pdftex, pdfinitex, pdfvirtex - PDF output from TeX

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

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

pdf is a version of that can create PDF files as well as DVI files.

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

The typical use of pdf is with a pregenerated formats for which PDF output has been enabled. The pdftex command uses the equivalent of the plain format, and the pdflatex command uses the equivalent of the format. To generate formats, use the -ini switch.

The pdfinitex and pdfvirtex commands are pdf'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, pdf can natively handle the PDF, JPG, and PNG graphics formats. pdf's handling of its command-line arguments is similar to that of of the other programs in the web2c implementation.

This version of pdf understands the following command line options.

-enc

Enable the enc extensions. This option is only effective in combination with -ini. For documentation of the enc 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 pdf 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 ML 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 pdf.

-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.

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 pdf formats, you cannot use ~ in a filename you give directly to pdf, because ~ is an active character, and hence is expanded, not taken as part of the filename. Other programs, such as , do not have this problem.

TEXMFOUTPUT

Normally, pdf 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, pdf 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 pdf is compiled.

TFMFONTS

Search path for font metric (.tfm) 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 pdf's internal strings.

pdftex.map

Filename mapping definitions.

*.tfm

Metric files for pdf's fonts.

*.fmt

Predigested pdf format (.fmt) files.

This manual page is not meant to be exhaustive. The complete documentation for this version of pdf can be found in the info manual Web2C: A TeX implementation.

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

This version of pdf 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.

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

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

The following pdfe related mailing list is available: pdftex@tug.org. This is a mailman list; to subscribe send a message containing subscribe to pdftex-request@tug.org. More about the list can be found at the http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/pdftex mailing list website.

tex(1), mf(1).

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

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 distribution is that generated by the to C system (web2c), originally written by Tomas Rokicki and Tim Morgan.

The enc extensions were written by Petr Olsak.