tex
text formatting and typesetting
see also :
initex - mf
Synopsis
tex
[options] [&format]
[file|\commands]
add an example, a script, a trick and tips
examples
source
pdflatex constitution.tex
htlatex constitution.tex
source
pdflatex driver.tex
pdflatex driver.tex
source
pdflatex paper.tex
pdflatex paper.tex
source
pdflatex book.tex
pdflatex book.tex
source
tex:
cd text ; \
pdflatex thesis.tex
source
updating TeX on linux
Debian still ships TeXLive 2009, which is now pretty quickly
getting pretty ancient. As far as I know, there is no package
(neither official nor unofficial) of TeXLive 2010. You have
pretty much three options:
-
You can install your own version of TeXLive 2010 in the
/usr/local/ tree. Download it from tug, and
follow the Unix installation instruction on that page. That
will give you a complete current version of TeXLive. You will
then be able to use tlmgr to keep your
installation up to date. If you choose that path, make sure
that the path to the new binaries is in your
$PATH, and also in the roots $PATH,
in order for maintainance binaries such as
texhash and tlmgr to work.
-
You can keep your current TeXLive, and just install the new
versions of the packages you need in your local
texmf tree. The local texmf tree on
Debian based distributions is in
/usr/local/share/texmf. If you don't have that
directory, create it (as root, you will need to use
sudo), download the packages from CTAN, and install
them in there. You will need to run texhash as
root to refresh TeX's file database, otherwise TeX will not
find the new packages. The actual installation procedure will
differ from package to package. If you can find a "tds
compliant" zip file, you can just unzip it in
/usr/local/share/texmf, run texhash
as root and you will be done. If not, your best bet is to
follow instruction in the README file that came with the
package, or look at the package documentation if it contains
some installation instructions.
-
If you are the only one using TeX on that computer, you can
also install the packages in your personal texmf
tree, which on Debian is, I believe, in ~/texmf.
The procedure for installing is pretty much the same as when
installing in the local texmf tree, except that you don't
have to be the root, and you don't have to run
texhash after installation.
If you post the list of individual packages, someone may be able
to give you more details.
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 better 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 described in
The TeX for nroffbook. TeX is normally used with a
large body of precompiled 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 identical to the
plain format. The commands defined by the
plain format are documented in The TeX for
nroffbook. Other formats that are often available
include 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 TeX for nroffbook, 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) appended, 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 variable 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.
-enc
Enable the encTeX extensions. This option is only
effective in combination with -ini. For documentation
of the encTeX extensions 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 processing.
-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 basic 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 security 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
setting.
-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 expanded, 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 TEXMFOUTPUT 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
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.
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 TeX for nroffbook.
notes
This manual page is not meant to be exhaustive. The complete
documentation for this version of TeX can be found in the info
manual Web2C: A TeX implementation.
trivia
TeX, pronounced properly, rhymes with ’’blecchhh.’’ The proper
spelling in typewriter-like fonts is ’’TeX’’ and not ’’TEX’’ or
’’tex.’’
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 banner 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 ,
Donald E. Knuth, The TeX for nroffbook,
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,
ftp://ftp.cs.umb.edu/pub/tex/eplain/doc.
Michael Spivak, The Joy of TeX for nroff, 2nd
edition, Addison-Wesley, 1990, ISBN 0-8218-2997-1.
TUGboat (the journal of the TeX Users Group).
authors
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.