Re: Hardcopy and info/html document from same source?
On Sat, Aug 28, 1999 at 12:14:41 +0300, Panu Hällfors wrote:
> Thus, since I need both a hardcopy manual (not necessarily with
> state-of-the-art layout but something readable) and info and/or html
> documentation I'd really like to write the documentation only once and
> just format it in different ways.
TeXinfo already does this; it was designed to have 'info' output and
hardcopy output via TeX; a converter to HTML was developed later
("texi2html" in tetex-bin).
> What's the best way to do this?
Personally, I dislike TeXinfo; I find the syntax cumbersome and difficult to
remember.
I prefer doing documentation in DocBook SGML (see
http://www.wi.LeidenUniv.nl/~jdassen/onderwijs/stuva/debug/ for an
illustration). From DocBook, I can easily generate HTML, plain text, DVI,
PostScript, PDF, MIF and RTF. Several converters to manpage format and info
are under development.
> Is there a tool to make nice-looking hardcopies from info pages?
No. Info is an output format intended for on-line reading on text terminals.
To get good hardcopies, run the TeXinfo source through texi2dvi or its
friends.
> And what about if I tell that the documentation may also be written by a
> Windows-user who's used to play with tools with a GUI?
I think you're going to have to reeducate that Windows-user a bit.
> Is there an easy program with GUI (or a menu-based tool at least) that can
> be used to write info pages or some other format which converts to both
> html and hardcopy?
As I don't do Windows, I'm not aware of one. DocBook lends itself reasonably
well to a structured editor or an editor with syntax highlighting, so it may
well be that one exists for Windows.
HTH,
Ray
--
LEADERSHIP A form of self-preservation exhibited by people with auto-
destructive imaginations in order to ensure that when it comes to the crunch
it'll be someone else's bones which go crack and not their own.
- The Hipcrime Vocab by Chad C. Mulligan
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