etex (1) Linux Manual Page

NAME

etex – extended (plain) TeX

SYNOPSIS

etex [options] [&format] [file|\commands]

DESCRIPTION

Run the e-TeX typesetter on file, by default creating file.dvi. If the file argument has no extension, ".tex" will be appended to it. Instead of a filename, a set of e-TeX commands can be given, the first of which must start with a backslash. With a &format argument e-TeX uses a different set of precompiled commands, contained in format.fmt; it is usually better to use the -fmt format option instead.

e-TeX is the first concrete result of an international research & development project, the NTS Project, which was established under the aegis of DANTE e.V. during 1992. The aims of the project are to perpetuate and develop the spirit and philosophy of TeX, whilst respecting Knuth’s wish that TeX should remain frozen.

e-TeX can be used in two different modes: in compatibility mode it is supposed to be completely interchangable with standard TeX. In extended mode several new primitives are added that facilitate (among other things) bidirectional typesetting.

An extended mode format is generated by prefixing the name of the source file for the format with an asterisk (*).

e-TeX’s handling of its command-line arguments is similar to that of the other TeX programs in the web2c implementation.

OPTIONS

This version of e-TeX understands the following command line options.

-fmt format

Use format as the name of the format to be used, instead of the name by which e-TeX was called or a %& line.

-enc

Enable the encTeX extensions. This option is only effective in combination with -ini. For documentation of the encTeX extensions see http://www.olsak.net/enctex.html.

-etex

Enable the e-TeX extensions. This option is only effective in combination with -ini.

-file-line-error

Print error messages in the form file:line:error which is similar to the way many compilers format them.

-no-file-line-error

Disable printing error messages in the file:line:error style.

-file-line-error-style

This is the old name of the -file-line-error option.

-halt-on-error

Exit with an error code when an error is encountered during processing.

-help

Print help message and exit.

-ini

Start in INI mode, which is used to dump formats. The INI mode can be used for typesetting, but no format is preloaded, and basic initializations like setting catcodes may be required.

-interaction mode

Sets the interaction mode. The mode can be either batchmode, nonstopmode, scrollmode, and errorstopmode. The meaning of these modes is the same as that of the corresponding