1MPOST(1)                          Web2C 7.5.6                         MPOST(1)
2
3
4

NAME

6       mpost, inimpost, virmpost - MetaPost, a system for drawing pictures
7

SYNOPSIS

9       mpost [options] [commands]
10

DESCRIPTION

12       MetaPost  interprets the MetaPost language and produces PostScript pic‐
13       tures.  The MetaPost language is similar to Knuth's Metafont with addi‐
14       tional features for including tex(1) or troff(1) commands and accessing
15       features of PostScript not found in Metafont.
16
17       Like TeX and Metafont, MetaPost is normally used with a large  body  of
18       precompiled macros.  This version of MetaPost looks at its command line
19       to see what name it was called under.  Both inimpost and  virmpost  are
20       symlinks to the mpost executable.  When called as inimpost (or when the
21       -ini option is given) it can be used to precompile macros into  a  .mem
22       file.   When called as virmpost it will use the plain mem.  When called
23       under any other name, MetaPost will use that name as the  name  of  the
24       mem  to use.   For example, when called as mpost the mpost mem is used,
25       which is identical to the plain mem.  Other mems than plain are  rarely
26       used.
27
28       The  commands  given  on  the  command line to the MetaPost program are
29       passed to it as the first input line.  (But it is often easier to  type
30       extended  arguments  as the first input line, since UNIX shells tend to
31       gobble up or misinterpret MetaPost's favorite symbols, like semicolons,
32       unless you quote them.)  The first line should begin with a filename, a
33       \controlsequence, or a &memname.
34
35       The normal usage is to say mpost figs to process the file figs.mp.  The
36       basename of figs becomes the ``jobname'', and is used in forming output
37       file names.  If no file is  named,  the  jobname  becomes  mpout.   The
38       default  extension,  .mp,  can be overridden by specifying an extension
39       explicitly.
40
41       There is normally one output file for each picture generated,  and  the
42       output files are named jobname.nnn, where nnn is a number passed to the
43       beginfig macro.  The output file name can also be  jobname.ps  if  this
44       number is negative.
45
46       The output files can be used as figures in a TeX document by including
47                            \special{psfile=jobname.nnn}
48       in  the  TeX document.  Alternatively, one can \input epsf.tex and then
49       use the macro
50                                \epsfbox{jobname.nnn}
51       to produce a box of the appropriate size containing the figure.
52
53       btex TeX commands etex
54              This causes mpost to generate a MetaPost picture expression that
55              corresponds  to  the TeX commands.  If the TeX commands generate
56              more than one line of text, it must be in a \vbox or a  minipage
57              environment.
58
59       verbatimtex TeX commands etex
60              This is ignored by mpost except that the TeX commands are passed
61              on to TeX.  When using LaTeX instead of TeX the input file  must
62              start with a verbatimtex block that gives the \documentstyle and
63              \begin{document} commands.  You can use the  `%&'  construct  in
64              the  first verbatimtex block to ensure that the correct TeX for‐
65              mat is used to process the commands.
66
67       Since most TeX fonts have to be downloaded as bitmaps, the btex feature
68       works best when the output of mpost is to be included in a TeX document
69       so that dvips(1) can download the fonts.  For self-contained PostScript
70       output that can be used directly or included in a troff document, start
71       your MetaPost input file with the command  prologues:=1  and  stick  to
72       standard PostScript fonts.  TeX and MetaPost use the names in the third
73       column of the file trfonts.map, which can be found in  the  directories
74       with support files for MetaPost.
75
76       MetaPost output can be included in a troff document via the -m pictures
77       macro package.  In this case mpost should be invoked with the  -T  flag
78       so  that  the commands between btex and etex or between verbatimtex and
79       etex are interpreted as troff instead of TeX.  (This automatically sets
80       prologues:=1 ).
81

OPTIONS

83       This  version  of  MetaPost  understands  the  following  command  line
84       options.
85
86       -file-line-error
87              Print error messages in the form file:line:error which is  simi‐
88              lar to the way many compilers format them.
89
90       -no-file-line-error
91              Disable printing error messages in the file:line:error style.
92
93       -file-line-error-style
94              This is the old name of the -file-line-error option.
95
96       -halt-on-error
97              Exit with an error code when an error is encountered during pro‐
98              cessing.
99
100       -help  Print help message and exit.
101
102       -ini   Be inimpost, for dumping bases; this is implicitly true  if  the
103              program is called as inimpost.
104
105       -interaction mode
106              Sets  the  interaction  mode.  The mode can be one of batchmode,
107              nonstopmode, scrollmode,  and  errorstopmode.   The  meaning  of
108              these modes is the same as that of the corresponding commands.
109
110       -jobname name
111              Use  name for the job name, instead of deriving it from the name
112              of the input file.
113
114       -kpathsea-debug bitmask
115              Sets path searching debugging flags according  to  the  bitmask.
116              See the Kpathsea manual for details.
117
118       -mem mem
119              Use  mem  as the name of the mem to be used, instead of the name
120              by which MetaPost was called or a %& line.
121
122       -output-directory directory
123              directory instead of the current directory.  Look up input files
124              in directory first, the along the normal search path.
125
126       -parse-first-line
127              If the first line of the main input file begins with %& parse it
128              to look for a dump name or a -translate-file option.
129
130       -no-parse-first-line
131              Disable parsing of the first line of the main input file.
132
133       -progname name
134              Pretend to be program name.  This affects both the  format  used
135              and the search paths.
136
137       -recorder
138              Enable  the filename recorder.  This leaves a trace of the files
139              opened for input and output in a file with extension .fls.
140
141       -T     Produce TROFF output.
142
143       -translate-file tcxname
144              Use the tcxname translation table.
145
146       -troff As -T.
147
148       -version
149              Print version information and exit.
150

ENVIRONMENT

152       See the Kpathsearch library documentation  (the  `Path  specifications'
153       node)  for  the  details  of how the environment variables are use when
154       searching.  The kpsewhich utility can be used to query  the  values  of
155       the variables.
156
157       If  the  environment  variable TEXMFOUTPUT is set, MetaPost attempts to
158       put its output files in it, if they cannot be put in the current direc‐
159       tory.
160
161       Here  is  a  list  of  the environment variables affect the behavior of
162       mpost:
163
164
165       MPINPUTS
166              Search path for input files.
167
168       MFINPUTS
169              Auxiliary search path for input  files  with  .mf  exten‐
170              sions.
171
172       MPSUPPORT
173              Directory  for  various  tables for handling included tex
174              and troff.
175
176       MPXCOMMAND
177              The name of a shell script that converts  embedded  type‐
178              setting  commands  to  a  form that MetaPost understands.
179              Defaults: makempx for tex and troffmpx for troff.
180
181       TEX    The version of TeX - or LaTeX - to  use  when  processing
182              btex  and  verbatimtex commands.  Default tex.  This ver‐
183              sion of MetaPost allows you  to  use  a  `%&format'  line
184              instead.
185
186       TROFF  The  troff  pipeline  for  btex and verbatimtex commands.
187              Default eqn -d\$\$ | troff
188
189       MPEDIT A command template for invoking an editor.
190
191       A .mem file is a binary file that permits fast loading of  macro
192       packages.  mpost reads the default plain.mem unless another .mem
193       file is specified at the start of the first line with an &  just
194       before  it.   There  is also an mfplain.mem that simulates plain
195       Metafont so that mpost can read .mf fonts.  (Plain  Metafont  is
196       described in The Metafontbook).
197
198       Experts  can  create  .mem files be invoking inimpost and giving
199       macro definitions followed by a dump command.
200
201       The MetaPost language is similar to Metafont, but the  manual  A
202       User's  Manual  for  MetaPost  assumes no knowledge of Metafont.
203       MetaPost does not have  bitmap  output  commands  or  Metafont's
204       online display mechanism.
205

FILES

207       mpost.pool
208              Encoded text of MetaPost's messages.
209
210       *.mem  Predigested MetaPost mem files.
211
212       plain.mp
213              The standard mem file.
214
215       mfplain.mp
216              The  Metafont-compatible  mem  file.  This is loaded when
217              virmp is invoked via a symbolic link as mfmp.
218
219       $TEXMFMAIN/metapost/base/*.mp
220              The standard MetaPost macros  included  in  the  original
221              distribution.
222
223       $TEXMFMAIN/metapost/support/*
224              Various tables for handling included tex and troff.
225
226       $TEXMFMAIN/metapost/support/trfonts.map
227              Table  of  corresponding  font  names for troff and Post‐
228              Script.
229
230       psfonts.map
231              Table of corresponding font names for tex and PostScript.
232
233       $TEXMFMAIN/doc/metapost/examples.mp
234              The source file for a few sample figures that are part of
235              a LaTeX document $TEXMFMAIN/doc/metapost/mpintro.tex that
236              describes the MetaPost system in a little more detail.
237

NOTES

239       This manual page is not meant to be  exhaustive.   The  complete
240       documentation  for  this version of MetaPost can be found in the
241       info manual Web2C: A TeX implementation.   See  also  mpman.pdf,
242       the  manual written by John Hobby (it lives in the documentation
243       directory).
244
245       MetaPost is the native graphics language for ConTeXt, a typeset‐
246       ting system built on top of the TeX family.  See texexec(1).
247

SUGGESTED READING

249       Donald  E.  Knuth,  The  Metafontbook (Volume C of Computers and
250       Typesetting), Addison-Wesley, 1986, ISBN 0-201-13445-4.
251       John D. Hobby, A User's Manual for MetaPost, CSTR 162, AT&T Bell
252       Labs,
253       John D. Hobby, Drawing Graphs with MetaPost, CSTR 164, AT&T Bell
254       Labs,
255       TUGboat (the journal of the TeX Users Group).
256

SEE ALSO

258       dvips(1), dvitomp(1), epstopdf(1), mf(1),  mpto(1),  mptopdf(1),
259       pdftex(1), tex(1), texexec(1).
260

AUTHORS

262       MetaPost was designed by John D. Hobby, incorporating algorithms
263       from Metafont by Donald E. Knuth.  It was originally implemented
264       on  Unix,  incorporating  system-dependent  routines from web2c,
265       while not relying on it except for the actual Web-to-C  transla‐
266       tor.
267
268       Ulrik  Vieth  adapted MetaPost to take advantage of the advanced
269       path searching features in more recent  versions  of  web2c  and
270       worked  towards  fully  integrating  MetaPost into the canonical
271       Unix TeX distribution.  He also updated and extended this manual
272       page.
273
274       The current maintainer of MetaPost is Taco Hoekwater.
275

TRIVIA

277       Unlike  TeX  and  Metafont,  MetaPost  originally didn't use any
278       fancy logo.  John Hobby says he  prefers  the  spelling  ``Meta‐
279       Post'',  yet  Don Knuth has updated the Metafont logo.mf font to
280       be able to typeset a proper MetaPost logo similar to  the  Meta‐
281       font  logo.   Feel free to use whatever you think is more appro‐
282       priate!
283
284
285
286MetaPost 0.993                  7 January 2007                        MPOST(1)
Impressum