Command Line Options

You can launch Tecplot RS with specific instructions from the command line (on all supported platforms) or by using a shortcut icon (on Window’s platforms). This section describes how to operate Tecplot RS by these methods.

Tecplot RS Command Line

Launching Tecplot RS from the command line requires the following general form:

tecplotrs [options] ['project file' or 'macro file']

where:

  • [project file] indicates a file with the extension .rsprj, including the path. See also Projects. May not be specified with a macro file name.

  • [macro file] indicates a macro file name, with its directory path. See also Macros: Task Automation. May not be specified with a project file name.

  • [options] represents one or more of the following optional flags (all supported platforms accept all flags unless noted otherwise):

[project file]

List the project file you would like to load (*.rsprj).

[macro file]

List the macro file you would like to load (*.mcr).

-b

Run in batch mode.

-c cfgfile

Use cfgfile for the configuration instead of the default configuration file, tecplot.cfg.

-display computername

Display on computer computername (Linux only). The computer, computername, must have X-server capability with the GLX extension.

-datafile filename

Load data file filename.

-f fontfile

Use fontfile instead of the default font file, tecplot.fnt.

-m colormapfile

Use colormapfile as the initial color map file.

-nobatchlog

Suppress creation of the file batch.log during batch mode operation.

-quiet

Turns off all standard-out messages (Linux only).
To use a command line option on a Windows platform, start Tecplot RS from the Run command or the command prompt.

For example, you can use the command line to instigate the following:

Table 1. Tecplot RS Command Line Examples
Command Line Input Result

tecplotrs

Run Tecplot RS

tecplotrs myproject.rsprj

Run Tecplot RS, loading the project myproject.rsprj

tecplotrs a.mcr

Run Tecplot RS and play a macro called a.mcr

Using Command Line Options in Windows Shortcuts

Instead of adding options in the command line, you can also create a Windows shortcut to prompt the same behavior. If you frequently run Tecplot RS using the same command line flags, it may be useful to create a shortcut on your Windows desktop that launches Tecplot RS with the desired command line flags. To do this:

  1. Right-click in any blank space on your Windows desktop.

  2. Choose New → Shortcut from the resulting context menu.

  3. In the Create Shortcut dialog, type the location of the Tecplot RS executable, along with any command flags you want to specify. For example:

    "C:\Program Files\Tecplot\TecRS 2025 R1\bin{ProductExecutableName}.exe" C:\Me\mymacro.mcr

    shortcut

  4. Click the Next button.

  5. Type a name for your shortcut and click Finish. A new shortcut icon will appear on your Windows desktop.

Changing Shortcuts

You can alter an existing shortcut by doing the following:

  1. Right-click on the shortcut icon you want to change and choose "Properties".

  2. On the Shortcut page, modify the command line by changing the Target text. To change the folder that Tecplot RS runs from, change the Start in location.

shortcutsettings

Additional Command Line Options on Linux Platforms

On Linux platforms, you can use additional command line flags which are passed to the window manager to control how the operating system displays the application window. These include -geometry (for specifying the location and position of the application window), -fg and -bg (for specifying foreground and background window colors), and others. See the X11 reference for your system for complete details on these options.

To determine the path or alias that the tecplot command calls, you would use:

which tecplotrs