Installation
************

 installation The simplest way to install Eplain is simply to install the file eplain.tex in a directory where TeX will find it.  What that directory is obviously depends on your operating system and TeX installation.  I personally install eplain.tex in a directory /usr/local/lib/texmf/tex/plain.

If you want, you can also create a format (.fmt) file for Eplain, which will eliminate the time spent reading the macro source file with \input.  You do this by issuing a sequence of Unix commands something like this:

     prompt$ touch eplain.aux
     prompt$ initex
     This is TeX, ...
     **&plain eplain
     (eplain.tex)
     *\dump
     ... MESSAGES ...

You must make sure that eplain.aux exists before you run initex; otherwise, warning messages about undefined labels will never be issued.

You then have to install the resulting eplain.fmt in some system directory or set an environment variable to tell TeX how to find it. I install the format files in /usr/local/lib/texmf/ini; the environment variable for the Web2C port of TeX to Unix is TEXFORMATS.

Some implementations of TeX (including Web2C) use the name by which TeX is invoked to determine what format to read.  For them, you should make a link to the virtex program named etex, and then install the format file with the name etex.fmt.  This lets users invoke TeX as etex and get the format file read automatically, without having to say &eplain.

For convenience, the file etex.tex in the distribution directory does \input eplain and then \dump, so that if you replace eplain with etex in the example above, the format file will end up with the right name.

The install target in the Makefile does all this properly for Unix systems and Web2C.  You may have to change the pathnames.

Under emtex, eaj@acpub.duke.edu says that

     tex386 -i ^&plain eplain \dump

produces a format file.