etex, einitex, evirtex - extended TeX


SYNOPSIS

       etex [options] [commands]


DESCRIPTION

       This  manual page is not meant to be exhaustive.  The com­
       plete documentation for this version of TeX can  be  found
       in the info file or manual Web2C: A TeX implementation.

       e-TeX  is  the  first  concrete result of an international
       research & development 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 (*).
       Such formats are often prefixed with an `e', hence etex as
       the  extended  version  of  tex and elatex as the extended
       version of latex.  However, eplain is an exception to this
       rule.

       The  einitex and evirtex commands are e-TeX's analogues to
       the initex and virtex  commands.   In  this  installation,
       they are symlinks to the etex executable.

       e-TeX's  handling of its command-line arguments is similar
       to that of TeX.


OPTIONS

       This version of e-TeX understands  the  following  command
       line options.

       --efmt 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.

       --help Print help message and exit.

       --ini  Be einitex, for dumping formats; this is implicitly
              true if the program is called as einitex.

       --interaction mode
              Sets the interaction mode.  The mode can be one  of

              mode.  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 com­
              mand can be any Bourne shell  command.   This  con­
              struct 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 spec­
       ifications'  node) for precise details of how the environ­
       ment 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

       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 cur­
              rent 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 TEXMFOUTPUT has the
              value /tmp, e-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.

       TEXFONTS
              Search path for font metric (.tfm) files.

       TEXFORMATS
              Search path for format files.

       TEXPOOL
              search path for einitex internal strings.

       TEXEDIT
              Command template  for  switching  to  editor.   The
              default, usually vi, is set when e-TeX is compiled.


FILES

       The location of the files mentioned below varies from sys­
       tem  to  system.   Use the kpsewhich utility to find their
       locations.

       etex.pool
              Encoded text of e-TeX's messages.

       texfonts.map
              Filename mapping definitions.

       *.tfm  Metric files for e-TeX's fonts.

       *.efmt Predigested e-TeX format (.efmt) files.

       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

       tex(1), mf(1), undump(1).


Man(1) output converted with man2html