ALEPH(1) General Commands Manual ALEPH(1)
NAME
aleph - extended Unicode TeX
SYNOPSIS
aleph [options] [&format] [file|\commands]
DESCRIPTION
Run the Aleph typesetter on file, usually creating file.dvi. If the
file argument has no extension, ".tex" will be appended to it. Instead
of a filename, a set of Aleph commands can be given, the first of which
must start with a backslash. With a &format argument Aleph uses a dif-
ferent set of precompiled commands, contained in format.fmt; it is usu-
ally better to use the -fmt format option instead.
Aleph is a version of the TeX program modified for multilingual typeset-
ting. It uses Unicode, and has additional primitives for (among other
things) bidirectional typesetting.
Aleph's command line options are similar to those of TeX.
Aleph is no longer being actively developed; see LuaTeX for current ac-
tivity.
OPTIONS
Run aleph --help to see the complete list of options; this is not ex-
haustive.
-cnf-line string
Parse string as a texmf.cnf configuration line. See the Kpathsea
manual.
--fmt format
Use format as the name of the format to be used, instead of the
name by which Aleph was called or a %& line.
--halt-on-error
Exit with an error code when an error is encountered during pro-
cessing.
--help Print help message and exit.
--ini Be `initial' Aleph for dumping formats; this is implicitly true
if the program is called as inialeph.
--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.
--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.
--output-directory directory
Write output files in directory instead of the current directory.
Look up input files in directory first, then along the normal
search path.
--parse-first-line
If the first line of the main input file begins with %& parse it
to look for a dump name.
--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 .ofl. (This
option is always on.)
--shell-escape
Enable the \write18{command} construct. The command can be any
Bourne shell command. By default, this construct is enabled in a
restricted mode, for security reasons.
--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 Aleph formats, you cannot use ~ in a filename you
give directly to Aleph, 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, Aleph 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 TEXM-
FOUTPUT has the value /tmp, Aleph attempts to create /tmp/pa-
per.log (and /tmp/paper.dvi, if any output is produced.) TEXM-
FOUTPUT is also checked for input files, as TeX often generates
files that need to be subsequently read; for input, no suffixes
(such as ``.tex'') are added by default, the input name is simply
checked as given.
TEXINPUTS
Search path for \input and \openin files. This should 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/user/tex:" to prepend the current directory and
``/home/user/tex'' to the standard search path.
TEXEDIT
Command template for switching to editor. The default, usually
vi, is set when Aleph is compiled.
NOTES
This manual page is not meant to be exhaustive. The complete documenta-
tion for this version of Aleph can be found in the info manual Web2C: A
TeX implementation. See http://tug/org/web2c.
BUGS
This version of Aleph implements a number of optional extensions. In
fact, many of these extensions conflict to a greater or lesser extent
with the definition of Aleph. When such extensions are enabled, the
banner printed when Aleph starts is changed to print Alephk instead of
Aleph.
This version of Aleph 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
tex(1), mf(1)
AUTHORS
The primary authors of Aleph are John Plaice and Yannis Haralambous.
Web2C 2025/dev 24 August 2023 ALEPH(1)
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