SYNOPSIS
       mpost [options] [commands]

       mpost --dvitomp dvifile[.dvi] [mpxfile[.mpx]]


DESCRIPTION
       MetaPost interprets the MetaPost language and produces PostScript (EPS)
       or Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) pictures.  The MetaPost  language  is
       similar  to  Knuth's  Metafont  with  additional features for including
       tex(1) or troff(1) commands and accessing features  of  postscript  not
       found in Metafont.

       Like  TeX  and Metafont, MetaPost is normally used with a large body of
       precompiled macros.  When the --ini option is given, it can be used  to
       precompile  macros  into a .mem file.  When called without that option,
       MetaPost will use its executable name as the name of the  mem  to  use.
       For example, when called as mpost the mpost mem is used, which is iden-
       tical to the plain mem.

       The commands given on the command line  to  the  MetaPost  program  are
       passed  to it as the first input line.  (But it is often easier to type
       extended arguments as the first input line, since UNIX shells  tend  to
       gobble up or misinterpret MetaPost's favorite symbols, like semicolons,
       unless you quote them.) The normal  usage  is  to  say  mpost  figs  to
       process  the  file  figs.mp.   The  basename of figs becomes the ``job-
       name'', and is used in forming output file names.  If no file is named,
       the jobname becomes mpout.  The default extension, .mp, can be overrid-
       den by specifying an extension explicitly.

       When the --dvitomp option is given, MetaPost acts  as  DVI-to-MPX  con-
       verter only.  See dvitomp (1) for details.

       This  manual page is not meant to be exhaustive.  The complete documen-
       tation for this version of MetaPost can be found  in  the  User  Manual
       that  should  have  been  installed  along with the program and is also
       available from http://tug.org/metapost.  See the FILES section below.

       The MetaPost language is similar to Metafont, but the manual assumes no
       knowledge  of  Metafont.  MetaPost does not have bitmap output commands
       or Metafont's online display mechanism.


FILES
       *.mem  Predigested MetaPost mem files.

       plain.mp
              The standard mem file.

       mfplain.mp
              The Metafont-compatible mem file.

       $TEXMFMAIN/metapost/base/*.mp
       $TEXMFMAIN/doc/metapost/*
              The  MetaPost  manual and tutorial source, also including sample
              figures

SUGGESTED READING
       Donald E. Knuth, The Metafontbook (Volume C of Computers  and  Typeset-
       ting), Addison-Wesley, 1986, ISBN 0-201-13445-4.
       TUGboat (the journal of the TeX Users Group).

SEE ALSO
       dvitomp(1), epstopdf(1), mf(1), mptopdf(1), tex(1),



AUTHORS
       MetaPost  was  designed by John D. Hobby, incorporating algorithms from
       Metafont by Donald E. Knuth.  It was originally  implemented  on  Unix,
       incorporating  system-dependent  routines from web2c, while not relying
       on it except for the actual Web-to-C translator.

       Ulrik Vieth adapted MetaPost to take advantage  of  the  advanced  path
       searching  features in more recent versions of web2c and worked towards
       fully integrating MetaPost into the canonical Unix TeX distribution.

       The current, CWEB based version of MetaPost is maintained by Taco Hoek-
       water.

       The  manual and tutorial are maintained by Stephan Hennig and Troy Hen-
       derson.

BUGS
       Email bug reports to metapost@tug.org.