PDFTEX(1)

NAME
pdftex, pdfinitex, pdfvirtex - PDF output from TeX

SYNOPSIS
pdftex [options] [commands]

DESCRIPTION
This manual page is not meant to be exhaustive. The complete 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.

In DVI mode, pdfTeX can be used as a complete replacement of the TeX engine.

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. To generate formats, use the -ini switch.

The pdfinitex and pdfvirtex commands are pdfTeX's analogues to the initex and virtex commands. In this installation, they are symbolic links to the pdftex executable. These symbolic links may not exist at all.

In PDF mode, pdfTeX can natively handle the PDF, JPG, and PNG graphics formats. pdfTeX's handling of its command-line arguments is similar to that of of the other TeX programs in the web2c implementation.

OPTIONS
This version of pdfTeX understands the following command line options.

-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.

-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.

-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.

-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 \commands.

-ipc
    Send DVI or PDF output to a socket as well as the usual output file. Whether this option is available 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.

-jobname name
    Use name for the job name, instead of deriving it from the name of the input file.

-kpathsea-debug bitmask
    Sets path searching debugging flags according to the bitmask. See the Kpathsea manual for details.

-mktex fmt
    Enable mktexfmt, where fmt must be either tex or tfm.

-mltex
    Enable MLTeX extensions. Only effective in combination with -ini.

-no-mktex fmt
    Disable mktexfmt, where fmt must be either tex or tfm.

-output-comment string
    In DVI mode, use string for the DVI file comment instead of the date. This option is ignored in PDF mode.

-output-directory directory
    directory instead of the current directory. Look up input files in directory first, the along the normal search path.

-output-format format
    Set the output format mode, where format must be either pdf or dvi. This also influences the set of graphics formats understood by pdfTeX.

-parse-first-line
    If the first line of the main input file begins with %& parse it to look for a dump name or a -translate-file option.

-no-parse-first-line
    Disable parsing of the first line of the main input file.

-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 command can be any shell command. This construct is normally disallowed for security reasons.

-no-shell-escape
    Disable the \write18{command} construct, even if it is enabled in the texmf.cnf file.

-src-specials
    In DVI mode, insert source specials into the DVI file. This option is ignored in PDF mode.

-src-specials where
    In DVI mode, insert source specials in certain placed of the DVI file. where is a comma-separated value list: cr, display, hbox, math, par, parent, or vbox. This option is ignored in PDF mode.

-translate-file tcxname
    Use the tcxname translation table to set the mapping of input characters and re-mapping of output characters.

-default-translate-file tcxname
    Like -translate-file except that a %& line can overrule this setting.

-version
    Print version information and exit.

ENVIRONMENT
See the Kpathsearch library documentation (the `Path specifications' node) for precise details of how the environment 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 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 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.

TEXFORMATS
    Search path for format files.

TEXPOOL
    search path for pdftex internal strings.

TEXEDIT
    Command template for switching to editor. The default, usually vi, is set when pdfTeX is compiled.

TFMFONTS
    Search path for font metric (.tfm) files.

FILES
The location of the files mentioned below varies from system to system. Use the kpsewhich utility to find their locations.

pdftex.pool
    Text file containing pdfTeX's internal strings.

pdftex.map
    Filename mapping definitions.

*.tfm
    Metric files for pdfTeX's fonts.

*.fmt
    Predigested pdfTeX format (.fmt) files.

BUGS
This version of pdfTeX implements a number of optional extensions. In fact, many of these extensions conflict to a greater or lesser extent with the definition of pdfTeX. When such extensions are enabled, the banner printed when pdfTeX starts is changed to print pdfTeXk instead of pdfTeX.

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.

AVAILABILITY
pdfTeX is available for a large variety of machine architectures and operation systems. pdfTeX is part of all major TeX distributions.

Information on how to get pdfeTeX and related information is available at the http://tug.org TUG website. The most recent version of pdfTeX is available for anonymous ftp at the http://www.pdftex.de/tex/pdftex/ pdfTeX development site.

The following pdfeTeX related mailing list is available: pdftex@tug.org. This is a majordomo list; to subscribe send a message containing subscribe pdftex to majordomo@tug.org.

SEE ALSO
tex(1), mf(1).

AUTHORS
The primary authors of pdfTeX are Han The Thanh, Petr Sojka, and Jiri Zlatuska.

TeX was designed by Donald E. Knuth, who implemented it using his 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 to C system (web2c), originally written by Tomas Rokicki and Tim Morgan.

The encTeX extensions were written by Petr Olsak.