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tex, virtex, initex - text formatting and typesetting
tex
[options] [commands]
This manual page is not meant to be exhaustive.
The complete documentation for this version of can be found in the info
file or manual Web2C: A TeX implementation.
formats the interspersed text
and commands contained in the named files and outputs a typesetter independent
file (called DVI, which is short for DeVice Independent). 's capabilities
and language are described in The Xbook. is normally used with a large
body of precompiled macros, and there are several specific formatting systems,
such as X, which require the support of several macro files.
This version
of looks at its command line to see what name it was called under. Both
initex and virtex are symlinks to the tex executable. When called as initex
(or when the --ini option is given) it can be used to precompile macros into
a .fmt file. When called as virtex it will use the plain format. When called
under any other name, will use that name as the name of the format to
use. For example, when called as tex the tex format is used, which is identical
to the plain format. The commands defined by the plain format are documented
in The Xbook. Other formats that are often available include latex and amstex.
The commands given on the command line to the program are passed to it
as the first input line. (But it is often easier to type extended arguments
as the first input line, since UNIX shells tend to gobble up or misinterpret
's favorite symbols, like backslashes, unless you quote them.) As described
in The Xbook, that first line should begin with a filename, a \controlsequence,
or a &formatname.
The normal usage is to say
tex paper
to start processing
paper.tex. The name paper will be the ``jobname'', and is used in forming output
filenames. If doesn't get a filename in the first line, the jobname is texput.
When looking for a file, looks for the name with and without the default
extension (.tex) appended, unless the name already contains that extension.
If paper is the ``jobname'', a log of error messages, with rather more detail
than normally appears on the screen, will appear in paper.log, and the output
file will be in paper.dvi.
This version of will look in the first line of
the file paper.tex to see if it begins with the magic sequence %&. If the
first line begins with %&format --translate-file tcxname then will use the
named format and transation table tcxname to process the source file. Either
the format name or the --translate-file specification may be omitted, but
not both. This overrides the format selection based on the name by which
the program is invoked.
The e response to 's error prompt causes the system
default editor to start up at the current line of the current file. The
environment variable TEXEDIT can be used to change the editor used. It
may contain a string with "%s" indicating where the filename goes and "%d"
indicating where the decimal line number (if any) goes. For example, a
TEXEDIT string for emacs can be set with the sh command
TEXEDIT="emacs
+%d %s"; export TEXEDIT
A convenient file in the library is null.tex, containing
nothing. When can't find a file it thinks you want to input, it keeps asking
you for another filename; responding `null' gets you out of the loop if you
don't want to input anything. You can also type your EOF character (usually
control-D).
This version of understands the following command line
options.
- --file-line-error-style
- Print error messages in the form file:line:error
which is similar to the way many compilers format them.
- --fmt format
- Use format
as the name of the format to be used, instead of the name by which was
called or a %& line.
- --help
- Print help message and exit.
- --ini
- Be initex, for
dumping formats; this is implicitly true if the program is called as initex.
- --interaction mode
- Sets the interaction mode. The mode can be one of batchmode,
nonstopmode, scrollmode, and errorstopmode. The meaning of these modes is
the same as that of the corresponding \commands.
- --ipc
- Send DVI output to
a socket as well as the usual output file. Whether this option is available
is the choice of the installer.
- --ipc-start
- As --ipc, and starts the server
at the other end as well. Whether this option is available is the choice
of the installer.
- --kpathsea-debug bitmask
- Sets path searching debugging flags
according to the bitmask. See the Kpathsea manual for details.
- --maketex fmt
- Enable mktexfmt, where fmt must be one of tex or tfm.
- --mltex
- Enable ML
extensions.
- --no-maketex fmt
- Disable mktexfmt, where fmt must be one of tex
or tfm.
- --output-comment string
- Use string for the DVI file comment instead
of the date.
- --progname name
- Pretend to be program name. This affects both
the format used and the search paths.
- --recorder
- Enable the filename recorder.
This leaves a trace of the files opened for input and output in a file
with extension .fls.
- --shell-escape
- Enable the \write18{command} construct.
The command can be any Bourne shell command. This construct is normally
disallowed for security reasons.
- --translate-file tcxname
- Use the tcxname translation
table.
- --version
- Print version information and exit.
See the Kpathsearch
library documentation (the `Path specifications' node) for precise details
of how the environment variables are used. The kpsewhich utility can be
used to query the values of the variables.
One caveat: In most formats,
you cannot use ~ in a filename you give directly to , because ~ is an active
character, and hence is expanded, not taken as part of the filename. Other
programs, such as , do not have this problem.
- TEXMFOUTPUT
- Normally, puts
its output files in the current directory. If any output file cannot be
opened there, it tries to open it in the directory specified in the environment
variable TEXMFOUTPUT. There is no default value for that variable. For example,
if you say tex paper and the current directory is not writable, if TEXMFOUTPUT
has the value /tmp, attempts to create /tmp/paper.log (and /tmp/paper.dvi,
if any output is produced.)
- TEXINPUTS
- Search path for \input and \openin files.
This should probably start with ``.'', so that user files are found before system
files. An empty path component will be replaced with the paths defined
in the texmf.cnf file. For example, set TEXINPUTS to ".:/home/usr/tex:" to
prepend the current direcory and ``/home/user/tex'' to the standard search
path.
- TEXEDIT
- Command template for switching to editor. The default, usually
vi, is set when is compiled.
The location of the files mentioned
below varies from system to system. Use the kpsewhich utility to find their
locations.
- tex.pool
- Encoded text of 's messages.
- texfonts.map
- Filename mapping
definitions.
- *.tfm
- Metric files for 's fonts.
- *.fmt
- Predigested format (.fmt)
files.
- $TEXMFMAIN/tex/plain/base/plain.tex
- The basic macro package described
in the Xbook.
This version of fails to trap arithmetic overflow when dimensions
are added or subtracted. Cases where this occurs are rare, but when it
does the generated DVI file will be invalid.
mf(1)
,
Donald E. Knuth, The Xbook, Addison-Wesley, 1986, ISBN 0-201-13447-0.
Leslie Lamport, X - A Document Preparation System, Addison-Wesley, 1985,
ISBN 0-201-15790-X.
K. Berry, Eplain: Expanded plain , ftp://ftp.cs.umb.edu/pub/tex/eplain/doc.
Michael Spivak, The Joy of X, 2nd edition, Addison-Wesley, 1990, ISBN 0-8218-2997-1.
TUGboat (the journal of the Users Group).
, pronounced properly,
rhymes with ``blecchhh.'' The proper spelling in typewriter-like fonts is ``TeX''
and not ``TEX'' or ``tex.''
was designed by Donald E. Knuth, who implemented
it using his system for Pascal programs. It was ported to Unix at Stanford
by Howard Trickey, and at Cornell by Pavel Curtis. The version now offered
with the Unix distribution is that generated by the to C system (web2c),
originally written by Tomas Rokicki and Tim Morgan.
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