Man page 1 : aleph

aleph - extended Unicode TeX

aleph [ options ] [ &format ] [ file | commands ]

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 different set of precompiled commands, contained in format.fmt ; it is usually better to use the

-fmt formatoption instead.

Aleph is a version of the TeX program modified for multilingual typesetting. 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 activity.

Run aleph --help to see the complete list of options; this is not exhaustive.

• --fmt  format
      Use formatas 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 processing.

--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 ommands.

--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 Kpathseamanual for details.
• --maketex  fmt
      Enable mktex fmt , where fmtmust be one of texor tfm .
• --no-maketex  fmt
      Disable mktex fmt , where fmtmust be one of texor tfm .
• --output-comment  string
      Use stringfor the DVI file comment instead of the date.
• --output-directory  directory
      Write output files in directoryinstead of the current directory. Look up input files in directoryfirst, 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.

• --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 commandcan be any Bourne shell command. By default, this construct is enabled in a restricted mode, for security reasons.

--version
    Print version information and exit.

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 MF, 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 paperand the current directory is not writable, if TEXMFOUTPUT has the value /tmp , Aleph 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 \inputand \openinfiles. 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.cnffile. For example, set TEXINPUTS to ".:/home/user/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 Aleph is compiled.

This manual page is not meant to be exhaustive. The complete documentation for this version of Aleph can be found in the info manual "Web2C: A TeX implementation" . See http://tug/org/web2c.

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 DVIfile will be invalid.

tex (1), mf (1)

The primary authors of Aleph are John Plaice and Yannis Haralambous. It is currently maintained (for severe bug fixes only) by Taco Hoekwater.