texconfig(1)

💖 texconfig — the vibe 💖

okay bestie, sit down, we're talking about texconfig and its sibling texconfig-sys, both living in the TeX Live manual, and honestly? iconic. 🎀

• texconfig — configures teTeX or TeX Live ✨
• texconfig-sys — configures teTeX or TeX Live system-wide 👑

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

texconfig

texconfig [ commands ...]

texconfig-sys

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so texconfig is literally here to let you configure and maintain TeX in an easy and convenient manner, offering a whole series of dialog boxes to you, the user. and the directory where texconfig itself is found? that's also the directory it preferentially uses to find subprograms. cute, right? 💅

now real talk: the tlmgr program has subsumed this function for TeX Live. this program is still supported, no cap, but the tlmgr interface is much more actively developed and tested. so like, iykyk. 👀

after you choose settings or options, the appropriate files get changed automatically and the new settings are applied for the user. and if it's needed, copies of files in TEXMFDIST or TEXMFMAIN will be made in the user's TEXMFCONFIG tree. 🦋

texconfig uses either the whiptail(1) or the dialog(1) program to talk to you, so heads up: it must be run in a terminal. no terminal, no vibes. 💀

for making system-wide changes — the kind that apply to all users of TeX, like default paper size and so on — run texconfig-sys instead. changed or generated files will be placed in TEXMFSYSCONFIG. (and yeah, you may need to be root to do this. main character privilege, honestly. 👑)

texconfig also offers a non-interactive batch mode which can be accessed with the following commands ⬇️

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🎀 COMMANDS 🎀

commands that accept further options usually display the available options if you call them without them. for example, texconfig dvipdfm paper will inform about valid paper settings. very "ask and you shall receive" of it. 🙈

• conf — Display the system configuration. ✨
• dvipdfm paper [letter|legal|ledger|tabloid|a4|a3] — Set up dvipdfm to use papersize PAPER by default. 📄
• dvips add PRINTERNAME — Create a new (empty) configuration file TEXMFCONFIG/dvips/config/config.PRINTERNAME. This file can later be filled with the mode, offset or printcmd options.
• dvips del PRINTERNAME — Remove config.PRINTERNAME. bye bestie 💅
• dvips mode — List available Metafont modes.
• dvips [-P PRINTER] mode MODE — Change the Metafont mode to MODE for PRINTER, or for all output files (config.ps) if no -P option is given.
• dvips [-P PRINTER] offset x-OFFSET,y-OFFSET — Set printer offset for PRINTER, or for all output files (config.ps) if no -P option is given. offsets must be given with units, e.g. 0pt,10pt. you can use testpage.tex from the LaTeX distribution to find these numbers. 🔍
• dvips [-P PRINTER] printcmd CMD — Set the printing command for PRINTER, or for all output files (config.ps) if no -P option is given. commands might be lp or lpr. see the description of the o option in info dvips or the -O option in dvips(1).
• faq — Display the list of Frequently Asked Questions about teTeX (and their answers). the tea is piping hot ☕
• font vardir DIR, font ro, font rw — that's the whole thing, bestie, exactly as written. ✨
• formats — This command allows to edit fmtutil.cnf(5) and (re)creates any new or changed formats afterwards.
• hyphen FORMAT — This command allows to edit the hyphenation configuration file for formats that support this, and recreates the formats afterwards to enable the new languages. available formats are shown when no FORMAT is given.

okay important: for formats that use LaTeX's language.dat, e.g. (pdf)jadetex and latex itself, this change is not persistent, since this file is a generated file. you should not use this command in these cases — read update-language(1) for alternatives. 🫶

• init [format] — Recreate format, or all formats if none is given, and the font information. this is the same as calling fmtutil --byfmt format or fmtutil --all, respectively, followed by updmap. 🔥
• mode-list — List available printer modes, together with the printers they were developed for, and their DPI resolution.
• mode MODE — Set the default printer mode in /etc/texmf/web2c/mktex.cnf or the respective user file in $TEXMFCONFIG/web2c to MODE.
• paper [a4|letter] — Set the default papersize for dvips, dvipdfm, pdftex and xdvi. the set is restricted because not all programs understand all sizes. (not everyone can sit with us, and that's fine. 💅)
• pdftex paper [a4|letter] — Set the default paper size for pdftex.
• rehash — Call mktexlsr.
• xdvi paper PAPER — Set the default paper size for xdvi. the (long) list is available with texconfig xdvi paper.

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🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

to let you change files, texconfig will open the editor specified in the VISUAL or EDITOR variables, or sensible-editor if both are unset. it's giving "i'll meet you wherever you're at" energy. 🧚

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👀 SEE ALSO 👀

whiptail(1), dialog(1), tlmgr(1), tex(1), mf(1), vi(1), EDITOR environment variable.

go read them, bestie, they're all in the group chat 📚

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💜 AUTHOR 💜

Thomas Esser

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and that's the whole page, no notes 💖 this was TeX Live's texconfig(1) from July 2014 — yeah she's a lil vintage but she still slays ✨ mwah, go configure something 🎀🦋🌸