Man page 1 : etex

etex, einitex, evirtex - extended TeX

etex [ options ] [& format ] [ file | \ commands ]

Run the e-\*(TX 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 e-\*(TX commands can be given, the first of which must start with a backslash. With a & format argument e-\*(TX uses a different set of precompiled commands, contained in format.fmt ; it is usually better to use the

-fmt formatoption instead.

e-\*(TX 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 \*(TX, whilst respecting Knuth's wish that \*(TX should remain frozen.

e-\*(TX can be used in two different modes: in compatibility modeit is supposed to be completely interchangable with standard \*(TX. In extended modeseveral 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

R latex . However,

eplain is an exception to this rule.

The

einitex and

evirtex commands are e-\*(TX's analogues to the

initex and

virtex commands. In this installation, they are symbolic links to the

etex executable. These symbolic links may not exist at all.

e-\*(TX's handling of its command-line arguments is similar to that of the other \*(TX programs in the web2cimplementation.

This version of e-\*(TX understands the following command line options.

• -fmt  format
      .rb Use formatas the name of the format to be used, instead of the name by which e-\*(TX was called or a %&line.

-enc

    .rb Enable the enc\*(TX extensions. This option is only effective in combination with

R -ini . For documentation of the enc\*(TX extensions see

R http://www.olsak.net/enctex.html .

-etex

    .rb Enable the e-\*(TX extensions. This option is only effective in combination with

R -ini .

-file-line-error

    .rb Print error messages in the form file:line:errorwhich is similar to the way many compilers format them.

-no-file-line-error

    .rb Disable printing error messages in the file:line:errorstyle.

-file-line-error-style

    .rb This is the old name of the

-file-line-error option.

-halt-on-error

    .rb Exit with an error code when an error is encountered during processing.

-help

    .rb Print help message and exit.

-ini

    .rb Start in INImode, which is used to dump formats. The INImode can be used for typesetting, but no format is preloaded, and basic initializations like setting catcodes may be required.

• -interaction  mode
      .rb 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

    .rb 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

    .rb As

R -ipc , and starts the server at the other end as well. Whether this option is available is the choice of the installer.

• -jobname  name
      .rb Use namefor the job name, instead of deriving it from the name of the input file.
• -kpathsea-debug  bitmask
      .rb Sets path searching debugging flags according to the bitmask. See the Kpathseamanual for details.
• -mktex  fmt
      .rb Enable mktex fmt , where fmtmust be either texor tfm .

-mltex

    .rb Enable ML\*(TX extensions. Only effective in combination with

R -ini .

• -no-mktex  fmt
      .rb Disable mktex fmt , where fmtmust be either texor tfm .
• -output-comment  string
      .rb Use stringfor the DVIfile comment instead of the date.
• -output-directory  directory
      .rb Write output files in directoryinstead of the current directory. Look up input files in directoryfirst, the along the normal search path.

-parse-first-line

    .rb 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

    .rb Disable parsing of the first line of the main input file.

• -progname  name
      .rb Pretend to be program name . This affects both the format used and the search paths.

-recorder

    .rb Enable the filename recorder. This leaves a trace of the files opened for input and output in a file with extension .fls .

-shell-escape

    .rb Enable the \write18{ command } construct. The commandcan be any shell command. This construct is normally disallowed for security reasons.

-no-shell-escape

    .rb Disable the \write18{ command } construct, even if it is enabled in the texmf.cnffile.

-src-specials

    .rb Insert source specials into the DVIfile.

• -src-specials  where
      .rb Insert source specials in certain placed of the DVIfile. whereis a comma-separated value list: cr , display , hbox , math , par , parent , or vbox .
• -translate-file  tcxname
      .rb Use the tcxnametranslation table to set the mapping of input characters and re-mapping of output characters.
• -default-translate-file  tcxname
      .rb Like

-translate-file except that a %&line can overrule this setting.

-version

    .rb 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 e-\*(TX formats, you cannot use ~ in a filename you give directly to e-\*(TX, 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, e-\*(TX 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 paperand the current directory is not writable, if TEXMFOUTPUT has the value /tmp , e-\*(TX attempts to create /tmp/paper.log(and /tmp/paper.dvi , if any output is produced.)
• TEXINPUTS
      Search path for \inputand \openinfiles. 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.cnffile. For example, set TEXINPUTS to ".:/home/usr/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

R vi , is set when e-\*(TX is compiled.

• TFMFONTS
      Search path for font metric ( .tfm ) 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-\*(TX's internal strings.
• texfonts.map
      Filename mapping definitions.
• *.tfm
      Metric files for e-\*(TX's fonts.
• *.fmt
      Predigested e-\*(TX format (. fmt) files.
  

Starting with version 1.40, pdf\*(TX incorporates the e-\*(TX extensions, so in this installation e\*(TX is just a symbolic link to pdf\*(TX. See

R pdftex (1). This manual page is not meant to be exhaustive. The complete documentation for this version of e-\*(TX can be found in the info manual "Web2C: A TeX implementation" .

This version of e-\*(TX implements a number of optional extensions. In fact, many of these extensions conflict to a greater or lesser extent with the definition of e-\*(TX. When such extensions are enabled, the banner printed when e-\*(TX starts is changed to print

e-TeXk instead of

R e-TeX .

This version of e-\*(TX 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.

R pdftex (1),

R tex (1),

R mf (1).

e-\*(TX was developed by Peter Breitenlohner (and the NTS team).

\*(TX was designed by Donald E. Knuth, who implemented it using his \*(WB 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 \*(TX distribution is that generated by the \*(WB to C system ( web2c ), originally written by Tomas Rokicki and Tim Morgan.

The enc\*(TX extensions were written by Petr Olsak.