1ALEPH(1) General Commands Manual ALEPH(1)
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6 aleph - extended Unicode TeX
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9 aleph [options] [&format] [file|\commands]
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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.
18 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.
22 Aleph's command line options are similar to those of TeX.
24 Aleph is no longer being actively developed; see LuaTeX for current
26 activity.
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29 Run aleph --help to see the complete list of options; this is not
30 exhaustive.
31 --fmt format
33 Use format as the name of the format to be used, instead of the
34 name by which Aleph was called or a %& line.
35 --halt-on-error
37 Exit with an error code when an error is encountered during pro‐
38 cessing.
39 --help Print help message and exit.
41 --ini Be `initial' Aleph for dumping formats; this is implicitly true
43 if the program is called as inialeph.
44 --interaction mode
46 Sets the interaction mode. The mode can be one of batchmode,
47 nonstopmode, scrollmode, and errorstopmode. The meaning of
48 these modes is the same as that of the corresponding \commands.
49 --ipc Send DVI output to a socket as well as the usual output file.
51 Whether this option is available is the choice of the installer.
52 --ipc-start
54 As --ipc, and starts the server at the other end as well.
55 Whether this option is available is the choice of the installer.
56 --kpathsea-debug bitmask
58 Sets path searching debugging flags according to the bitmask.
59 See the Kpathsea manual for details.
60 --maketex fmt
62 Enable mktexfmt, where fmt must be one of tex or tfm.
63 --no-maketex fmt
65 Disable mktexfmt, where fmt must be one of tex or tfm.
66 --output-comment string
68 Use string for the DVI file comment instead of the date.
69 --output-directory directory
71 Write output files in directory instead of the current direc‐
72 tory. Look up input files in directory first, the along the
73 normal search path.
74 --parse-first-line
76 If the first line of the main input file begins with %& parse it
77 to look for a dump name.
78 --progname name
80 Pretend to be program name. This affects both the format used
81 and the search paths.
82 --recorder
84 Enable the filename recorder. This leaves a trace of the files
85 opened for input and output in a file with extension .ofl.
86 (This option is always on.)
87 --shell-escape
89 Enable the \write18{command} construct. The command can be any
90 Bourne shell command. By default, this construct is enabled in
91 a restricted mode, for security reasons.
92 --version
94 Print version information and exit.
95
97 See the Kpathsearch library documentation (the `Path specifications'
98 node) for precise details of how the environment variables are used.
99 The kpsewhich utility can be used to query the values of the variables.
100 One caveat: In most Aleph formats, you cannot use ~ in a filename you
102 give directly to Aleph, because ~ is an active character, and hence is
103 expanded, not taken as part of the filename. Other programs, such as
104 Metafont, do not have this problem.
105 TEXMFOUTPUT
107 Normally, Aleph puts its output files in the current directory.
108 If any output file cannot be opened there, it tries to open it
109 in the directory specified in the environment variable TEXMFOUT‐
110 PUT. There is no default value for that variable. For example,
111 if you say tex paper and the current directory is not writable,
112 if TEXMFOUTPUT has the value /tmp, Aleph attempts to create
113 /tmp/paper.log (and /tmp/paper.dvi, if any output is produced.)
114 TEXMFOUTPUT is also checked for input files, as TeX often gener‐
115 ates files that need to be subsequently read; for input, no suf‐
116 fixes (such as ``.tex'') are added by default, the input name is
117 simply checked as given.
118 TEXINPUTS
120 Search path for \input and \openin files. This should start
121 with ``.'', so that user files are found before system files.
122 An empty path component will be replaced with the paths defined
123 in the texmf.cnf file. For example, set TEXINPUTS to
124 ".:/home/user/tex:" to prepend the current directory and
125 ``/home/user/tex'' to the standard search path.
126 TEXEDIT
128 Command template for switching to editor. The default, usually
129 vi, is set when Aleph is compiled.
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132 This manual page is not meant to be exhaustive. The complete documen‐
133 tation for this version of Aleph can be found in the info manual Web2C:
134 A TeX implementation. See http://tug/org/web2c.
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137 This version of Aleph implements a number of optional extensions. In
138 fact, many of these extensions conflict to a greater or lesser extent
139 with the definition of Aleph. When such extensions are enabled, the
140 banner printed when Aleph starts is changed to print Alephk instead of
141 Aleph.
142 This version of Aleph fails to trap arithmetic overflow when dimensions
144 are added or subtracted. Cases where this occurs are rare, but when it
145 does the generated DVI file will be invalid.
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148 tex(1), mf(1)
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151 The primary authors of Aleph are John Plaice and Yannis Haralambous.
152Web2C 2019 27 May 2018 ALEPH(1)