TEX(1) UNIX System V(11/29/90) TEX(1)
NAME
tex, initex, virtex - text formatting and typesetting
SYNOPSIS
tex [ first line ]
initex [ first line ]
virtex [ first line ]
DESCRIPTION
TeX formats the interspersed text and commands contained in the named
files and outputs a typesetter independent file (called DVI which is
short for DeVice Independent). TeX capabilities and language are
described in The TeXbook by Donald E. Knuth, published by Addison-Wesley.
TeX is normally used with a large body of precompiled macros, and there
are several specific formatting systems, such as LaTeX, which require the
support of several macro files. The basic programs as compiled are
called initex and virtex, and are distinguished by the fact that initex
can be used to precompile macros into a .fmt file, which is used by
virtex. On the other hand, virtex starts more quickly and can read a
precompiled .fmt file, but it cannot create one. It is the version of
TeX which is usually invoked in production, as opposed to installation.
Any arguments given on the command line to the TeX programs are passed to
them as the first input line. (But it is often easier to type extended
arguments as the first input line, since shells tend to gobble up or
misinterpret TeX's favorite symbols, like backslashes, unless you quote
them.) As described in The TeXbook, that first line should begin with a
file name or a \controlsequence. The normal usage is to say ``tex
paper'' to start processing paper.tex. The name ``paper'' will be the
``jobname'', and is used in forming output file names. If TeX doesn't
get a file name in the first line, the jobname is ``texput''. The
default extension, .tex, can be overridden by specifying an extension
explicitly.
If there is no paper.tex in the current directory, TeX will look look
through a search path of directories to try to find it. If ``paper'' is
the ``jobname'' a log of error messages, with rather more detail than
normally appears on the screen, will appear in paper.log, and the output
file will be in paper.dvi. The system library /usr/TeX/inputs/TeXmacros
contains the basic macro package plain.tex, described in The TeXbook, as
well as several others. Except when .fmt files are being prepared it is
hardly ever necessary to \input plain, since almost all instances of TeX
begin by loading plain.fmt. This means that all of the control sequences
discussed in The TeXbook are known when you invoke tex. For a discussion
of .fmt files, see below.
Several environment variables can be used to set up directory paths to
search when TeX opens a file for input. For example, the csh command
setenv TEXINPUTS .:/usr/me/mylib:/usr/TeX/inputs/TeXmacros
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or the sh command sequence
TEXINPUTS=.:/usr/me/mylib:/usr/TeX/inputs/TeXmacros
export TEXINPUTS
would cause all invocations of TeX and its derivatives to look for \input
files first in the current directory, then in a hypothetical user's
``mylib'', and finally in the system library. Normally, you would place
the variable assignment which sets up the TEXINPUTS environment variable
in your .login or .profile file. The environment variables section below
lists the relevant environment variables, and their defaults.
The e response to TeX's error prompt causes the system default editor to
start up at the current line of the current file. There is an
environment variable, TEXEDIT, that can be used to change the editor
used. It should contain a string with "%s" indicating where the filename
goes and "%d" indicating where the decimal linenumber (if any) goes. For
example, a TEXEDIT string for vi can be set with the csh command
setenv TEXEDIT "/usr/ucb/vi +%d %s"
A convenient file in the library is null.tex, containing nothing. When
TeX can't find a file it thinks you want to input, it keeps asking you
for another file name; responding `null' gets you out of the loop if you
don't want to input anything. You can also type your EOF character
(usually control-D).
The initex and virtex programs can be used to create fast-loading
versions of TeX based on macro source files. The initex program is used
to create a format (.fmt) file that permits fast loading of fonts and
macro packages. After processing the fonts and definitions desired, a
\dump command will create the format file. The format file is used by
virtex. It needs to be given a format file name as the first thing it
reads. A format file name is preceded by an &, which needs to be escaped
with \ to prevent misinterpretation by your shell if given on the command
line.
Fortunately, it is no longer necessary to make explicit references to the
format file. The present version of TeX, when compiled from this
distribution, looks at its own command line to determine what name it was
called under. It then uses that name, with the ``.fmt'' suffix appended,
to search for the appropriate format file. During installation, one
format file with the name tex.fmt, with only the plain.tex macros
defined, should have been created. This will be your format file when
you invoke virtex with the name tex. You can also create a file
mytex.fmt using initex, so that this will be loaded when you invoke
virtex with the name mytex. To make the whole thing work, it is
necessary to link virtex to all the names of format files that you have
prepared. Hard links will do for system-wide equivalences and Unix
systems which do not use symbolic links. Symbolic links can be used for
access to formats for individual projects. For example: virtex can be
hard linked to tex in the general system directory for executable
programs, but an individual version of TeX will more likely be linked by
a symbolic link in a privately maintained path
ln -s /usr/TeX/bin/virtex mytex
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in a directory such as /home/me/bin.
Another approach is to set up a alias using, for example, the C shell:
alias mytex virtex \&myfmt
Besides being more cumbersome, however, this approach is not available to
systems which do not accept aliases. Finally, there is the system known
as ``undump'' which takes the headers from an a.out file (e.g. virtex)
and applies them to a core image which has been dumped by the Unix QUIT
signal. This is very system-dependent, and produces extremely large
files when used with a large-memory version of TeX. This can produce
executables which load faster, but the executables also consume enormous
amounts of disk space.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
The defaults for all environment variables are set at the time of
compilation in a file named site.h in the web2c distribution. All paths
are colon-separated. If you set an environment variable to a value that
has a leading colon, the system default shown here is prepended.
Likewise for a trailing colon. For example, if you say
setenv TEXFONTS /u/karl/myfonts:
TeX will search
/u/karl/myfonts:. Furthermore, the person who installed TeX at your
site may have chosen to allow one level of subdirectories to be searched
automatically (by defining the symbol SEARCH_SUBDIRECTORIES in site.h).
In that case, subdirectories of directories in the environment variable
TEXFONTS_SUBDIR are also searched for fonts, and subdirectories of
directories in the environment variable TEXINPUTS_SUBDIR are also
searched for input files. All the programs in the base TeX distribution
use this same search method.
Normally, TeX puts its output files in the current directory. If any
output file cannot be opened there, it tries to open it in the directory
specified in the environment variable TEXMFOUTPUT. There is no default
value for that variable. For example, if you say texpaper and the
current directory is not writable, and TEXMFOUTPUT has the value /tmp,
TeX attempts to create /tmp/paper.log (and /tmp/paper.dvi, if any output
is produced.)
TEXINPUTS
Search path for \input and \openin files. This should probably
start with ``.''. Default: ..
TEXINPUTS_SUBDIR
Search path for directories with subdirectories of input files.
Default: /usr/TeX/inputs:/usr/TeX/inputs/styles
TEXFONTS
Search path for font metric (.tfm) files. Default:
/usr/TeX/fonts/tfm.
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TEXFONTS_SUBDIR
Search path for directories with subdirectories of fonts. Default:
@TEXFONTSSUBDIR@
TEXFORMATS
Search path for format files. Default: /usr/TeX/formats.
TEXPOOL
Search path for INITEX internal strings. Default: /usr/TeX/pools.
TEXEDIT
Command template for switching to editor. Default:
/usr/local/bin/emacs+%d%s.
FILES
/usr/TeX TeX's library areas
/usr/TeX/pools/tex.pool
Encoded text of TeX's messages.
/usr/TeX/fonts/tfm/*.tfm
Metric files for TeX's fonts.
/usr/TeX/fonts/tfm/*nnn{gf,pk}
Bitmaps for various devices. These files are not
used by TeX.
/usr/TeX/formats/*.fmt
TeX .fmt files.
/usr/TeX/inputs/TeXmacros/plain.tex
The ``default'' macro package.
SEE ALSO
Donald E. Knuth, The TeXbook
Leslie Lamport, The LaTeX Document Preparation System
Michael Spivak, The Joy of TeX
TUGBOAT (the publication of the TeX Users Group)
TRIVIA
TeX, pronounced properly, rhymes with ``blecchhh.'' Note that the proper
spelling in typewriter-like media is ``TeX'' and not ``TEX'' or ``tex.''
AUTHORS
TeX was designed by Donald E. Knuth, who implemented it using his WEB
system for Pascal programs. It was ported to Unix at Stanford by Howard
Trickey, and at Cornell by Pavel Curtis. The version now offered with
the Unix TeX distribution is that generated by the WEB to C system,
written by Tomas Rokicki and Tim Morgan.
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