ETEX(1)

NAME
etex - extended (plain) TeX

SYNOPSIS
etex [options] [&format] [ file [ more-input ] | [ \more-input ]

DESCRIPTION
Run the e-TeX typesetter on file, usually creating file.dvi. If the file argument has no extension, ".tex" will be appended to it. See tex(1) for details of command-line parsing.

The e-TeX extensions include both macro programming and typesetting features. They are described in the e-TeX manual, included in distributions and linked from the CTAN package page: https://ctan.org/pkg/etex.

When a format (.fmt) file is created, the e-TeX extensions are enabled by prefixing the source filename with an asterisk (*), as in "etex *etex.ini". The standard fmtutil.cnf in TeX Live sets this up for all relevant formats, not included original TeX.

If extended mode is not enabled, e-TeX operates in a so-called compatibility mode with all extensions disabled; this is intended to be indistinguishable from standard TeX.

As of version 1.40 (around 2007), pdfTeX incorporated the e-TeX extensions (along with its own extensions), and the etex executable became a symlink to pdftex. The e-TeX and some of the pdfTeX extensions have been required by LaTeX since about 2020.

OPTIONS
See pdftex(1).

ENVIRONMENT
See tex(1).

BUGS
See tex(1).

FILES
See tex(1). Also:

$TEXMFMAIN/tex/plain/config/etex.ini
    The driver file that builds the e-TeX format file, etex.fmt, in TeX Live; the engine used is pdfTeX (in dvi mode).

$TEXMFMAIN/tex/plain/etex/etex.src
    The main TeX source for the e-TeX format.

$TEXMFMAIN/tex/plain/etex/etex.src
    A small variant of etex.src needed for the LuaTeX-based formats.

$TEXMFMAIN/tex/plain/etex/etexdefs.lib
    Additional definitions for the e-TeX format.

SEE ALSO
pdftex(1), tex(1).

e-TeX package page on CTAN: https://ctan.org/pkg/etex
e-TeX manual: https://mirror.ctan.org/systems/doc/etex/etex_man.pdf
Web2c manual: https://tug.org/web2c
Kpathsea manual: https://tug.org/kpathsea

AUTHORS
TeX was created by Donald E. Knuth. e-TeX was a result of the NTS Project, established under the aegis of DANTE e.V. (https://dante.de) in 1992. NTS also released an independent implementation of TeX, in Java, was released in 2001: https://ctan.org/pkg/nts

e-TeX was developed by Peter Breitenlohner and the NTS team; Peter later continued its development outside of the team.

Public discussion list and bug reports: https://lists.tug.org/tex-k