PDFTEX(X) PDFTEX(X) NAME pdftex, pdfinitex, pdfvirtex - PDF output from TeX SYNOPSIS pdftex [options] [commands] DESCRIPTION This manual page is not meant to be exhaustive. The com- plete documentation for this version of TeX can be found in the info file or manual Web2C: A TeX implementation. pdfTeX is a version of TeX that can create PDF files as well as DVI files. The typical use of pdfTeX is with a pregenerated formats for which PDF output has been enabled. The pdftex command uses the equivalent of the plain TeX format, and the pdflatex command uses the equivalent of the LaTeX format. The pdfinitex and pdfvirtex commands are pdfTeX's ana- logues to the initex and virtex commands. In this instal- lation, they are symlinks to the pdftex executable. pdfTeX's handling of its command-line arguments is similar to that of TeX. pdfTeX is beta software. OPTIONS This version of pdfTeX understands the following command line options. --file-line-error-style Print error messages in the form file:line:error which is similar to the way many compilers format them. --fmt format Use format as the name of the format to be used, instead of the name by which pdfTeX was called or a %& line. --help Print help message and exit. --ini Be pdfinitex, for dumping formats; this is implic- itly true if the program is called as pdfinitex. --interaction mode Sets the interaction mode. The mode can be one of batchmode, nonstopmode, scrollmode, and errorstop- mode. The meaning of these modes is the same as that of the corresponding \commands. --ipc Send DVI or PDF output to a socket as well as the usual output file. Whether this option is avail- able is the choice of the installer. --ipc-start As --ipc, and starts the server at the other end as well. Whether this option is available is the choice of the installer. --kpathsea-debug bitmask Sets path searching debugging flags according to the bitmask. See the Kpathsea manual for details. --maketex fmt Enable mktexfmt, where fmt must be one of tex or tfm. --no-maketex fmt Disable mktexfmt, where fmt must be one of tex or tfm. --output-comment string Use string for the DVI file comment instead of the date. --progname name Pretend to be program name. This affects both the format used and the search paths. --recorder Enable the filename recorder. This leaves a trace of the files opened for input and output in a file with extension .fls. --shell-escape Enable the \write18{command} construct. The com- mand can be any Bourne shell command. This con- struct is normally disallowed for security reasons. --translate-file tcxname Use the tcxname translation table. --version Print version information and exit. ENVIRONMENT See the Kpathsearch library documentation (the `Path spec- ifications' node) for precise details of how the environ- ment variables are used. The kpsewhich utility can be used to query the values of the variables. One caveat: In most pdfTeX formats, you cannot use ~ in a filename you give directly to pdfTeX, because ~ is an active character, and hence is expanded, not taken as part of the filename. Other programs, such as Metafont, do not have this problem. TEXMFOUTPUT Normally, pdfTeX puts its output files in the cur- rent 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 pdftex paper and the current directory is not writable, if TEXMFOUTPUT has the value /tmp, pdfTeX attempts to create /tmp/paper.log (and /tmp/paper.pdf, if any output is produced.) TEXINPUTS Search path for \input and \openin files. This should probably start with ``.'', so that user files are found before system files. An empty path component will be replaced with the paths defined in the texmf.cnf file. For example, set TEXINPUTS to ".:/home/usr/tex:" to prepend the current direcory and ``/home/user/tex'' to the standard search path. TEXFONTS Search path for font metric (.tfm) files. TEXFORMATS Search path for format files. TEXPOOL search path for pdfinitex internal strings. TEXEDIT Command template for switching to editor. The default, usually vi, is set when pdfTeX is com- piled. FILES The location of the files mentioned below varies from sys- tem to system. Use the kpsewhich utility to find their locations. pdftex.pool Encoded text of pdfTeX's messages. texfonts.map Filename mapping definitions. *.tfm Metric files for pdfTeX's fonts. *.fmt Predigested pdfTeX format (.fmt) files. BUGS This version of pdfTeX fails to trap arithmetic overflow when dimensions are added or subtracted. Cases where this occurs are rare, but when it does the generated DVI file will be invalid. Whether a generated PDF file would be usable is unknown. pdfTeX is beta software. Subscribe to the pdftex mailing list pdftex@tug.org if you intend to use it. This is a majordomo list, to subscribe send a message containing subscribe pdftex to majordomo@tug.org. SEE ALSO tex(x), mf(f). AUTHORS The primary authors of pdfTeX are Han The Thanh, Petr Sojka, and Jiri Zlatuska. Web2C 7.3.7 10 November 2001 PDFTEX(X)