---
name: "ptex"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "texlive-doc"
version: "2026.1-1"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/ptex"
---

# ptex(1)

Japanese "Publishing TeX"

## NAME

ptex, uptex, eptex, euptex - Japanese "Publishing TeX"

## SYNOPSIS

**ptex** \[*options*\] \[***&**format*\] \[*file*\|***\\**commands*\]

## DESCRIPTION

pTeX (**ptex**) is a TeX engine with extensions for Japanese typesetting, including features related to line breaking rules, inter-character spacing and vertical writing. It was first developed by ASCII Corporation, in the aim of providing a Japanese TeX which can be used for commercial publishing. For pTeX, the character set available is limited to JIS X 0208, namely JIS level-1 and level-2.

upTeX (**uptex**) is a Unicode-enabled pTeX with extensions for better handling of CJK (Chinese, Japanese and Korean) multilingual documents. It has been developed by Takuji Tanaka since 2007.

e-pTeX (**eptex**) is a merge of e-TeX and pTeX.

e-upTeX (**euptex**) is a merge of e-TeX and upTeX.

In the following sections, we refer to these engines as (e-)(u)pTeX.

(e-)(u)pTeX's handling of its command-line arguments is similar to that of the other TeX programs in the *web2c* implementation.

## OPTIONS

Here we list only additions/deletions of command line options which are specific to (e-)(u)pTeX. For (u)pTeX, other options are similar to TeX. For e-(u)pTeX, other options are similar to e-TeX.

- Additions (supported by ptexenc library):

  - **-kanji** *string*

  Sets the input Japanese *Kanji* code.  The *string* can be either *euc* (EUC-JP), *jis* (ISO-2022-JP), *sjis* (Shift\_JIS), and *utf8* (UTF-8). For (e-)upTeX, *uptex* is also allowed.

- **-kanji-internal** *string*

  Sets the internal *Kanji* code.  The string can be either *euc*, and *sjis*. For (e-)upTeX, *uptex* is also allowed.

- Deletions:

  - **-enc**

  In this version of (e-)(u)pTeX, encTeX extensions are *not* available.

## SEE ALSO

[**tex**(1)](/tex/1.md), [**etex**(1)](/etex/1.md).\
 Reference manual: \<https://github.com/texjporg/ptex-manual\>

## AUTHORS

This version of (e-)(u)pTeX is maintained by Japanese TeX Development Community \<https://texjp.org\>. For bug reports, open an issue at GitHub repository \<https://github.com/texjporg/tex-jp-build\>, or send an e-mail to \<issue@texjp.org\>.

This manual page was written by Hironobu Yamashita.