MPOST(1)                    General Commands Manual                   MPOST(1)



NAME
       mpost - MetaPost, a system for creating graphics

SYNOPSIS
       mpost [options] [commands]

       mpost --dvitomp dvifile[.dvi] [mpxfile[.mpx]]


DESCRIPTION
       MetaPost interprets the MetaPost language and produces PostScript (EPS)
       or Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) pictures.  The MetaPost  language  is
       similar  to  Knuth's  Metafont  with  additional features for including
       tex(1) or troff(1) commands and accessing features  of  PostScript  not
       found in Metafont.

       MetaPost  is  normally used with some preloaded macros, and it will use
       its executable name as the name of the preload file to use.   For exam-
       ple, when called as mpost the mpost.mp file is used, which is identical
       to plain.mp.  When the --ini option is given, preloading does not  hap-
       pen.

       The  commands  given  on  the  command line to the MetaPost program are
       passed to it as the first input line.  (But it is often easier to  type
       extended  arguments  as the first input line, since UNIX shells tend to
       gobble up or misinterpret MetaPost's favorite symbols, like semicolons,
       unless  you  quote  them.)  The  normal  usage  is to say mpost figs to
       process the file figs.mp.  The basename  of  figs  becomes  the  ``job-
       name'', and is used in forming output file names.  If no file is named,
       the jobname becomes mpout.  The default extension, .mp, can be overrid-
       den by specifying an extension explicitly.

       When  the  --dvitomp  option is given, MetaPost acts as DVI-to-MPX con-
       verter only.  See dvitomp (1) for details.

       This manual page is not meant to be exhaustive.  The complete  documen-
       tation  for  this  version  of MetaPost can be found in the User Manual
       that should have been installed along with  the  program  and  is  also
       available from http://tug.org/metapost.  See the FILES section below.

       The MetaPost language is similar to Metafont, but the manual assumes no
       knowledge of Metafont.  MetaPost does not have bitmap  output  commands
       or Metafont's online display mechanism.


FILES
       plain.mp
              The standard preload file.

       mfplain.mp
              The Metafont-compatible preload file.

       $TEXMFMAIN/metapost/base/*.mp
              The  standard MetaPost macros included in the original distribu-
              tion.

       $TEXMFMAIN/metapost/support/*
              Various tables for handling included tex and troff.

       $TEXMFMAIN/metapost/support/trfonts.map
              Table of corresponding font names for troff and PostScript.

       psfonts.map
              Table of corresponding font names for tex and PostScript.

       $TEXMFMAIN/doc/metapost/*
              The MetaPost manual and tutorial source, also  including  sample
              figures

SUGGESTED READING
       Donald  E.  Knuth, The Metafontbook (Volume C of Computers and Typeset-
       ting), Addison-Wesley, 1986, ISBN 0-201-13445-4.
       TUGboat (the journal of the TeX Users Group).

SEE ALSO
       dvitomp(1), epstopdf(1), mf(1), mptopdf(1), tex(1),

       MetaPost source code <http://foundry.supelec.fr/gf/project/metapost/>.
       MetaPost home page <http://tug.org/metapost/>.

AUTHORS
       MetaPost was designed by John D. Hobby, incorporating  algorithms  from
       Metafont  by  Donald  E. Knuth.  It was originally implemented on Unix,
       incorporating system-dependent routines from web2c, while  not  relying
       on it except for the actual Web-to-C translator.

       Ulrik  Vieth  adapted  MetaPost  to take advantage of the advanced path
       searching features in more recent versions of web2c and worked  towards
       fully integrating MetaPost into the canonical Unix TeX distribution.

       The current, CWEB based version of MetaPost is maintained by Taco Hoek-
       water.

       The manual and tutorial are maintained by Stephan Hennig and Troy  Hen-
       derson.

BUGS
       Email bug reports to metapost@tug.org.



MetaPost 1.504                   5 April 2011                         MPOST(1)
