PDFTEX(1)PDFTEX(1)NAME
pdftex, pdfinitex, pdfvirtex - PDF output from TeX
SYNOPSIS
pdftex [options] [commands]
DESCRIPTION
This manual page is not meant to be exhaustive. The complete documen‐
tation for this version of TeX can be found in the info file or manual
Web2C: A TeX implementation.
pdfTeX is a version of TeX that can create PDF files as well as DVI
files.
The typical use of pdfTeX is with a pregenerated formats for which PDF
output has been enabled. The pdftex command uses the equivalent of the
plain TeX format, and the pdflatex command uses the equivalent of the
LaTeX format.
The pdfinitex and pdfvirtex commands are pdfTeX's analogues to the ini‐
tex and virtex commands. In this installation, they are symlinks to
the pdftex executable.
pdfTeX's handling of its command-line arguments is similar to that of
TeX.
pdfTeX is beta software.
OPTIONS
This version of pdfTeX 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 pdfTeX was called or a %& line.
--help Print help message and exit.
--ini Be pdfinitex, for dumping formats; this is implicitly true if
the program is called as pdfinitex.
--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 or PDF output to a socket as well as the usual output
file. Whether this option is available is the choice of the in‐
staller.
--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.
--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.
--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 pdfTeX formats, you cannot use ~ in a filename you
give directly to pdfTeX, 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, pdfTeX 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 TEXMFOUT‐
PUT. 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, pdfTeX attempts to create
/tmp/paper.log (and /tmp/paper.pdf, 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.
TEXFONTS
Search path for font metric (.tfm) files.
TEXFORMATS
Search path for format files.
TEXPOOL
search path for pdfinitex internal strings.
TEXEDIT
Command template for switching to editor. The default, usually
vi, is set when pdfTeX is compiled.
FILES
The location of the files mentioned below varies from system to system.
Use the kpsewhich utility to find their locations.
pdftex.pool
Encoded text of pdfTeX's messages.
texfonts.map
Filename mapping definitions.
*.tfm Metric files for pdfTeX's fonts.
*.fmt Predigested pdfTeX format (.fmt) files.
BUGS
This version of pdfTeX fails to trap arithmetic overflow when dimen‐
sions are added or subtracted. Cases where this occurs are rare, but
when it does the generated DVI file will be invalid. Whether a gener‐
ated PDF file would be usable is unknown.
pdfTeX is beta software. Subscribe to the pdftex mailing list pdf‐
tex@tug.org if you intend to use it. This is a majordomo list, to sub‐
scribe send a message containing subscribe pdftex to majordomo@tug.org.
SEE ALSOtex(1), mf(1), undump(1).
AUTHORS
The primary authors of pdfTeX are Han The Thanh, Petr Sojka, and Jiri
Zlatuska.
Web2C 7.3.1 29 March 1999 PDFTEX(1)
