OMEGA(1)OMEGA(1)NAME
omega, iniomega, viromega - extended unicode TeX
SYNOPSIS
omega [options] [& format ] [ file | \ commands ]
DESCRIPTION
Run the Omega 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 Omega commands can be given, the first of which
must start with a backslash. With a &format argument Omega uses a dif‐
ferent set of precompiled commands, contained in format.fmt; it is usu‐
ally better to use the -fmt format option instead.
Omega 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.
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.
-halt-on-error
Exit with an error code when an error is encountered during pro‐
cessing.
--help Print help message and exit.
--ini Be iniomega, for dumping formats; this is implicitly true if the
program is called as iniomega.
--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
directory instead of the current directory. 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. This construct is normally disallowed 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 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 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, 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 system to system.
Use the kpsewhich utility to find their locations.
omega.pool
Encoded text of Omega's messages.
*.oft Predigested Omega format (.oft) files.
NOTES
This manual page is not meant to be exhaustive. The complete documen‐
tation for this version of Omega can be found in the info manual Web2C:
A TeX implementation.
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 handle DVI files. In order
to print or preview them, you should use odvips to generate a Post‐
Script 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 7.5.4 27 December 1997 OMEGA(1)
