TEX(1)TEX(1)NAME
tex, virtex, initex - text formatting and typesetting
SYNOPSIStex [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.
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 symlinks to the tex exe‐
cutable. 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 vir‐
tex 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 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 out‐
put 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
%&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.
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" indicat‐
ing 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 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 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 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, 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.
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 ALSOmf(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 spell‐
ing 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.
Web2C 7.3.1 29 March 1999 TEX(1)
