1MPOST(1) General Commands Manual MPOST(1)
2
6 mpost, pmpost, upmpost - MetaPost, a system for creating graphics r-
7 mpost, r-pmpost, r-upmpost - restricted MetaPost
8
10 mpost [options] [commands]
11 mpost --dvitomp dvifile[.dvi] [mpxfile[.mpx]]
13
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.
21 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.
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 The pmpost program is a variant with Japanese support, and upmpost has
41 Unicode-enabled Japanese support, analogous to ptex and uptex.
42 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.
47 This manual page is a mere skeleton. For a list of all command line
49 options, run --help.
50 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.
54 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.
58
60 plain.mp
61 The standard preload file.
62 mfplain.mp
64 The Metafont-compatible preload file.
65 $TEXMFMAIN/metapost/base/*.mp
67 The standard MetaPost macros included in the original distribu‐
68 tion.
69 $TEXMFMAIN/metapost/support/*
71 Various tables for handling included tex and troff.
72 $TEXMFMAIN/metapost/support/trfonts.map
74 Table of corresponding font names for troff and PostScript.
75 psfonts.map
77 Table of corresponding font names for tex and PostScript.
78 $TEXMFMAIN/doc/metapost/*
80 The MetaPost manual and tutorial source, also including sample
81 figures
82
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).
87
89 dvitomp(1), epstopdf(1), mf(1), mptopdf(1), tex(1),
90 MetaPost home page ⟨https://tug.org/metapost/⟩.
91
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.
97 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.
101 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
107 The MetaPost home page is https://tug.org/metapost.
108Web2C 2023 31 December 2018 MPOST(1)