> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://overleaf-pro.ayaka.space/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://overleaf-pro.ayaka.space/latex/tex-latex-primitives/10-pdfoutput.md).

# \pdfoutput

`\pdfoutput[=]` *integer*

* “`[=]`” means that the equals sign is optional.

The `\pdfoutput` command is used to specify whether the file produced by pdfTeX should be DVI or PDF format. A positive value of *integer* means output in PDF format, otherwise the output is in DVI format.

**Usage example**

* `\pdfoutput=1` sets the output format to PDF
* `\pdfoutput=0` sets the output format to DVI

#### DVI: still useful

DVI stands for *Device Independent* and is the original file [output format for TeX engines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_independent_file_format). Although the DVI format has been superceded by PDF, it remains extremely useful for special post-processing operations such as converting typeset output to SVG with [dvisvgm](https://dvisvgm.de/) or producing HTML from TeX/LaTeX with tools such as [TeX4ht](http://www.tug.org/tex4ht/).


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