Using TeX on WSU IT UNIX Systems

The TeX text processing program is available on the WSU public UNIX systems wsunix.wsu.edu and statpack.wsu.edu. To format your TeX file, select your favorite TeX processor for your ".tex" file. The purpose of this document is not to tell you how to use TeX. It is already assumed that you know how to use TeX. This document tells you how to use it on the IT public UNIX Systems. Refer to the section "Other Documentation" for places to look on how to use TeX itself. This user note is divided into several sections:

Formatting a File
Previewing a File
Printing a File
Putting it All Together
Other Documentation

Formatting a File

The formatting command is:

format filename.tex

Where format is one of: tex, text1 or latex. So, for example, if you wanted to format using plain TeX and the name of the file was "memo.tex" you would say:

% tex memo.tex

If you want to format "thesis.tex" with TEXT1 you would say:

% text1 thesis

Note that the ".tex" was not included. This suffix is optional with TeX, TEXT1 and LaTeX.

To format "report.tex" with LaTeX you say:

% latex report

Previewing a File

Once you have formatted a file (TeX, TEXT1, or LaTeX) you can preview the file if you have Xwindow capability. You do this with the "xdvi" command:

% text1 chapter % xdvi chapter

Printing a File

To print, you must first format the file (with tex, text1 or latex). Once formatted, you then run "dvips" to create a PostScript file from the TeX dvi file. Next you send the output to the printer with "lpr". For example, to print the output of your "thesis.tex" you would do:

% text1 thesis % dvips thesis % lpr -Ppd1 thesis.ps

Notice that "lpr" must have the ".ps" PostScript suffix added to the end. It cannot be omitted.

Putting it All Together

The complete sequence of commands for a file challed chapter1.tex would be something like this:

% ispell chapter1.tex % text1 chapter1 % xdvi chapter1 % dvips chapter1 % lpr -Ppd1 chapter1.ps