1ALEPH(1)                    General Commands Manual                   ALEPH(1)
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NAME

6       aleph - extended Unicode TeX
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SYNOPSIS

9       aleph [options] [&format] [file|\commands]
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DESCRIPTION

12       Run  the  Aleph  typesetter on file, usually creating file.dvi.  If the
13       file argument has no extension, ".tex" will be appended to it.  Instead
14       of a filename, a set of Aleph commands can be given, the first of which
15       must start with a backslash.  With a &format argument Aleph uses a dif‐
16       ferent set of precompiled commands, contained in format.fmt; it is usu‐
17       ally better to use the -fmt format option instead.
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19       Aleph is a version of the TeX program modified for  multilingual  type‐
20       setting.   It  uses  Unicode,  and has additional primitives for (among
21       other things) bidirectional typesetting.
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23       Aleph's command line options are similar to those of TeX.
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25       Aleph is no longer being actively developed; see LuaTeX for current ac‐
26       tivity.
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OPTIONS

29       Run  aleph  --help to see the complete list of options; this is not ex‐
30       haustive.
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32       -cnf-line string
33              Parse string as a texmf.cnf configuration line.  See the  Kpath‐
34              sea manual.
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36       --fmt format
37              Use  format as the name of the format to be used, instead of the
38              name by which Aleph was called or a %& line.
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40       --halt-on-error
41              Exit with an error code when an error is encountered during pro‐
42              cessing.
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44       --help Print help message and exit.
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46       --ini  Be  `initial' Aleph for dumping formats; this is implicitly true
47              if the program is called as inialeph.
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49       --interaction mode
50              Sets the interaction mode.  The mode can be  one  of  batchmode,
51              nonstopmode,  scrollmode,  and  errorstopmode.   The  meaning of
52              these modes is the same as that of the corresponding \commands.
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54       --ipc  Send DVI output to a socket as well as the  usual  output  file.
55              Whether this option is available is the choice of the installer.
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57       --ipc-start
58              As  --ipc,  and  starts  the  server  at  the other end as well.
59              Whether this option is available is the choice of the installer.
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61       --kpathsea-debug bitmask
62              Sets path searching debugging flags according  to  the  bitmask.
63              See the Kpathsea manual for details.
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65       --maketex fmt
66              Enable mktexfmt, where fmt must be one of tex or tfm.
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68       --no-maketex fmt
69              Disable mktexfmt, where fmt must be one of tex or tfm.
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71       --output-comment string
72              Use string for the DVI file comment instead of the date.
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74       --output-directory directory
75              Write  output  files  in directory instead of the current direc‐
76              tory.  Look up input files in directory  first,  the  along  the
77              normal search path.
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79       --parse-first-line
80              If the first line of the main input file begins with %& parse it
81              to look for a dump name.
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83       --progname name
84              Pretend to be program name.  This affects both the  format  used
85              and the search paths.
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87       --recorder
88              Enable  the filename recorder.  This leaves a trace of the files
89              opened for input and output  in  a  file  with  extension  .ofl.
90              (This option is always on.)
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92       --shell-escape
93              Enable  the \write18{command} construct.  The command can be any
94              Bourne shell command.  By default, this construct is enabled  in
95              a restricted mode, for security reasons.
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97       --version
98              Print version information and exit.
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ENVIRONMENT

101       See  the  Kpathsearch  library documentation (the `Path specifications'
102       node) for precise details of how the environment  variables  are  used.
103       The kpsewhich utility can be used to query the values of the variables.
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105       One  caveat:  In most Aleph formats, you cannot use ~ in a filename you
106       give directly to Aleph, because ~ is an active character, and hence  is
107       expanded,  not  taken as part of the filename.  Other programs, such as
108       Metafont, do not have this problem.
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110       TEXMFOUTPUT
111              Normally, Aleph puts its output files in the current  directory.
112              If  any  output file cannot be opened there, it tries to open it
113              in the directory specified in the environment variable TEXMFOUT‐
114              PUT.  There is no default value for that variable.  For example,
115              if you say tex paper and the current directory is not  writable,
116              if  TEXMFOUTPUT  has  the  value  /tmp, Aleph attempts to create
117              /tmp/paper.log (and /tmp/paper.dvi, if any output is  produced.)
118              TEXMFOUTPUT is also checked for input files, as TeX often gener‐
119              ates files that need to be subsequently read; for input, no suf‐
120              fixes (such as ``.tex'') are added by default, the input name is
121              simply checked as given.
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123       TEXINPUTS
124              Search path for \input and \openin  files.   This  should  start
125              with  ``.'',  so  that user files are found before system files.
126              An empty path component will be replaced with the paths  defined
127              in   the   texmf.cnf   file.   For  example,  set  TEXINPUTS  to
128              ".:/home/user/tex:"  to  prepend  the  current   directory   and
129              ``/home/user/tex'' to the standard search path.
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131       TEXEDIT
132              Command  template for switching to editor.  The default, usually
133              vi, is set when Aleph is compiled.
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NOTES

136       This manual page is not meant to be exhaustive.  The complete  documen‐
137       tation for this version of Aleph can be found in the info manual Web2C:
138       A TeX implementation.  See http://tug/org/web2c.
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BUGS

141       This version of Aleph implements a number of optional  extensions.   In
142       fact,  many  of these extensions conflict to a greater or lesser extent
143       with the definition of Aleph.  When such extensions  are  enabled,  the
144       banner  printed when Aleph starts is changed to print Alephk instead of
145       Aleph.
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147       This version of Aleph fails to trap arithmetic overflow when dimensions
148       are added or subtracted.  Cases where this occurs are rare, but when it
149       does the generated DVI file will be invalid.
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SEE ALSO

152       tex(1), mf(1)
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AUTHORS

155       The primary authors of Aleph are John Plaice and Yannis Haralambous.
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159Web2C 2023                       6 August 2019                        ALEPH(1)
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