man pages for tex
Web2C 7.2 Last change: 6 December 1997
NAME
tex, virtex, initex - text formatting and typesetting
SYNOPSIS
tex [options] [commands]
DESCRIPTION
This manual page is not meant to be exhaustive. The com-
plete 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 TeXbook. 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 sym-
links to the tex executable. When called as initex (or when
the --ini option is given) it can be used to precompile mac-
ros 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 exam-
ple, 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 TeXbook. 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 TeXbook, 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.
TeX 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 %&ini then TeX will run in initex mode. Other-
wise, a %&format line names a format to be used.
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.
--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.
--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.
--progname name
Pretend to be program name. This affects both the for-
mat used and the search paths.
--shell-escape
Enable the \write18{command} construct. The command
can be any Bourne shell command. This construct is
normally disallowed for security reasons.
--version
Print version information and exit.
ENVIRONMENT
See the Kpathsearch library documentation (the `Path specif-
ications' 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.
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 loca-
tions.
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 TeXbook.
BUGS
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), undump(1),
Donald E. Knuth, The TeXbook, 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 distribu-
tion is that generated by the Web to C system (web2c), ori-
ginally written by Tomas Rokicki and Tim Morgan.