Table of Contents

## Name

pdfxtex, pdfxinitex, pdfxvirtex - PDF output from e-TeX

## Synopsis

pdfxtex [options] [&format] [file[.tex] | [\commands]]

##

Description Run the pdfx typesetter on file, usually creating file.pdf. Instead of a filename, a set of pdfx commands can be given, the first of which must start with a backslash. With a &format argument pdfx uses a different set of precompiled commands, contained in format.fmt; it is usually better to use the -fmt format option instead.

pdfx is a version of e- that can create PDF files as well as DVI files.

In DVI mode, pdfx can be used as a complete replacement of the e- engine.

The typical use of pdfx is with a pregenerated formats for which PDF output has been enabled. The pdfxtex command uses the equivalent of the plain e- format, and the pdfxlatex command uses the equivalent of the e-X format. To generate formats, use the -ini switch.

The pdfxinitex and pdfxvirtex commands are pdfx’s analogues to the einitex and evirtex commands. In this installation, they are symbolic links to the pdfxtex executable. These symbolic links may not exist at all.

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

## Options

This version of pdfx 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 pdfx 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 pdfx.
-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 pdfx formats, you cannot use ~ in a filename you give directly to pdfx, 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, pdfx 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 pdfxtex paper and the current directory is not writable, if TEXMFOUTPUT has the value /tmp, pdfx 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 pdfxtex internal strings.
TEXEDIT
  Command template for switching to editor. The default, usually vi, is set when pdfx 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.

pdfxtex.pool
  Text file containing pdfx’s internal strings.
pdftex.map
  Filename mapping definitions.
*.tfm
  Metric files for pdfx’s fonts.
*.fmt
  Predigested pdfx format (.fmt) files.

## Notes

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

## Bugs

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

This version of pdfx 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

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

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

The following pdfx 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.

## See Also

tex(1) , mf(1) , etex(1) , pdftex(1) .

## Authors

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 WB 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 WB to C system (web2c), originally written by Tomas Rokicki and Tim Morgan.

The enc extensions were written by Petr Olsak.

Table of Contents

- Name
- Synopsis
- Description
- Options
- Environment
- Files
- Notes
- Bugs
- Availability
- See Also
- Authors