TITLE: Why does the arXiv produce a messed-up DVI when the PDF is fine?
QUESTION [8 upvotes]: Historically, I've checked the quality of arXiv output by reading the PDF it creates; I learned today that this actually a serious mistake.  If you look at the PDF and DVI for my most recent article, you'll see that the PDF looks fine, and the DVI is essentially unusable from a mathematical perspective.  The tikz pictures don't come out at all, and there seem to be serious font issues.
I'll note that this file compiles fine as a DVI on my home computer.

What's causing this?  Is it a problem a user can fix by include font/style files with his/her upload?  is there someone at the arXiv I should be telling to install something?  Why is the arXiv less competent than a home installation of MikTeX?


EDIT: So, the take-away seems to be that your DVIs from the arXiv will only look right if you use Computer Modern.  Hooray for all math papers looking the same!

REPLY [2 votes]: Please review section
9.2.1 Selecting the Backend Driver
of the pgf/tikz manual. arXiv dvi is generated with the dvips backend driver, and it must be post-processed with dvips to render in a useful way. In addition all the fonts referenced in the dvi need to be available to dvips when post-processing the dvi.
There is also section 
9.2.5 Producing Perfectly Portable DVI Output
which seems like a choice of last resort.
Cheers
T.