initex invocation

initex is the "initial" form of TeX, which does lengthy initializations avoided by the "virgin" (vir) form, so as to be capable of dumping `.fmt' files (see section Memory dumps). For a detailed comparison of virgin and initial forms, see section Initial and virgin.

For a list of options and other information, see section tex invocation.

Unlike Metafont and MetaPost, many format files are commonly used with TeX. The standard one implementing the features described in the TeXbook is `plain.fmt', also known as `tex.fmt' (again, see section Memory dumps). It is created by default during installation, but you can also do so by hand if necessary (e.g., if an update to `plain.tex' is issued):

initex '\input plain \dump'

(The quotes prevent interpretation of the backslashes from the shell.) Then install the resulting `plain.fmt' in `$(fmtdir)' (`/usr/local/share/texmf/web2c' by default), and link `tex.fmt' to it.

The necessary invocation for generating a format file differs for each format, so instructions that come with the format should explain. The top-level `web2c' Makefile has targets for making most common formats: plain latex amstex texinfo eplain. See section Formats, for more details on TeX formats.

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