man > ETEX(1)

ETEX(1)                                General Commands Manual                               ETEX(1)

NAME
       etex - extended (plain) TeX

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

DESCRIPTION
       Run  the e-TeX typesetter on file, by default creating file.dvi.  If the file argument has no
       extension, ".tex" will be appended to it.  Instead of a filename, a set of e-TeX commands can
       be given, the first of which must start with a backslash.  With a &format argument e-TeX uses
       a different set of precompiled commands, contained in format.fmt; it is usually better to use
       the -fmt format option instead.

       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  com‐
       pletely  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 (*).

       e-TeX's  handling  of its command-line arguments is similar to that of the other TeX programs
       in the web2c implementation.

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

       -fmt 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.

       -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.

       -etex  Enable the e-TeX extensions.  This option is only effective in combination with -ini.

       -file-line-error
              Print error messages in the form file:line:error which is similar to the way many com‐
              pilers 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.

       -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 type‐
              setting, 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 correspond‐
              ing \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, 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 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 placed 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-map‐
              ping 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 de‐
       tails 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-TeX formats, you cannot use ~ in a filename you give directly to e-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, e-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 environ‐
              ment variable TEXMFOUTPUT.  There is no default value for that variable.  For example,
              if  you  say  etex 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.)  TEXMFOUTPUT is also checked for input files, as TeX often gener‐
              ates  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 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  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 vi, is set when  e-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.

       etex.pool
              Text file containing e-TeX's internal strings.

       texfonts.map
              Filename mapping definitions.

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

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

NOTES
       Starting with version 1.40, pdfTeX incorporates the e-TeX extensions, so in this installation
       eTeX may be just a symbolic link to pdfTeX.  See pdftex(1).  This manual page is not meant to
       be exhaustive.  The complete documentation for this version of e-TeX can be found in the info
       manual Web2C: A TeX implementation.

BUGS
       This version of e-TeX implements a number of optional extensions.  In fact, many of these ex‐
       tensions conflict to a greater or lesser extent with the definition of e-TeX.  When such  ex‐
       tensions are enabled, the banner printed when e-TeX starts is changed to print e-TeXk instead
       of e-TeX.

       This  version  of  e-TeX  fails to trap arithmetic overflow when dimensions are added or sub‐
       tracted.  Cases where this occurs are rare, but when it does the generated DVI file  will  be
       invalid.

SEE ALSO
       pdftex(1), tex(1), mf(1).

AUTHORS
       e-TeX was developed by Peter Breitenlohner and the NTS team; Peter later continued its devel‐
       opment outside of the team.

       TeX  was designed by Donald E. Knuth, who implemented it using his Web system for Pascal pro‐
       grams.  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 sys‐
       tem (web2c), originally written by Tomas Rokicki and Tim Morgan.

       The encTeX extensions were written by Petr Olsak.

Web2C 2015                                  1 March 2011                                     ETEX(1)