dvips

First some basic options. For a brief guide to these type

dvips -?

One can, for example, extract just a few pages from a document (dvips -p <firstpage> -l <lastpage> <inputfile>); print only odd or only even pages; and change the magnification of the output.

There are a lot of features you can gain through dvips, including: use of postscript fonts and support for color, support for HyperTeX through hypertext-postscript, and even inclusion of postscript into your TeX source/input to produce special effects and graphics. Of course these features rely on the use of postscript. If you cannot print postscript --- either directly or via a converter (e.g., to Hewlett Packard's PCL) --- then, if you require these features, you must find another way to do it.

Postscript Fonts

Tradionally one must use bitmap fonts with TeX. Use of dvips extents one's choice to the use of postscript fonts. To use a postscript font you need to prepare a virtual font by using a utility that comes with dvips. All the necessary support for the standard 35 PostScript fonts (`AvantGarde-Book' through `ZapfDingbats'), plus other freely or commonly available PostScript fonts is available along with dvips.

HyperTeX and HyperTeXt postscript

dvips has support for HyperTeX through which one can produce postscript documents with embedded hypertext links.

PSTricks

I quote from the manual: PSTricks is a collection of Postscript-based Tex macros which is compatible with most TeX macro packages, including Plain TeX and LaTeX. PSTricks gives you color, graphics, rotation and other special effects, and even graphs.