man > HITEX(1)

HITEX(1)                               General Commands Manual                              HITEX(1)

NAME
       hitex - HINT output from TeX

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

DESCRIPTION
       Run the HiTeX typesetter on file, usually creating file.hnt.  If the file argument has no ex‐
       tension,  ".tex" will be appended to it.  Instead of a file name, a set of HiTeX commands can
       be given, the first of which must start with a backslash.  With a &format argument HiTeX uses
       a different set of precompiled commands, contained in format.fmt; it is usually better to use
       the -fmt format option instead.

       HiTeX is a version of TeX that creates HINT files. The HINT file format is designed  for  on-
       screen reading of documents. Using a HINT viewer (see https://hint.userweb.mwn.de) to display
       a HINT file its content will dynamically adapt to the available display area.

       The  typical  use of HiTeX is with pre generated formats.  The hitex command uses the equiva‐
       lent of the plain TeX format, and the hilatex command uses the equivalent of the  LaTeX  for‐
       mat.  To generate formats, use the -ini switch.

       HiTeX's  handling  of  its command-line arguments is similar to that of of the other TeX pro‐
       grams in the web2c implementation.

       HiTeX incorporates the e-TeX extensions (see etex(1)) if used with the -etex switch.

       HiTeX incorporates the extensions needed for LaTeX (see  latex(1))  if  used  with  the  -ltx
       switch.

OPTIONS
       This version of HiTeX understands the following command line options.

       -cnf-line string
              Parse string as a texmf.cnf configuration line.  See the Kpathsea manual.

       -compress
              Enable  the use of compression for the HINT file. Compressed files are smaller but re‐
              quire decompression when viewing. Use only for large files if the file size matters.

       -empty-page
              When writing books, often empty pages are inserted - for example to begin chapters  on
              a  right  hand side page. These empty pages are a nuisance for on-screen reading where
              there are no left or right hand side pages. This option keeps empty pages in the  out‐
              put.

       -no-empty-page
              This option tries to eliminate empty pages in the output. It is set as a default.

       -etex  Enable  the e-TeX extensions.  This option is only effective in combination with -ini.
              See etex(1).

       -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.

       -fmt format
              Use format as the name of the format to be used, instead of the name  by  which  HiTeX
              was called or a %& line.

       -help  Print help message and exit.

       -hint-debug bitmask
              Sets HINT file debugging flags according to the bitmask.  See the -hint-debug-help op‐
              tion for details.

       -hint-debug-help
              Print an explanation of the HINT debugging flags and exit.

       -hyphenate-first-word
              TeX  will  usually  not  attempt to insert hyphenation points into the first word of a
              paragraph. If a HINT file must be displayed on a very small  device  such  hyphenation
              points might prove necessary. This option is set by default and enables the generation
              of these hyphenation points.

       -no-hyphenate-first-word
              Disable  the  automatic  insertion  of hyphenation points in the first word of a para‐
              graph. Needed only if complete compatibility with TeX is required.

       -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.

       -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.

       -ltx   Enable  the LaTeX extensions.  This option is only effective in combination with -ini.
              See latex(1).

       -mfmode mode
              Use mode as the Metafont mode when generating missing fonts. See mf(1) for details.

       -mktex fmt
              Enable mktexfmt, where fmt must be either tex, tfm, fmt, or pk.

       -no-mktex fmt
              Disable mktexfmt, where fmt must be either tex, tfm, fmt, or pk.

       -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.

       -parse-first-line
              If the first line of the main input file begins with %& parse it to look  for  a  dump
              name.

       -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.

       -resolution number
              When using Metafont to generate missing pk fonts, use a resolution of number DPI.  See
              mf(1) for details.

       -version
              Print version information and exit.

ENVIRONMENT
       See the Kpathsea library documentation (e.g., 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 HiTeX formats, you cannot use ~ in a file name you give directly  to  Hi‐
       TeX, because ~ is an active character in TeX, and hence is expanded, not taken as part of the
       file name. Other programs, such as Metafont, do not have this problem.

       TEXMFOUTPUT
              Normally,  HiTeX  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 hitex paper and the current directory is not writable and  TEXMFOUTPUT  has
              the  value  /tmp,  HiTeX attempts to create /tmp/paper.log (and /tmp/paper.hnt, 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 normally starts 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.

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

       SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH
              If  set,  its  value, taken to be in epoch-seconds, will be used for the creation date
              and as the reference moment for the time related primitives of LaTeX. This  is  useful
              for making reproducible builds.

       FORCE_SOURCE_DATE
              If  set to the value "1", the time-related TeX primitives (\year, \month, \day, \time)
              are also initialized from the value of SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH.  This is not recommended  if
              there is any viable alternative.

       Many,  many  more  environment variables may be consulted related to path searching.  See the
       Kpathsea manual.

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

       *.tfm  Metric files for HiTeX's fonts.

       *.fmt  Predigested HiTeX format files.

       *.pk *.pfb
              Font files used by HiTeX.

NOTES
       This  manual page is not meant to be exhaustive.  The complete documentation for HiTeX can be
       found in the HiTeX user manual Further information can be found in the  manual of the  Kpath‐
       sea  library  and in HINT: The file format which is available as a book or in electronic form
       from the HINT project home page at https://hint.userweb.mwn.de.

BUGS
       This version of HiTeX fails to handle correctly glues and kerns with a width that depends  on
       \hsize  or  \vsize.  Similarly, when the layout of table entries or mathematical formulas de‐
       pends on \hsize or \vsize their output might be distorted.

AVAILABILITY
       HiTeX should compile on a large variety of machine architectures and operating systems.   Hi‐
       TeX is part of the TeX Live distribution.

       The  HiTeX  home page is at https://hint.userweb.mwn.de.  There you find additional software,
       most importantly viewers for HINT files, and further information.

SEE ALSO
       histretch(1), hishrink(1), latex(1), tex(1), kpsewhich(1),

AUTHORS
       The primary author of HiTeX is Martin Ruckert, with eTeX extensions by  Peter  Breitenlohner,
       LaTeX extensions by Thierry Laronde, and the kpathsearch library by Karl Berry.

       TeX  was designed by Donald E. Knuth, who implemented it using his Web system for Pascal pro‐
       grams.

       Many, many more contributed to the typesetting system now known as TeX; far too many to  name
       all of them here.

Version 1.0                               11 November 2021                                  HITEX(1)