1MPOST(1)                    General Commands Manual                   MPOST(1)
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NAME

6       mpost,  pmpost,  upmpost  - MetaPost, a system for creating graphics r-
7       mpost, r-pmpost, r-upmpost - restricted MetaPost
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SYNOPSIS

10       mpost [options] [commands]
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12       mpost --dvitomp dvifile[.dvi] [mpxfile[.mpx]]
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DESCRIPTION

16       MetaPost interprets the MetaPost language and produces PostScript (EPS)
17       or  Scalable  Vector Graphics (SVG) pictures.  The MetaPost language is
18       similar to Knuth's Metafont  with  additional  features  for  including
19       tex(1)  or  troff(1)  commands and accessing features of PostScript not
20       found in Metafont.
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22       MetaPost is normally used with a set of basic macros, and it  will  use
23       its executable name as the name of the preload file to use.   For exam‐
24       ple, when called as mpost the mpost.mp file is used, which simply reads
25       plain.mp.  When the --ini option is given, preloading does not happen.
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27       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.
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37       When  the  --dvitomp  option is given, MetaPost acts as DVI-to-MPX con‐
38       verter only.  See dvitomp (1) for details.
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40       The pmpost program is a variant with Japanese support, and upmpost  has
41       Unicode-enabled Japanese support, analogous to ptex and uptex.
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43       All  three variants are also installed with an `r-' prefix, that is, r-
44       mpost, r-pmpost, r-upmpost, which implicitly specify  the  --restricted
45       option to make MetaPost safe to run on unknown input; the tex, makempx,
46       and editor commands are disabled.
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48       This manual page is a mere skeleton.  For a list of  all  command  line
49       options, run --help.
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51       The main documentation for this version of MetaPost can be found in the
52       User Manual that should have been installed along with the program  and
53       is also available from https://tug.org/metapost.
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55       The MetaPost language is similar to Metafont, but the manual assumes no
56       knowledge of Metafont.  MetaPost does not have bitmap  output  commands
57       or Metafont's online display mechanism.
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FILES

60       plain.mp
61              The standard preload file.
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63       mfplain.mp
64              The Metafont-compatible preload file.
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66       $TEXMFMAIN/metapost/base/*.mp
67              The  standard MetaPost macros included in the original distribu‐
68              tion.
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70       $TEXMFMAIN/metapost/support/*
71              Various tables for handling included tex and troff.
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73       $TEXMFMAIN/metapost/support/trfonts.map
74              Table of corresponding font names for troff and PostScript.
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76       psfonts.map
77              Table of corresponding font names for tex and PostScript.
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79       $TEXMFMAIN/doc/metapost/*
80              The MetaPost manual and tutorial source, also  including  sample
81              figures
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SUGGESTED READING

84       Donald  E.  Knuth, The Metafontbook (Volume C of Computers and Typeset‐
85       ting), Addison-Wesley, 1986, ISBN 0-201-13445-4.
86       TUGboat (the journal of the TeX Users Group).
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SEE ALSO

89       dvitomp(1), epstopdf(1), mf(1), mptopdf(1), tex(1),
90       MetaPost home page ⟨https://tug.org/metapost/⟩.
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AUTHORS

93       MetaPost was created by John D. Hobby,  incorporating  algorithms  from
94       Metafont  by  Donald  E. Knuth.  It was originally implemented on Unix,
95       incorporating system-dependent routines from web2c, while  not  relying
96       on it except for the actual Web-to-C translator.
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98       Ulrik  Vieth  adapted  MetaPost  to take advantage of the advanced path
99       searching features in more recent versions of web2c and worked  towards
100       fully integrating MetaPost into the canonical Unix TeX distribution.
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102       The primary author of the current MetaPost was Taco Hoekwater, with as‐
103       sistance from Hans Hagen and many others.  It is  currently  maintained
104       by Luigi Scarso.
105

BUGS

107       The MetaPost home page is https://tug.org/metapost.
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111Web2C 2021                     31 December 2018                       MPOST(1)
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