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TLDR: pdftex (tldr-pages)

Compile a PDF document from TeX source files.

  • Compile a PDF document
    pdftex {{source.tex}}
  • Compile a PDF document, specifying an output directory
    pdftex -output-directory={{path/to/directory}} {{source.tex}}
  • Compile a PDF document, exiting on each error
    pdftex -halt-on-error {{source.tex}}
PDFTEX(1)                              General Commands Manual                             PDFTEX(1)



NAME
       pdftex - PDF output from TeX

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

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

       pdfTeX  is  a version of TeX, with the e-TeX extensions, that can create PDF files as well as
       DVI files.

       In DVI mode, pdfTeX can be used as a complete replacement for the TeX engine.

       The typical use of pdfTeX is with a pregenerated formats for which PDF output  has  been  en‐
       abled.  The pdftex command uses the equivalent of the plain TeX format, and the pdflatex com‐
       mand uses the equivalent of the LaTeX format.  To generate formats, use the -ini switch.

       The pdfinitex and pdfvirtex commands are pdfTeX's analogues to the  initex  and  virtex  com‐
       mands.   In this installation, if the links exist, they are symbolic links to the pdftex exe‐
       cutable.

       In PDF mode, pdfTeX can natively handle the PDF, JPG, JBIG2, and PNG graphics formats.   pdf‐
       TeX  cannot include PostScript or Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) graphics files; first convert
       them to PDF using epstopdf(1).  pdfTeX's handling of its command-line arguments is similar to
       that of of the other TeX programs in the web2c implementation.

       Starting  with  version 1.40, pdfTeX incorporates the e-TeX extensions, and pdfeTeX is just a
       copy of pdfTeX.  See etex(1).

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

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

       -draftmode
              Sets \pdfdraftmode so pdfTeX doesn't write a PDF and doesn't read any included images,
              thus speeding up execution.

       -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.
              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.

       -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  pdfTeX
              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 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 or PDF output to a socket as well as the usual output file.  Whether this op‐
              tion 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
              In DVI mode, use string for the DVI file comment instead of the date. This  option  is
              ignored in PDF mode.

       -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.

       -output-format format
              Set the output format mode, where format must be either pdf or dvi.  This also  influ‐
              ences the set of graphics formats understood by pdfTeX.

       -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.

       -shell-restricted
              Enable restricted \write18{}, as explained in the ``Shell  escapes''  section  of  the
              Web2c Texinfo manual.

       -src-specials
              In  DVI  mode, insert source specials into the DVI file. This option is ignored in PDF
              mode.

       -src-specials where
              In DVI mode, insert source specials in certain places of the DVI file. The where argu‐
              ment  is  a comma-separated value list: cr, display, hbox, math, par, parent, or vbox.
              This option is ignored in PDF mode.

       -synctex NUMBER
              generate SyncTeX data for previewers according to bits of NUMBER. See the synctex man‐
              ual page for details.

       -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.

       -8bit  make all characters printable by default.

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 pdfTeX formats, you cannot use ~ in a filename you give directly to  pdf‐
       TeX, because ~ is an active character in TeX, and hence is expanded, not taken as part of the
       filename. Other programs, such as Metafont, do not have this problem.

       TEXMFOUTPUT
              Normally, pdfTeX 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 pdftex paper and the current directory is not writable and TEXMFOUTPUT has
              the value /tmp, pdfTeX attempts to create /tmp/paper.log (and /tmp/paper.pdf,  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.

       TEXEDIT
              Command template for switching to editor.  The default, usually vi, is set when pdfTeX
              is compiled.

       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  timestamps  in
              the  PDF output, such as the CreationDate and ModDate keys.  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.
              pdfTeX also has several primitives to support reproducible builds, which  are  prefer‐
              able to setting these environment variables; see the main manual.

       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.

       pdftex.map
              Font name mapping definitions.

       *.tfm  Metric files for pdfTeX's fonts.

       *.fmt  Predigested pdfTeX format (.fmt) files.

NOTES
BUGS
       This  version  of  pdfTeX 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  or  PDF  file
       will be invalid.

AVAILABILITY
       pdfTeX is available for a large variety of machine architectures and operating systems.  pdf‐
       TeX is part of all major TeX distributions.
       The pdfTeX home page: http://www.pdftex.org.
       pdfTeX on CTAN: https://ctan.org/pkg/pdftex.
       pdfTeX mailing list for all discussion: https://lists.tug.org/pdftex.

SEE ALSO
       This manual page is not meant to be exhaustive.  The complete documentation for this  version
       of  pdfTeX  can  be found in the pdfTeX user manual and the Texinfo manuals Kpathsea library,
       Web2C: A TeX implementation.  These manuals, and more, can be accessed  from  the  pdfTeX  or
       CTAN web pages given above.

       Some related programs: epstopdf(1), etex(1), latex(1), luatex(1), mptopdf(1), tex(1), mf(1).

AUTHORS
       The  primary authors of pdfTeX are Han The Thanh, Petr Sojka, Jiri Zlatuska, and Peter Breit‐
       enlohner (eTeX).

       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 2022/dev                              6 August 2019                                  PDFTEX(1)
pdftex(1)
NAME SYNOPSIS DESCRIPTION OPTIONS
-cnf-line string -draftmode -enc Enable the encTeX extensions. This option is only effective in combination with -ini. -etex Enable the e-TeX extensions. This option is only effective in combination with -ini. -file-line-error -no-file-line-error -file-line-error-style -fmt format -halt-on-error -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‐ -interaction mode -ipc Send DVI or PDF output to a socket as well as the usual output file. Whether this op‐ -ipc-start -jobname name -kpathsea-debug bitmask -mktex fmt -mltex Enable MLTeX extensions. Only effective in combination with -ini. -no-mktex fmt -output-comment string -output-directory directory -output-format format -parse-first-line -no-parse-first-line -progname name -recorder -shell-escape -no-shell-escape -shell-restricted -src-specials -src-specials where -synctex NUMBER -translate-file tcxname -default-translate-file tcxname -version -8bit make all characters printable by default.
ENVIRONMENT FILES NOTES BUGS AVAILABILITY SEE ALSO AUTHORS

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