These are the command-line options relevant to ordinary document authoring. For a full list, try running ‘latex --help’ from the command line.
With many implementations you can specify command line options by prefixing them with ‘-’ or ‘--’. This is the case for both TeX Live (including MacTeX) and MiKTeX. We will use both conventions interchangeably. If an option takes a value, it can be specified either as a separate argument (‘--foo val’), or as one argument with an ‘=’ sign (‘--foo=val’), but there can be no spaces around the ‘=’. We will generally use the ‘=’ syntax.
-version ¶Show the current version, like ‘pdfTeX 3.14159265-2.6-1.40.16 (TeX Live 2015/Debian)’ along with a small amount of additional information, and exit.
-help ¶Give a brief usage message that is useful as a prompt and exit.
-interaction=mode ¶TeX compiles a document in one of four interaction modes:
batchmode, nonstopmode, scrollmode,
errorstopmode. In errorstopmode (the default), TeX
stops at each error and asks for user intervention. In batchmode
it prints nothing on the terminal, errors are scrolled as if the user
hit RETURN at every error, and missing files cause the job to
abort. In nonstopmode, diagnostic message appear on the terminal
but as in batch mode there is no user interaction. In
scrollmode, TeX stops for missing files or keyboard
input, but nothing else.
For instance, starting LaTeX with this command line
pdflatex -interaction=batchmode filename
eliminates most terminal output.
-jobname=string ¶Set the value of TeX’s jobname to the string. The log file and output file will then be named string.log and string.pdf. see Jobname.
-output-directory=directory ¶Write files in the directory directory. It must already exist. This applies to all external files created by TeX or LaTeX, such as the .log file for the run, the .aux, .toc, etc., files created by LaTeX, as well as the main .pdf or .dvi output file itself.
When specified, the output directory directory is also automatically checked first for any file that it is input, so that the external files can be read back in, if desired. The true current directory (in which LaTeX was run) remains unchanged, and is also checked for input files.
--enable-write18 ¶--disable-write18--shell-escape--no-shell-escapeEnable or disable \write18{shell_command}
(see \write18). The first two options are supported by both
TeX Live and MiKTeX, while the second two are synonyms supported
by TeX Live.
Enabling this functionality has major security implications, since it
allows a LaTeX file to run any command whatsoever. Thus, by
default, unrestricted \write18 is not allowed. (The default
for TeX Live, MacTeX, and MiKTeX is to allow the execution of
a limited number of TeX-related programs, which they distribute.)
For example, if you invoke LaTeX with the option
no-shell-escape, and in your document you call
\write18{ls -l}, then you do not get an error but the log
file says ‘runsystem(ls -l)...disabled’.
-halt-on-error ¶Stop processing at the first error.
-file-line-error ¶-no-file-line-errorEnable or disable filename:lineno:error-style
error messages. These are only available with TeX Live or MacTeX.