| Author: | David Goodger |
|---|---|
| Contact: | docutils-develop@lists.sourceforge.net |
| Revision: | 9082 |
| Date: | 2022-06-20 |
| Copyright: | This document has been placed in the public domain. |
Contents
Once the Docutils package is unpacked, you will discover a tools/ directory containing several front ends for common Docutils processing. In addition to the generic command line front end, Docutils has many small front ends, each specialized for a specific "Reader" (which knows how to interpret a file in context), a "Parser" (which understands the syntax of the text), and a "Writer" (which knows how to generate a specific data format).
Most [1] front ends have common options and the same command-line usage pattern (see the tools below for concrete examples):
toolname [options] [<source> [<destination>]]
Each tool has a "--help" option which lists the command-line options and arguments it supports. Processing can also be customized with configuration files.
The two arguments, "source" and "destination", are optional. If only one argument (source) is specified, the standard output (stdout) is used for the destination. If no arguments are specified, the standard input (stdin) is used for the source.
In Debian these tools are installed in the normal system path, without the .py extension, according to Debian policy. buildhtml.py is installed as rst-buildhtml.
Note
Docutils front-end tool support is currently under discussion. Tool names, install details and the set of auto-installed tools may change in future Docutils versions.
| [1] | The exceptions are buildhtml.py, quicktest.py and rst2odt_prepstyles.py. |
First, try the "--help" option each front-end tool has.
Command line options and their corresponding configuration file entries are detailed in Docutils Configuration.
Users who have questions or need assistance with Docutils or reStructuredText should post a message to the Docutils-users mailing list.
| Readers: | Standalone, PEP |
|---|---|
| Parsers: | reStructuredText, Markdown (requires 3rd party packages) |
| Writers: | html, html4css1, html5, latex, manpage, odt, pep_html, pseudo-xml, s5_html, xelatex, xml, |
| Config: | See [docutils application] |
The generic front end allows combining "reader", "parser", and "writer" components from the Docutils package or 3rd party plug-ins.
Since Docutils 0.19, it can be called by Python's -m option, the docutils script installed in the binary PATH, or the docutils-cli.py script in the tools/ directory.
For example, to process a Markdown file "test.md" into Pseudo-XML
python3 -m docutils --parser=markdown --writer=pseudoxml\ test.md test.txt
Use the "--help" option together with the component-selection options to get the correct list of supported command-line options. Example:
docutils --parser=markdown --writer=xml --help
| Readers: | Standalone, PEP |
|---|---|
| Parser: | reStructuredText |
| Writers: | html, html5, pep_html |
| Config: | [buildhtml application] |
In Debian this tool is installed under the name rst-buildhtml.
Use buildhtml.py to generate *.html from all the *.txt files (including PEPs) in each <directory> given, and their subdirectories too. (Use the --local option to skip subdirectories.)
Usage:
rst-buildhtml [options] [<directory> ...]
After unpacking the Docutils package, the following shell commands will generate HTML for all included documentation:
cd docutils/tools buildhtml.py ..
For official releases, the directory may be called "docutils-X.Y", where "X.Y" is the release version. Alternatively:
cd docutils tools/buildhtml.py --config=tools/docutils.conf
The current directory (and all subdirectories) is chosen by default if no directory is named. Some files may generate system messages (docs/user/rst/demo.txt contains intentional errors); use the --quiet option to suppress all warnings. The --config option ensures that the correct settings are in place (a docutils.conf configuration file in the current directory is picked up automatically). Command-line options may be used to override config file settings or replace them altogether.
| Reader: | Standalone |
|---|---|
| Parser: | reStructuredText |
| Writer: | html |
In Debian this front end is installed as rst2html.
rst2html.py is the front-end for the default Docutils HTML writer. The default writer may change with the development of HTML, browsers, Docutils, and the web. The current default is html4css1, it will change to html5 in Docutils 2.0.
Caution!
Use a specific front end like rst2html4.py or rst2html5.py, if you depend on stability of the generated HTML code (e.g., because you use a custom style sheet or post-processing that may break otherwise).
| Reader: | Standalone |
|---|---|
| Parser: | reStructuredText |
| Writer: | html4css1 |
In Debian this front end is installed as rst2html4.
The rst2html4.py front end reads standalone reStructuredText source files and produces XHTML 1.0 Transitional output. A CSS stylesheet is required for proper rendering; a simple but complete stylesheet is installed and used by default (see Stylesheets below).
For example, to process a reStructuredText file "test.txt" into HTML:
rst2html test.txt test.html
Now open the "test.html" file in your favorite browser to see the results. To get a footer with a link to the source file, date & time of processing, and links to the Docutils project, add some options:
rst2html -stg test.txt test.html
rst2html.py inserts into the generated HTML a cascading stylesheet (or a link to a stylesheet, when passing the "--link-stylesheet" option). A stylesheet is required for proper rendering. The default stylesheet (docutils/writers/html4css1/html4css1.css, located in the installation directory) is provided for basic use.
To use different stylesheet(s), specify the stylesheets' location(s) as comma-separated list with the "--stylesheet" or "--stylesheet-path" options. To experiment with styles, please see the guide to writing HTML (CSS) stylesheets for Docutils.
| Reader: | Standalone |
|---|---|
| Parser: | reStructuredText |
| Writer: | html5 |
In Debian this front end is installed as rst2html5.
The rst2html5.py front end reads standalone reStructuredText source files and produces HTML 5 output. Correct rendering of elements not directly supported by HTML depends on a CSS style sheet. The provided style sheets minimal.css and plain.css define required and optional styling rules respectively.
| Reader: | PEP |
|---|---|
| Parser: | reStructuredText |
| Writer: | pep_html |
In Debian this front end is installed as rstpep2html.
rstpep2html.py reads a new-style PEP (marked up with reStructuredText) and produces XHTML 1.0 Transitional. It requires a template file and a stylesheet. By default, it makes use of a "pep-html-template" file and the "pep.css" stylesheet (both in the docutils/writers/pep_html/ directory), but these can be overridden by command-line options or configuration files.
For example, to process a PEP into HTML:
cd <path-to-docutils>/docs/peps rstpep2html pep-0287.txt pep-0287.html
| Reader: | Standalone |
|---|---|
| Parser: | reStructuredText |
| Writer: | s5_html |
In Debian this is installed as rst2s5.
The rst2s5.py front end reads standalone reStructuredText source files and produces (X)HTML output compatible with S5, the "Simple Standards-based Slide Show System" by Eric Meyer. A theme is required for proper rendering; several are distributed with Docutils and others are available; see Themes below.
For example, to process a reStructuredText file "slides.txt" into S5/HTML:
rst2s5 slides.txt slides.html
Now open the "slides.html" file in your favorite browser, switch to full-screen mode, and enjoy the results.
Each S5 theme consists of a directory containing several files: stylesheets, JavaScript, and graphics. These are copied into a ui/<theme> directory beside the generated HTML. A theme is chosen using the "--theme" option (for themes that come with Docutils) or the "--theme-url" option (for themes anywhere). For example, the "medium-black" theme can be specified as follows:
rst2s5 --theme medium-black slides.txt slides.html
The theme will be copied to the ui/medium-black directory.
Several themes are included with Docutils:
This is a simplified version of S5's default theme.
| Main content: | black serif text on a white background |
|---|---|
| Text capacity: | about 13 lines |
| Headers: | light blue, bold sans-serif text on a dark blue background; titles are limited to one line |
| Footers: | small, gray, bold sans-serif text on a dark blue background |
(Small text on a white background.)
| Main content: | black serif text on a white background |
|---|---|
| Text capacity: | about 15 lines |
| Headers: | black, bold sans-serif text on a white background; titles wrap |
| Footers: | small, dark gray, bold sans-serif text on a white background |
| Main content: | white serif text on a black background |
|---|---|
| Text capacity: | about 15 lines |
| Headers: | white, bold sans-serif text on a black background; titles wrap |
| Footers: | small, light gray, bold sans-serif text on a black background |
| Main content: | black serif text on a white background |
|---|---|
| Text capacity: | about 9 lines |
| Headers: | black, bold sans-serif text on a white background; titles wrap |
| Footers: | small, dark gray, bold sans-serif text on a white background |
| Main content: | white serif text on a black background |
|---|---|
| Text capacity: | about 9 lines |
| Headers: | white, bold sans-serif text on a black background; titles wrap |
| Footers: | small, light gray, bold sans-serif text on a black background |
| Main content: | black, bold sans-serif text on a white background |
|---|---|
| Text capacity: | about 5 lines |
| Headers: | black, bold sans-serif text on a white background; titles wrap |
| Footers: | not displayed |
| Main content: | white, bold sans-serif text on a black background |
|---|---|
| Text capacity: | about 5 lines |
| Headers: | white, bold sans-serif text on a black background; titles wrap |
| Footers: | not displayed |
If a theme directory contains a file named __base__, the name of the theme's base theme will be read from it. Files are accumulated from the named theme, any base themes, and the "default" theme (which is the implicit base of all themes).
For details, please see Easy Slide Shows With reStructuredText & S5.
| Reader: | Standalone |
|---|---|
| Parser: | reStructuredText |
| Writer: | latex2e |
In Debian this is installed as rst2latex.
The rst2latex.py front end reads standalone reStructuredText source files and produces LaTeX output. For example, to process a reStructuredText file "test.txt" into LaTeX:
rst2latex test.txt test.tex
The output file "test.tex" should then be processed with latex or pdflatex to get a document in DVI, PostScript or PDF format for printing or on-screen viewing.
For details see Generating LaTeX with Docutils.
| Reader: | Standalone |
|---|---|
| Parser: | reStructuredText |
| Writer: | xelatex |
On Debian this front end is installed as rst2xetex.
The rst2xetex.py front end reads standalone reStructuredText source files and produces LaTeX output for processing with Unicode-aware TeX engines (LuaTeX or XeTeX). For example, to process a reStructuredText file "test.txt" into LaTeX:
rst2xetex.py test.txt test.tex
The output file "test.tex" should then be processed with xelatex or lualatex to get a document in PDF format for printing or on-screen viewing.
For details see Generating LaTeX with Docutils.
| Reader: | Standalone |
|---|---|
| Parser: | reStructuredText |
| Writer: | manpage |
The rst2man.py front end reads standalone reStructuredText source files and produces troff sources for Unix man pages.
| Reader: | Standalone |
|---|---|
| Parser: | reStructuredText |
| Writer: | odt |
In Debian this front end is installed as rst2odt.
The rst2odt.py front end reads standalone reStructuredText source files and produces ODF/.odt files that can be read, edited, printed, etc with OpenOffice oowriter or LibreOffice lowriter. A stylesheet file is required. A stylesheet file is an OpenOffice .odt file containing definitions of the styles required for rst2odt.py. For details, see Odt Writer for Docutils.
A helper tool to fix a word-processor-generated STYLE_FILE.odt for odtwriter use:
rst2odt_prepstyles STYLE_FILE.odt
See Odt Writer for Docutils for details.
Currently, there is no reStructuredText writer in Docutils and therefore an rst2rst.py tool is still missing.
To generate reStructuredText documents with Docutils, you can use the XML (Docutils native) writer and the xml2rst processor.
| Reader: | Standalone |
|---|---|
| Parser: | reStructuredText |
| Writer: | XML (Docutils native) |
In Debian this is installed as rst2xml.
The rst2xml.py front end produces Docutils-native XML output. This can be transformed with standard XML tools such as XSLT processors into arbitrary final forms. An example is the xml2rst processor in the Docutils sandbox.
| Reader: | Standalone |
|---|---|
| Parser: | reStructuredText |
| Writer: | Pseudo-XML |
In Debian this is installed as rst2pseudoxml.
rst2pseudoxml.py is used for debugging the Docutils "Reader to Transform to Writer" pipeline. It produces a compact pretty-printed "pseudo-XML", where nesting is indicated by indentation (no end-tags). External attributes for all elements are output, and internal attributes for any leftover "pending" elements are also given.
| Reader: | N/A |
|---|---|
| Parser: | reStructuredText |
| Writer: | N/A |
This tool is not currently installed by the Debian package; apt-get source python-docutils if you need it.
The quicktest.py tool is used for testing the reStructuredText parser. It does not use a Docutils Reader or Writer or the standard Docutils command-line options. Rather, it does its own I/O and calls the parser directly. No transforms are applied to the parsed document. Possible output forms output include:
| --pretty | Pretty-printed pseudo-XML (default) |
| --test | Test data (Python list of input and pseudo-XML output strings; useful for creating new test cases) |
| --xml | Pretty-printed native XML |
| --rawxml | Raw native XML (with or without a stylesheet reference) |
| --help | Usage hint and complete list of supported options. |
Most front-end tools support the options/settings from the generic configuration file sections plus the sections of their components (reader, writer, parser). [2] Some front-end tools also add application-specific settings.
| [2] | The exceptions are quicktest.py and rst2odt_prepstyles.py. |
Command-line options are intended for one-off customization. They take priority over configuration file settings.
Use the "--help" option on each of the front ends to list the command-line options it supports.
Configuration files are used for persistent customization; they can be set once and take effect every time you use a front-end tool.
Command-line options and their corresponding configuration file entry names are listed in the Docutils Configuration document.