VIRTEX
Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: 14 December 1993
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NAME
virtex - virgin TeX for production typesetting
DESCRIPTION
virtex
is a version of the TeX program that has no
preloaded macro packages, but is capable of
loading a special preformatted binary file, called
a
format
(.fmt)
file produced by the
initex(1)
program.
Preprocessing of large macro files and font
definitions by
initex
makes it possible to rapidly load complex
packages, like plain TeX, AmSTeX, AmSLaTeX, or LaTeX,
without the overhead of macro parsing and file
opening that would otherwise be experienced.
virtex
can be invoked directly, providing it with a name
of a format file specially prefixed by an
ampersand:
-
virtex '&plain' filename
This causes it to load the binary file named
plain.fmt
from a directory in the standard TEXINPUTS search
path, and then load the text file
filename
and process it. The quotes are needed to protect
the ampersand from Unix shell interpretation.
Because this need occurs frequently, Unix
virtex
provides a convenient shorthand. If it is invoked
under a name other than
virtex,
such as
footex,
it will behave as if it had been invoked as
virtex '&footex'
and first load a file named
footex.fmt.
Thus,
amslatex,
amstex,
lamstex,
latex,
slitex,
tex,
texinfo,
and others can all be file system links to
virtex,
without requiring additional disk space.
SEE ALSO
initex(1),
tex(1).
Index
- NAME
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- SEE ALSO
-
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