Please: need help with kdvi under FC3

[Gustavo Seabra]

Hi,

I've asked this before in many places but got no answers, and I'm just 
plain lost.

I'm trying to use kdvi (KDE) to view .dvi files. However, all I get are 
blank pages and some lines on the pages. The lines are the boxes or 
table lines that really are in the file, but I get no text at all. I 
tried to check the configurations, but I saw nothing that could help. 
Also, I can open the same file perfectly in xdvi, so the problem must be 
with my kdvi installation.

I'd be happy to follow any suggestions to track this down.

Help -> about kdvi gives:
kdvi 1.2 (Using KDE 3.3.1-4.2.3-kde)

rpm -q kdvi returns:
# rpm -q kdvi
package kdvi is not installed

[Gustavo Seabra]

Gustavo Seabra wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I've asked this before in many places but got no answers, and I'm just 
> plain lost.
>
> I'm trying to use kdvi (KDE) to view .dvi files. However, all I get 
> are blank pages and some lines on the pages. The lines are the boxes 
> or table lines that really are in the file, but I get no text at all. 
> I tried to check the configurations, but I saw nothing that could 
> help. Also, I can open the same file perfectly in xdvi, so the problem 
> must be with my kdvi installation.
>
> I'd be happy to follow any suggestions to track this down.
>
> Help -> about kdvi gives:
> kdvi 1.2 (Using KDE 3.3.1-4.2.3-kde)
>
> rpm -q kdvi returns:
> # rpm -q kdvi
> package kdvi is not installed

More weidness:
 Trying to open the file inside konqueror by opening Konqueror at my 
home directory, browsing to the file and then double clicking it --> 
Works fine.
$ konqueror myfile.dvi --> NO.
directly using the embedded viewer in kile --> works fine.

So, it only fails if I try to call kdvi from command line as
$ kdvi myfile.dvi

Any ideas about what might be wrong?

[M. P. Dickens]

On Sat, 2004-12-04 at 00:51 -0600, Gustavo Seabra wrote:
> More weidness:
>  Trying to open the file inside konqueror by opening Konqueror at my 
> home directory, browsing to the file and then double clicking it --> 
> Works fine.
> $ konqueror myfile.dvi --> NO.
> directly using the embedded viewer in kile --> works fine.
>
> So, it only fails if I try to call kdvi from command line as
> $ kdvi myfile.dvi
>
> Any ideas about what might be wrong?

A couple of years ago I had to produce documents in dvi format for a
customer I did some work for. At that
time kdvi did *exactly* the same thing you are describing. Further, this
behavior was not distro centric: I observed the same behavior in Suse,
Mandrake and Debian. I suspect this is more of a
KDE issue than an FC issue.

As I recall, users on the TeX mailing list helped
me with this issue. I don't remember the fix, but
there is one. Also, the KDE mailing list will be
useless for this problem - 99% of the users don't 
know anything about tex or dvi.

Best regards

Marvin Dickens

[Gustavo Seabra]

Marvin Dickens wrote:
> As I recall, users on the TeX mailing list helped
> me with this issue. I don't remember the fix, but
> there is one.

TeX mailing list ?... I'll try there.
> Also, the KDE mailing list will be
> useless for this problem - 99% of the users don't 
> know anything about tex or dvi.

I noticed.
Thanks a lot!

[Stephan Matthiesen]

Hi,

Am Samstag, 4. Dezember 2004 06:51 schrieb Gustavo Seabra:
> So, it only fails if I try to call kdvi from command line as
> $ kdvi myfile.dvi
>
> Any ideas about what might be wrong?

Not really, but it looks like it can't find the fonts.

What happens if you start kdvi, set "Settings-show all errors and warnings" 
and then open the document? Perhaps it will show errors that might help.

Also, see if the option "Generate missing fonts" in the options dialogue is 
set.

Cheers
Stephan

[Gustavo Seabra]

Stephan Matthiesen wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Am Samstag, 4. Dezember 2004 06:51 schrieb Gustavo Seabra:
> > So, it only fails if I try to call kdvi from command line as
> > $ kdvi myfile.dvi
> >
> > Any ideas about what might be wrong?
>
> Not really, but it looks like it can't find the fonts.
>
> What happens if you start kdvi, set "Settings-show all errors and warnings" 
> and then open the document? Perhaps it will show errors that might help.
>
> Also, see if the option "Generate missing fonts" in the options dialogue is 
> set.
>
> Cheers
> Stephan

Same thing happens, and no error messages are displayed. Also, if 
instead of using command line I open kdvi from the  KDE start menu -->  
graphics  -->  KDVI, it works. What it seems is that it only works from 
inside some GUI.

When I click help -> kdvi the window that appears has the title "About 
the kdvi plugin", which seems to hint that it should only be "a plugin" 
to something else, and not a standalone. However, it used to work 
standalone for me in RH8!

By the way, I agree that, for some reason, it doesn't seem to find the 
fonts.

[Gustavo Seabra]

Gustavo Seabra wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I've asked this before in many places but got no answers, and I'm just 
> plain lost.
>
> I'm trying to use kdvi (KDE) to view .dvi files. However, all I get 
> are blank pages and some lines on the pages. The lines are the boxes 
> or table lines that really are in the file, but I get no text at all. 
> I tried to check the configurations, but I saw nothing that could 
> help. Also, I can open the same file perfectly in xdvi, so the problem 
> must be with my kdvi installation.
>
> I'd be happy to follow any suggestions to track this down.
>
> Help -> about kdvi gives:
> kdvi 1.2 (Using KDE 3.3.1-4.2.3-kde)
>
> rpm -q kdvi returns:
> # rpm -q kdvi
> package kdvi is not installed

Just one last detail: It works from kile ONLY if I open kile from the 
GUI, by clicking KDE -> Office -> kile. If i use the command line ($ 
Kile &) I have the same problem with the dvi file.