled with the dvisvgm sources.

• zlib
  This library is required to create compressed SVGZ files.

Building dvisvgm from source

dvisvgm is written in C++11 (ISO C++ standard 2011)and requires an appropriate compiler, like GCC 4.9, Clang 3.3,or any later version. The configure script checks for the availability of C++11 support andadds the proper compiler options if necessary.

Quick installation info:

• ensure that the development packages of all libraries, listed above, are installed
• type ./autogen.sh if configure is not present in the dvisvgm root folder
• either type ./configure if you don't want to use the bundled libraries brotli, potrace, woff2, and xxHash but linkagainst the corresponding system libraries,
• or type ./configure --enable-bundled-libs in order to build and statically link the bundled libraries.
• type make
• type make install as root (or sudo make install)

For generic configuration instructions see the file INSTALL.

The configure script should recognize all necessary parameters.If a library is installed but not detected, specify its locationas command-line parameter of configure, e.g../configure --with-freetype=/usr/local/freetype(all available options can be displayed with ./configure --help)

The tracer module calls Metafont in case of lacking TFM or PFB filesvia a system call. Please ensure that Metafont is installed andreachable through the system's search path.

If you don't like compiling the sources yourself, you can downloadpre-compiled binaries for Windows and MiKTeX from theproject website instead.

Additional Information

This package is available from CTAN, and can bedownloaded from the project website as well. There you findthe sources, pre-compiled binaries, themanual page, FAQs and furtherinformation about the converter and related topics.

If you've found a bug, please let me know. You can either send me an email orpreferably use the bug tracker at GitHub.

Copyright

Copyright © 2005–2021 Martin Gieseking

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the termsof the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; eitherversion 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY;without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.See the GNU General Public License for moredetails.