OMEGA(1)OMEGA(1)NAME
omega, iniomega, viromega - extended unicode TeX
SYNOPSISomega [options] [commands]
DESCRIPTION
This manual page is not meant to be exhaustive. The com-
plete documentation for this version of TeX can be found
in the info file or manual Web2C: A TeX implementation.
Omega is a version of the TeX program modified for multi-
lingual typesetting. It uses unicode, and has additional
primitives for (among other things) bidirectional typeset-
ting.
The iniomega and viromega commands are Omega's analogues
to the initex and virtex commands. In this installation,
they are symlinks to the omega executable.
Omega's command line options are similar to those of TeX.
Omega is experimental software.
OPTIONS
This version of Omega understands the following command
line options.
--oft format
Use format as the name of the format to be used,
instead of the name by which Omega was called or a
%& line.
--help Print help message and exit.
--ini Be iniomega, for dumping formats; this is implic-
itly true if the program is called as iniomega.
--interaction mode
Sets the interaction mode. The mode can be one of
batchmode, nonstopmode, scrollmode, and errorstop-
mode. 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.
--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 com-
mand can be any Bourne shell command. This con-
struct is normally disallowed for security reasons.
--version
Print version information and exit.
ENVIRONMENT
See the Kpathsearch library documentation (the `Path spec-
ifications' node) for precise details of how the environ-
ment variables are used. The kpsewhich utility can be
used to query the values of the variables.
One caveat: In most Omega formats, you cannot use ~ in a
filename you give directly to Omega, 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, Omega puts its output files in the cur-
rent 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 tex paper and the current
directory is not writable, if TEXMFOUTPUT has the
value /tmp, Omega attempts to create /tmp/paper.log
(and /tmp/paper.dvi, 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.
TEXEDIT
Command template for switching to editor. The
default, usually vi, is set when Omega is compiled.
FILES
The location of the files mentioned below varies from sys-
tem to system. Use the kpsewhich utility to find their
locations.
omega.pool
Encoded text of Omega's messages.
*.oft Predigested Omega format (.oft) files.
BUGS
This version of Omega implements a number of optional
extensions. In fact, many of these extensions conflict to
a greater or lesser extent with the definition of Omega.
When such extensions are enabled, the banner printed when
Omega starts is changed to print Omegak instead of Omega.
This version of Omega 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.
The DVI files produced by Omega may use extensions which
make them incompatible with most software designed to han-
dle DVI files. In order to print or preview them, you
should use odvips to generate a PostScript file.
Omega is experimental software, and if you are an active
user it is strongly recommended that you subscribe to the
Omega mailing list. Visit the Omega website
http://omega.cse.unsw.edu.au for information on how to
subscribe.
SEE ALSOtex(1), mf(1), odvips(1),
AUTHORS
The primary authors of Omega are John Plaice and Yannis
Haralambous.
Web2C 7.4.5 27 December 1997 OMEGA(1)
