ETEX(1) General Commands Manual ETEX(1)
NAME
etex - extended (plain) TeX
SYNOPSIS
etex [options] [&format] [file|\commands]
DESCRIPTION
Run the e-TeX typesetter on file, by default creating file.dvi. If the
file argument has no extension, ".tex" will be appended to it. Instead
of a filename, a set of e-TeX commands can be given, the first of which
must start with a backslash. With a &format argument e-TeX uses a dif-
ferent set of precompiled commands, contained in format.fmt; it is usu-
ally better to use the -fmt format option instead.
e-TeX is the first concrete result of an international research & devel-
opment project, the NTS Project, which was established under the aegis
of DANTE e.V. during 1992. The aims of the project are to perpetuate and
develop the spirit and philosophy of TeX, whilst respecting Knuth's wish
that TeX should remain frozen.
e-TeX can be used in two different modes: in compatibility mode it is
supposed to be completely interchangable with standard TeX. In extended
mode several new primitives are added that facilitate (among other
things) bidirectional typesetting.
An extended mode format is generated by prefixing the name of the source
file for the format with an asterisk (*).
e-TeX's handling of its command-line arguments is similar to that of the
other TeX programs in the web2c implementation.
OPTIONS
This version of e-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 e-TeX was called or a %& line.
-enc Enable the encTeX extensions. This option is only effective in
combination with -ini. For documentation of the encTeX exten-
sions see http://www.olsak.net/enctex.html.
-etex Enable the e-TeX extensions. This option is only effective in
combination with -ini.
-file-line-error
Print error messages in the form file:line:error which is similar
to the way many compilers format them.
-no-file-line-error
Disable printing error messages in the file:line:error style.
-file-line-error-style
This is the old name of the -file-line-error option.
-halt-on-error
Exit with an error code when an error is encountered during pro-
cessing.
-help Print help message and exit.
-ini Start in INI mode, which is used to dump formats. The INI mode
can be used for typesetting, but no format is preloaded, and ba-
sic initializations like setting catcodes may be required.
-interaction mode
Sets the interaction mode. The mode can be either 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.
-mktex fmt
Enable mktexfmt, where fmt must be either tex or tfm.
-mltex Enable MLTeX extensions. Only effective in combination with
-ini.
-no-mktex fmt
Disable mktexfmt, where fmt must be either 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, the 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 or a -translate-file option.
-no-parse-first-line
Disable parsing of the first line of the main input file.
-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
shell command. This construct is normally disallowed for secu-
rity reasons.
-no-shell-escape
Disable the \write18{command} construct, even if it is enabled in
the texmf.cnf file.
-src-specials
Insert source specials into the DVI file.
-src-specials where
Insert source specials in certain placed of the DVI file. where
is a comma-separated value list: cr, display, hbox, math, par,
parent, or vbox.
-translate-file tcxname
Use the tcxname translation table to set the mapping of input
characters and re-mapping of output characters.
-default-translate-file tcxname
Like -translate-file except that a %& line can overrule this set-
ting.
-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 e-TeX formats, you cannot use ~ in a filename you
give directly to e-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, e-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 etex paper and the current directory is not writable, if
TEXMFOUTPUT has the value /tmp, e-TeX 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 direcory and
``/home/user/tex'' to the standard search path.
TEXFORMATS
Search path for format files.
TEXPOOL
search path for etex internal strings.
TEXEDIT
Command template for switching to editor. The default, usually
vi, is set when e-TeX is compiled.
TFMFONTS
Search path for font metric (.tfm) files.
FILES
The location of the files mentioned below varies from system to system.
Use the kpsewhich utility to find their locations.
etex.pool
Text file containing e-TeX's internal strings.
texfonts.map
Filename mapping definitions.
*.tfm Metric files for e-TeX's fonts.
*.fmt Predigested e-TeX format (.fmt) files.
NOTES
Starting with version 1.40, pdfTeX incorporates the e-TeX extensions, so
in this installation eTeX may be just a symbolic link to pdfTeX. See
pdftex(1). This manual page is not meant to be exhaustive. The com-
plete documentation for this version of e-TeX can be found in the info
manual Web2C: A TeX implementation.
BUGS
This version of e-TeX implements a number of optional extensions. In
fact, many of these extensions conflict to a greater or lesser extent
with the definition of e-TeX. When such extensions are enabled, the
banner printed when e-TeX starts is changed to print e-TeXk instead of
e-TeX.
This version of e-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
pdftex(1), tex(1), mf(1).
AUTHORS
e-TeX was developed by Peter Breitenlohner and the NTS team; Peter later
continued its development outside of the team.
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.
The encTeX extensions were written by Petr Olsak.
Web2C 2015 1 March 2011 ETEX(1)
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