Previewing TeX Output

You do not have to print your document to see what it looks like (view it). There are several options available --- the viewer you use depends upon the format you want to (pre)view.

dvi

If you have compiled your TeX input/source file to DVI format you can use a DVI-viewer to view your document on-screen. Most TeX installations on a Unix or Linux box will have xdvi installed. Simply type:

prompt> xdvi <myfile>.dvi

If the KDE environment has been installed on your machine try kdvi; it's a little more user-friendly that xdvi, but equivalent. There are several DVI-viewers for MS Windows, including WinDVI.

pdf

If you have compiled your TeX input/source file to PDF you can view the output on-screen by using acroread, a utility freely-available from Adobe. Other PDF viewers exist, including xpdf for Unix/Linux.

Postscript (.ps)

If you have converted your DVI file or PDF file to postscript, for printing, you can still view the document without printing it. The Free Software Foundation (GNU) have written a utility called ghostview which shows on-screen exactly what will be printed from a postscript (.ps) or encapsulated postscript (.eps) file. ghostview is available for both Unix/Linux and MS Windows, and other platforms too. (N.B. On some systems, by default, one types gv rather than ghostview to start the utility.)