1MPOST(1) General Commands Manual MPOST(1)
2
6 mpost - MetaPost, a system for creating graphics
7
9 mpost [options] [commands]
10 mpost --dvitomp dvifile[.dvi] [mpxfile[.mpx]]
12
15 MetaPost interprets the MetaPost language and produces PostScript (EPS)
16 or Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) pictures. The MetaPost language is
17 similar to Knuth's Metafont with additional features for including
18 tex(1) or troff(1) commands and accessing features of PostScript not
19 found in Metafont.
20 MetaPost is normally used with some preloaded macros, and it will use
22 its executable name as the name of the preload file to use. For exam‐
23 ple, when called as mpost the mpost.mp file is used, which is identical
24 to plain.mp. When the --ini option is given, preloading does not hap‐
25 pen.
26 The commands given on the command line to the MetaPost program are
28 passed to it as the first input line. (But it is often easier to type
29 extended arguments as the first input line, since UNIX shells tend to
30 gobble up or misinterpret MetaPost's favorite symbols, like semicolons,
31 unless you quote them.) The normal usage is to say mpost figs to
32 process the file figs.mp. The basename of figs becomes the ``job‐
33 name'', and is used in forming output file names. If no file is named,
34 the jobname becomes mpout. The default extension, .mp, can be overrid‐
35 den by specifying an extension explicitly.
36 When the --dvitomp option is given, MetaPost acts as DVI-to-MPX con‐
38 verter only. See dvitomp (1) for details.
39 This manual page is not meant to be exhaustive. The complete documen‐
41 tation for this version of MetaPost can be found in the User Manual
42 that should have been installed along with the program and is also
43 available from http://tug.org/metapost. See the FILES section below.
44 The MetaPost language is similar to Metafont, but the manual assumes no
46 knowledge of Metafont. MetaPost does not have bitmap output commands
47 or Metafont's online display mechanism.
48
51 plain.mp
52 The standard preload file.
53 mfplain.mp
55 The Metafont-compatible preload file.
56 $TEXMFMAIN/metapost/base/*.mp
58 The standard MetaPost macros included in the original distribu‐
59 tion.
60 $TEXMFMAIN/metapost/support/*
62 Various tables for handling included tex and troff.
63 $TEXMFMAIN/metapost/support/trfonts.map
65 Table of corresponding font names for troff and PostScript.
66 psfonts.map
68 Table of corresponding font names for tex and PostScript.
69 $TEXMFMAIN/doc/metapost/*
71 The MetaPost manual and tutorial source, also including sample
72 figures
73
75 Donald E. Knuth, The Metafontbook (Volume C of Computers and Typeset‐
76 ting), Addison-Wesley, 1986, ISBN 0-201-13445-4.
77 TUGboat (the journal of the TeX Users Group).
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80 dvitomp(1), epstopdf(1), mf(1), mptopdf(1), tex(1),
81 MetaPost source code ⟨http://foundry.supelec.fr/gf/project/metapost/⟩.
83 MetaPost home page ⟨http://tug.org/metapost/⟩.
84
86 MetaPost was designed by John D. Hobby, incorporating algorithms from
87 Metafont by Donald E. Knuth. It was originally implemented on Unix,
88 incorporating system-dependent routines from web2c, while not relying
89 on it except for the actual Web-to-C translator.
90 The primary author of the current MetaPost was Taco Hoekwater, with
92 assistance from Hans Hagen and many others. It is currently maintained
93 by Luigi Scarso.
94 Ulrik Vieth adapted MetaPost to take advantage of the advanced path
96 searching features in more recent versions of web2c and worked towards
97 fully integrating MetaPost into the canonical Unix TeX distribution.
98
100 The MetaPost home page is http://tug.org/metapost.
101Web2C 2018 16 June 2015 MPOST(1)