ALEPH(1)                    General Commands Manual                   ALEPH(1)



NAME
       aleph - extended Unicode TeX

SYNOPSIS
       aleph [options] [&format] [file|\commands]

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

       Aleph is a version of the TeX program modified for  multilingual  type-
       setting.   It  uses  Unicode,  and has additional primitives for (among
       other things) bidirectional typesetting.

       Aleph's command line options are similar to those of TeX.

       Aleph is no longer being actively developed;  see  LuaTeX  for  current
       activity.

OPTIONS
       Run  aleph  --help  to  see  the  complete list of options; this is not
       exhaustive.

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

       --halt-on-error
              Exit with an error code when an error is encountered during pro-
              cessing.

       --help Print help message and exit.

       --ini  Be `initial' Aleph for dumping formats; this is implicitly  true
              if the program is called as inialeph.

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

       --ipc  Send  DVI  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.

       --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.

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

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

       --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 .ofl.
              (This option is always on.)

       --shell-escape
              Enable the \write18{command} construct.  The command can be  any
              Bourne  shell command.  By default, this construct is enabled in
              a restricted mode, for security reasons.

       --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 Aleph formats, you cannot use ~ in a  filename  you
       give  directly to Aleph, 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,  Aleph 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 TEXMFOUT-
              PUT.  There is no default value for that variable.  For example,
              if  you say tex paper and the current directory is not writable,
              if TEXMFOUTPUT has the value  /tmp,  Aleph  attempts  to  create
              /tmp/paper.log  (and /tmp/paper.dvi, if any output is produced.)
              TEXMFOUTPUT is also checked for input files, as TeX often gener-
              ates files that need to be subsequently read; for input, no suf-
              fixes (such as ``.tex'') are added by default, the input name is
              simply checked as given.

       TEXINPUTS
              Search  path  for  \input  and \openin files.  This should 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/user/tex:"   to   prepend   the  current  direcory  and
              ``/home/user/tex'' to the standard search path.

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

NOTES
       This  manual page is not meant to be exhaustive.  The complete documen-
       tation for this version of Aleph can be found in the info manual Web2C:
       A TeX implementation.  See http://tug/org/web2c.

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

       This version of Aleph 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.

SEE ALSO
       tex(1), mf(1)

AUTHORS
       The  primary  authors  of Aleph are John Plaice and Yannis Haralambous.
       It is currently maintained (for severe bug fixes only) by Taco  Hoekwa-
       ter.



Web2C 2015/dev                   1 March 2011                         ALEPH(1)
