tex, virtex, initex - text formatting and typesetting
SYNOPSIS
tex
[options]
[commands]
DESCRIPTION
This manual page is not meant to be exhaustive. The complete
documentation for this version of TeX can be found in the info file
or manual
Web2C: A TeX implementation.
TeX
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).
TeX's capabilities and language are described in
The TeX
book.
TeX
is normally used with a large body of precompiled macros,
and there are several specific formatting systems, such as
LaTeX,
which require the support of several macro files.
This version of TeX 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, TeX 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 TeX
book.
Other formats that are often available include
latex
and
amstex.
The
commands
given on the command line to the
TeX
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 TeX's favorite symbols,
like backslashes, unless you quote them.)
As described in
The TeX
book,
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 TeX doesn't get a filename in the first line, the jobname is
texput.
When looking for a file, TeX 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 TeX can 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 TeX 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
--parse-first-line
option or the
parse_first_line
configuration variable control whether this behaviour is enabled.
The
e
response to TeX'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 TeX 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).
OPTIONS
This version of TeX 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
TeX 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.
--jobname name
Use
name
for the job name, instead of deriving it from the name of the input file.
--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 MLTeX 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.
--parse-first-line
If the first line of the main input file begins with
%&
parse it to look for a dump name or a
--translate-file
option.
--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.
ENVIRONMENT
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 TeX formats, you cannot use ~ in a filename you
give directly to TeX, because ~ is an active character, and hence is
expanded, not taken as part of the filename. Other programs, such as
Metafont, do not have this problem.
TEXMFOUTPUT
Normally, TeX 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,
TeX 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 TeX is compiled.
FILES
The location of the files mentioned below varies from system to
system. Use the
kpsewhich
utility to find their locations.
texmf.cnf
Configuration file. This contains definitions of search paths as well
as other configuration parameters like
parse_first_line.
tex.pool
Encoded text of TeX's messages.
texfonts.map
Filename mapping definitions.
*.tfm
Metric files for TeX's fonts.
*.fmt
Predigested TeX format (.fmt) files.
$TEXMFMAIN/tex/plain/base/plain.tex
The basic macro package described in the TeX
book.
BUGS
This version of TeX implements a number of optional extensions.
In fact, many of these extensions conflict to a greater or lesser
extent with the definition of TeX. When such extensions are
enabled, the banner printed when TeX starts is changed to print
TeXk
instead of
TeX.
This version of TeX 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.
SEE ALSO
mf(1),
Donald E. Knuth,
The TeX
book,
Addison-Wesley, 1986, ISBN 0-201-13447-0.
Leslie Lamport,
LaTeX - A Document Preparation System,
Addison-Wesley, 1985, ISBN 0-201-15790-X.
K. Berry,
Eplain: Expanded plain TeX,
ftp://ftp.cs.umb.edu/pub/tex/eplain/doc.
Michael Spivak,
The Joy of TeX
,
2nd edition, Addison-Wesley, 1990, ISBN 0-8218-2997-1.
TUGboat
(the journal of the TeX Users Group).
TRIVIA
TeX, pronounced properly, rhymes with ``blecchhh.'' The proper
spelling in typewriter-like fonts is ``TeX'' and not ``TEX'' or ``tex.''
AUTHORS
TeX was designed by Donald E. Knuth,
who implemented it using his Web 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 TeX distribution is that
generated by the Web to C system
(web2c),
originally written by Tomas Rokicki and Tim Morgan.
