$TEXMFMAIN/tex/plain/config/aleph.ini
The driver file that builds the Aleph format file, aleph.fmt, in TeX Live.
aleph1
Extended tex with unicode and bidirectional typesetting support
Usage
aleph [options] [&format] [ file [ more-input ] | [ \more-input ]
Overview
Run the Aleph 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.
Aleph is no longer being actively developed; see LuaTeX for current activity with Unicode and TeX. Aleph is still maintained and distributed for the sake of supporting existing documents.
Aleph is essentially the extended TeX engine Omega, plus the etex(1) extensions. Omega was developed starting in the 1990s to support Unicode and bidirectional typesetting. To support this, it implements "Omega translation process" files (.otp), which are compiled into "Omega compiled process" files (.ocp).
Omega, and hence Aleph, also has its own extended font formats, analogous to TeX's: Omega metric files (.ofm) and Omega virtual fonts (.ovf), along with their corresponding human-readable "property list" forms (.opl and .ovp).
Options
See tex(1). The -enc, -mltex, -translate-file, and -8bit options are not present in Aleph. There are no Aleph-specific options.
Environment
See tex(1).
Files
Releases
14 releases since Debian 2.2 (Potato); the text changed 12 times.
--halt-on-error until Debian 13 (Trixie);
--help until Debian 13 (Trixie);
--ini until Debian 13 (Trixie);
--ipc until Debian 13 (Trixie);
--ipc-start until Debian 13 (Trixie);
--parse-first-line until Debian 13 (Trixie);
--recorder until Debian 13 (Trixie);
--shell-escape until Debian 13 (Trixie);
--version until Debian 13 (Trixie);
-etex until Debian 5.0 (Lenny);
-f until Debian 3.1 (Sarge);
-file-line-error until Debian 5.0 (Lenny);
-file-line-error-style until Debian 5.0 (Lenny);
-h until Debian 3.1 (Sarge);
-halt-on-error until Debian 6.0 (Squeeze);
-help until Debian 5.0 (Lenny);
-i until Debian 3.1 (Sarge);
-ini until Debian 5.0 (Lenny);
-ipc until Debian 5.0 (Lenny);
-ipc-start until Debian 5.0 (Lenny);
-mltex until Debian 5.0 (Lenny);
-no-file-line-error until Debian 5.0 (Lenny);
-no-parse-first-line until Debian 5.0 (Lenny);
-no-shell-escape until Debian 5.0 (Lenny);
-parse-first-line until Debian 5.0 (Lenny);
-recorder until Debian 5.0 (Lenny);
-shell-escape until Debian 5.0 (Lenny);
-src-specials until Debian 5.0 (Lenny);
-v until Debian 3.1 (Sarge);
-version until Debian 5.0 (Lenny).