TEX(1) General Commands Manual TEX(1)
NAME
tex, initex - text formatting and typesetting
SYNOPSIS
tex [options] [&format] [file|\commands]
DESCRIPTION
Run the TeX 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 TeX commands can be given, the first of which must
start with a backslash. With a &format argument TeX uses a different
set of precompiled commands, contained in format.fmt; it is usually bet-
ter to use the -fmt format option instead.
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 de-
scribed in The TeXbook. TeX is normally used with a large body of pre-
compiled 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. If they exist, then both initex and virtex are symbolic
links to the tex executable. 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 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 example, when called as tex the tex format is used, which is identi-
cal to the plain format. The commands defined by the plain format are
documented in The TeXbook. Other formats that are often available in-
clude latex and amstex.
The non-option command line arguments 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) ap-
pended, 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.
This version of TeX can 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 translation table tcxname to process the source file. Either the
format name or the -translate-file specification may be omitted, but not
both. This overrides the format selection based on the name by which
the program is invoked. The -parse-first-line option or the
parse_first_line configuration variable controls whether this behaviour
is enabled.
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 vari-
able 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.
-cnf-line string
Parse string as a texmf.cnf configuration line. See the Kpathsea
manual.
-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.
-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.
-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.
-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, then along the normal
search path. See also description of the TEXMFOUTPUT environment
variable.
-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 places 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 TeX formats, you cannot use ~ in a filename you give
directly to TeX, because ~ is an active character, and hence is ex-
panded, 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 TEXM-
FOUTPUT has the value /tmp, TeX attempts to create /tmp/paper.log
(and /tmp/paper.dvi, if any output is produced.) TEXMFOUTPUT 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 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/user/tex:" to prepend the current directory and
``/home/user/tex'' to the standard search path.
TEXFORMATS
Search path for format files.
TEXPOOL
search path for tex internal strings.
TEXEDIT
Command template for switching to editor. The default, usually
vi, is set when TeX is compiled.
TFMFONTS
Search path for font metric (.tfm) files.
Notes for Debian developers: please keep in mind, that this version of
the TeX interpreter ignores the SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH variable. Instead the
current timestamp is written into the DVI file. If you need a repro-
ducible time stamp, please use any engine based on pdfTeX, e.g., etex,
pdftex, latex, pdflatex.
FILES
The location of the files mentioned below varies from system to system.
Use the kpsewhich utility to find their locations.
texmf.cnf
Configuration file. This contains definitions of search paths as
well as other configuration parameters like parse_first_line.
tex.pool
Text file containing TeX's internal strings.
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.
NOTES
This manual page is not meant to be exhaustive. The complete documenta-
tion for this version of TeX can be found in the info manual Web2C: A
TeX implementation.
BUGS
This version of TeX implements a number of optional extensions. In
fact, many of these extensions conflict to a greater or lesser extent
with the definition of TeX. When such extensions are enabled, the ban-
ner printed when TeX starts is changed to print TeXk instead of TeX.
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),
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, https://tug.org/eplain
Michael Spivak, The Joy of TeX, 2nd edition, Addison-Wesley, 1990, ISBN
0-8218-2997-1.
TUGboat (the journal of the TeX Users Group). https://tug.org/TUGboat
TRIVIA
TeX, pronounced properly, rhymes with ``blecchhh.'' The proper spelling
in typewriter-like fonts is ``TeX'' and not ``TEX'' or ``tex.''
AUTHORS
TeX was created 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 2025/dev 6 August 2019 TEX(1)
Generated by dwww version 1.16 on Tue Dec 16 04:39:55 CET 2025.