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ALEPH(1)                               General Commands Manual                              ALEPH(1)



NAME
       aleph - extended Unicode TeX

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

DESCRIPTION
       Run the Aleph typesetter on file, usually creating file.dvi.  If the file argument has no ex‐
       tension, ".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 format option instead.

       Aleph  is  a  version of the TeX program modified for multilingual typesetting.  It uses Uni‐
       code, 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.

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

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

       --fmt format
              Use format as 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 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.

       --kpathsea-debug bitmask
              Sets path searching debugging flags according to the bitmask.  See the Kpathsea manual
              for details.

       --maketex fmt
              Enable mktexfmt, where fmt must be one of tex or tfm.

       --no-maketex fmt
              Disable mktexfmt, where fmt must be one of 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.

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

       --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 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 Metafont, 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 environ‐
              ment 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, 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 \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 directory 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.

NOTES
       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.

BUGS
       This version of Aleph implements a number of optional extensions.  In fact, many of these ex‐
       tensions conflict to a greater or lesser extent with the definition of Aleph.  When such  ex‐
       tensions 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  sub‐
       tracted.   Cases  where this occurs are rare, but when it does the generated DVI file will be
       invalid.

SEE ALSO
       tex(1), mf(1)

AUTHORS
       The primary authors of Aleph are John Plaice and Yannis Haralambous.



Web2C 2022/dev                              6 August 2019                                   ALEPH(1)