XETEX(1)

💅 XETEX(1) — bestie's guide to the iconic Unicode TeX engine ✨

okay so you opened the General Commands Manual page for xetex and honestly? you're in for a treat 🎀

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🌸 NAME 🌸

xetex — extended TeX that natively supports Unicode, OpenType, and your system fonts. fr fr it's the glow-up version 💖

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

xetex [options] [&format] [file|\commands]

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so XeTeX (aka the command xetex) is a TeX engine, and its whole main-character thing is native support for Unicode, OpenType, and fonts that are already installed on your system. it does this by leaning on third-party libraries like ICU, HarfBuzz, and FreeType — iykyk, those are the real MVPs 🫶

it outputs an extended dvi format called xdv, and by default that gets translated into pdf by xdvipdfmx(1). slay.

XeTeX also includes the e-TeX extensions plus a whole bunch of extensions from pdfTeX — and ngl, sometimes it uses different primitive names for them, so don't come for me if a name looks familiar but isn't quite it 💀

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💅 OPTIONS 💅

for the common TeX command-line options and how they're handled, go check tex(1). but these XeTeX-specific ones? also supported, bestie 👑

• -no-pdf — generate XeTeX's extended DVI (.xdv) output instead of pdf. lowkey handy when you want the middle step 🔥
• -output-driver cmd — run cmd instead of xdvipdfmx to translate xdv into pdf. choose your own fighter ✨
• -papersize string — set the pdf media size to string. paper size? set. periodt 📄

⚠️ options that got removed: -draftmode, -enc, -ipc, -ipc-start, -translate-file. they're gone gone, no cap 😭 don't try it.

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🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

see tex(1) and pdftex(1). they've got the lore 🧚

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🍓 FILES 🍓

see tex(1). also, this one:

• $TEXMFMAIN/tex/generic/tex-ini-files/xetex.ini — the driver file that builds the plain format file for XeTeX, xetex.fmt, in TeX Live. it's giving "behind the scenes icon" 💜

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💀 BUGS 💀

see tex(1). not me redirecting you again, but that's where the info lives 🙈

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🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

tex(1), dvipdfmx(1), etex(1), latex(1), luatex(1), pdftex(1).

TUGboat articles by Jonathan Kew: https://tug.org/TUGboat/listauthor.html#Kew,Jonathan

Home page: https://tug.org/xetex

XeTeX package page on CTAN: https://ctan.org/pkg/xetex

XeTeX reference manual: https://ctan.org/pkg/xetexref

Web2c manual: https://tug.org/web2c

Kpathsea manual: https://tug.org/kpathsea

Sources for the TeX-world literate programs, as pdf, including XeTeX: https://ctan.org/pkg/knuth-pdf

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👑 AUTHORS 👑

XeTeX was created and is maintained by Jonathan Kew and others. it's released as part of TeX Live. this manual page was written by Karl Berry, and it's released to the public domain — absolutely iconic of them 💖

Bug reports: https://sourceforge.net/p/xetex/bugs/

Public discussion list for pdfTeX-specific issues: https://lists.tug.org/pdftex

Public discussion list for TeX Live: https://lists.tug.org/tex-live

Public discussion list for all things TeX: https://lists.tug.org/texhax

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and that's the whole page, bestie 🎀 mwah 💋 — brought to you by Web2C 2026, dated 1 February 2026, signing off ✨🦋💜