1PDFETEX(1) General Commands Manual PDFETEX(1)
2
6 pdfetex, pdfeinitex, pdfevirtex - PDF output from e-TeX
7
9 pdfetex [options] [& format ] [ file | \ commands ]
10
12 Run the pdfeTeX typesetter on file, usually creating file.pdf. If the
13 file argument has no extension, ".tex" will be appended to it. Instead
14 of a filename, a set of pdfeTeX commands can be given, the first of
15 which must start with a backslash. With a &format argument pdfeTeX
16 uses a different set of precompiled commands, contained in format.fmt;
17 it is usually better to use the -fmt format option instead.
18 pdfeTeX is a version of e-TeX that can create PDF files as well as DVI
20 files.
21 In DVI mode, pdfeTeX can be used as a complete replacement of the e-TeX
23 engine.
24 The typical use of pdfeTeX is with a pregenerated formats for which PDF
26 output has been enabled. The pdfetex command uses the equivalent of
27 the plain e-TeX format, and the pdfelatex command uses the equivalent
28 of the e-LaTeX format. To generate formats, use the -ini switch.
29 The pdfeinitex and pdfevirtex commands are pdfeTeX's analogues to the
31 einitex and evirtex commands. In this installation, they are symbolic
32 links to the pdfetex executable. These symbolic links may not exist at
33 all.
34 In PDF mode, pdfeTeX can natively handle the PDF, JPG, and PNG graphics
36 formats. pdfeTeX's handling of its command-line arguments is similar
37 to that of of the other TeX programs in the web2c implementation.
38
40 This version of pdfeTeX understands the following command line options.
41 -enc Enable the encTeX extensions. This option is only effective in
43 combination with -ini. For documentation of the encTeX exten‐
44 sions see http://www.olsak.net/enctex.html.
45 -file-line-error
47 Print error messages in the form file:line:error which is simi‐
48 lar to the way many compilers format them.
49 -no-file-line-error
51 Disable printing error messages in the file:line:error style.
52 -file-line-error-style
54 This is the old name of the -file-line-error option.
55 -fmt format
57 Use format as the name of the format to be used, instead of the
58 name by which pdfeTeX was called or a %& line.
59 -halt-on-error
61 Exit with an error code when an error is encountered during pro‐
62 cessing.
63 -help Print help message and exit.
65 -ini Start in INI mode, which is used to dump formats. The INI mode
67 can be used for typesetting, but no format is preloaded, and
68 basic initializations like setting catcodes may be required.
69 -interaction mode
71 Sets the interaction mode. The mode can be either batchmode,
72 nonstopmode, scrollmode, and errorstopmode. The meaning of
73 these modes is the same as that of the corresponding \commands.
74 -ipc Send DVI or PDF output to a socket as well as the usual output
76 file. Whether this option is available is the choice of the in‐
77 staller.
78 -ipc-start
80 As -ipc, and starts the server at the other end as well.
81 Whether this option is available is the choice of the installer.
82 -jobname name
84 Use name for the job name, instead of deriving it from the name
85 of the input file.
86 -kpathsea-debug bitmask
88 Sets path searching debugging flags according to the bitmask.
89 See the Kpathsea manual for details.
90 -mktex fmt
92 Enable mktexfmt, where fmt must be either tex or tfm.
93 -mltex Enable MLTeX extensions. Only effective in combination with
95 -ini.
96 -no-mktex fmt
98 Disable mktexfmt, where fmt must be either tex or tfm.
99 -output-comment string
101 In DVI mode, use string for the DVI file comment instead of the
102 date. This option is ignored in PDF mode.
103 -output-directory directory
105 directory instead of the current directory. Look up input files
106 in directory first, the along the normal search path.
107 -output-format format
109 Set the output format mode, where format must be either pdf or
110 dvi. This also influences the set of graphics formats under‐
111 stood by pdfeTeX.
112 -parse-first-line
114 If the first line of the main input file begins with %& parse it
115 to look for a dump name or a -translate-file option.
116 -no-parse-first-line
118 Disable parsing of the first line of the main input file.
119 -progname name
121 Pretend to be program name. This affects both the format used
122 and the search paths.
123 -recorder
125 Enable the filename recorder. This leaves a trace of the files
126 opened for input and output in a file with extension .fls.
127 -shell-escape
129 Enable the \write18{command} construct. The command can be any
130 shell command. This construct is normally disallowed for secu‐
131 rity reasons.
132 -no-shell-escape
134 Disable the \write18{command} construct, even if it is enabled
135 in the texmf.cnf file.
136 -src-specials
138 In DVI mode, insert source specials into the DVI file. This
139 option is ignored in PDF mode.
140 -src-specials where
142 In DVI mode, insert source specials in certain placed of the DVI
143 file. where is a comma-separated value list: cr, display, hbox,
144 math, par, parent, or vbox. This option is ignored in PDF mode.
145 -translate-file tcxname
147 Use the tcxname translation table to set the mapping of input
148 characters and re-mapping of output characters.
149 -default-translate-file tcxname
151 Like -translate-file except that a %& line can overrule this
152 setting.
153 -version
155 Print version information and exit.
156
158 See the Kpathsearch library documentation (the `Path specifications'
159 node) for precise details of how the environment variables are used.
160 The kpsewhich utility can be used to query the values of the variables.
161 One caveat: In most pdfeTeX formats, you cannot use ~ in a filename you
163 give directly to pdfeTeX, because ~ is an active character, and hence
164 is expanded, not taken as part of the filename. Other programs, such
165 as Metafont, do not have this problem.
166 TEXMFOUTPUT
168 Normally, pdfeTeX puts its output files in the current direc‐
169 tory. If any output file cannot be opened there, it tries to
170 open it in the directory specified in the environment variable
171 TEXMFOUTPUT. There is no default value for that variable. For
172 example, if you say pdfetex paper and the current directory is
173 not writable, if TEXMFOUTPUT has the value /tmp, pdfeTeX
174 attempts to create /tmp/paper.log (and /tmp/paper.pdf, if any
175 output is produced.)
176 TEXINPUTS
178 Search path for \input and \openin files. This should probably
179 start with ``.'', so that user files are found before system
180 files. An empty path component will be replaced with the paths
181 defined in the texmf.cnf file. For example, set TEXINPUTS to
182 ".:/home/usr/tex:" to prepend the current direcory and
183 ``/home/user/tex'' to the standard search path.
184 TEXFORMATS
186 Search path for format files.
187 TEXPOOL
189 search path for pdfetex internal strings.
190 TEXEDIT
192 Command template for switching to editor. The default, usually
193 vi, is set when pdfeTeX is compiled.
194 TFMFONTS
196 Search path for font metric (.tfm) files.
197
199 The location of the files mentioned below varies from system to system.
200 Use the kpsewhich utility to find their locations.
201 pdfetex.pool
203 Text file containing pdfeTeX's internal strings.
204 pdftex.map
206 Filename mapping definitions.
207 *.tfm Metric files for pdfeTeX's fonts.
209 *.fmt Predigested pdfeTeX format (.fmt) files.
211
213 This manual page is not meant to be exhaustive. The complete documen‐
214 tation for this version of pdfeTeX can be found in the info manual
215 Web2C: A TeX implementation.
216
218 This version of pdfeTeX implements a number of optional extensions. In
219 fact, many of these extensions conflict to a greater or lesser extent
220 with the definition of pdfeTeX. When such extensions are enabled, the
221 banner printed when pdfeTeX starts is changed to print pdfeTeXk instead
222 of pdfeTeX.
223 This version of pdfeTeX fails to trap arithmetic overflow when dimen‐
225 sions are added or subtracted. Cases where this occurs are rare, but
226 when it does the generated DVI file will be invalid. Whether a gener‐
227 ated PDF file would be usable is unknown.
228
230 pdfeTeX is available for a large variety of machine architectures and
231 operation systems. pdfeTeX is part of all major TeX distributions.
232 Information on how to get pdfeTeX and related information is available
234 at the http://tug.org TUG website. The most recent version of pdfeTeX
235 is available for anonymous ftp at the http://www.pdftex.de/tex/pdftex/
236 pdfeTeX development site.
237 The following pdfeTeX related mailing list is available: pdf‐
239 tex@tug.org. This is a mailman list; to subscribe send a message con‐
240 taining subscribe to pdftex-request@tug.org. More about the list can
241 be found at the http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/pdftex mailing list
242 website.
243
245 tex(1), mf(1), etex(1), pdftex(1).
246
248 The primary authors of pdfTeX are Han The Thanh, Petr Sojka, and Jiri
249 Zlatuska.
250 TeX was designed by Donald E. Knuth, who implemented it using his sys‐
252 tem for Pascal programs. It was ported to Unix at Stanford by Howard
253 Trickey, and at Cornell by Pavel Curtis. The version now offered with
254 the Unix TeX distribution is that generated by the to C system
255 (web2c), originally written by Tomas Rokicki and Tim Morgan.
256 The encTeX extensions were written by Petr Olsak.
258Web2C 7.5.4 21 August 2004 PDFETEX(1)