Docutils Front-End Tools
- Contact:
- docutils-develop@lists.sourceforge.net
- Revision:
- 9370
- Date:
- 2023-05-03
- Copyright:
- This document has been placed in the public domain.
Introduction
In addition to the generic command line front end, Docutils installs several 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:
<toolname> [options] [<source> [<destination>]]
See the tools below for concrete examples.
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.
Getting Help
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.
The Tools
Generic Command Line Front End
- CLI name:
docutils
- Readers:
Standalone (default), PEP
- Parsers:
reStructuredText (default), Markdown (requires 3rd party packages)
- Writers:
html, html4css1, html5 (default), latex2e, manpage, odt, pep_html, pseudo-xml, s5_html, xelatex, xml,
- Config:
Since Docutils 0.19, you can start the generic front end like:
docutils test.rst test.html
Alternatively, use Python's -m option, or the docutils-cli.py script in the tools/ directory.
The generic front end allows combining "reader", "parser", and "writer" components from the Docutils package or 3rd party plug-ins. For example, to process a Markdown file "test.md" into Pseudo-XML:
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
HTML-Generating Tools
rst2html.py
- Reader:
Standalone
- Parser:
reStructuredText
- Writer:
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.
rst2html4.py
- Reader:
Standalone
- Parser:
reStructuredText
- Writer:
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.py 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.py -stg test.txt test.html
Stylesheets
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.
rst2html5.py
- Reader:
Standalone
- Parser:
reStructuredText
- Writer:
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.
rstpep2html.py
- Reader:
PEP
- Parser:
reStructuredText
- Writer:
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 ../../tools/rstpep2html.py pep-0287.txt pep-0287.html
The same result can be achieved with the genric front end:
docutils --reader=pep --writer=pep_html pep-0287.txt pep-0287.html
The rendering of published PEPs is done by a Sphinx-based build system (see PEP 676).
rst2s5.py
- Reader:
Standalone
- Parser:
reStructuredText
- Writer:
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.py slides.txt slides.html
Now open the "slides.html" file in your favorite browser, switch to full-screen mode, and enjoy the results.
Themes
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.py --theme medium-black slides.txt slides.html
The theme will be copied to the ui/medium-black directory.
Several themes are included with Docutils:
- default
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-white
(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
- small-black
- 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
- medium-white
- 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
- medium-black
- 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
- big-white
- 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
- big-black
- 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.
buildhtml.py
- Readers:
Standalone, PEP
- Parser:
reStructuredText
- Writers:
- Config:
The buildhtml.py script can be found in the /tools directory of the "docutils" source. It is not included in binary packages. [2]
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:
buildhtml.py [options] [<directory> ...]
After unpacking the Docutils source 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.
LaTeX-Generating Tools
rst2latex.py
- Reader:
Standalone
- Parser:
reStructuredText
- Writer:
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.py 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.
rst2xetex.py
- Reader:
Standalone
- Parser:
reStructuredText
- Writer:
xelatex
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.
Man-Page-Generating Tools
rst2man.py
- Reader:
Standalone
- Parser:
reStructuredText
- Writer:
The rst2man.py front end reads standalone reStructuredText source files and produces troff sources for Unix man pages.
OpenDocument-Generating Tools
rst2odt.py
- Reader:
Standalone
- Parser:
reStructuredText
- Writer:
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.
rst2odt_prepstyles.py
A helper tool to prepare a word-processor-generated STYLE_FILE.odt for use with the "odt" writer: [3]
rst2odt_prepstyles.py STYLE_FILE.odt
See Odt Writer for Docutils for details.
reStructuredText-Generating Tools
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.
XML-Generating Tools
rst2xml.py
- Reader:
Standalone
- Parser:
reStructuredText
- Writer:
XML (Docutils native)
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.
Testing/Debugging Tools
rst2pseudoxml.py
- Reader:
Standalone
- Parser:
reStructuredText
- Writer:
Pseudo-XML
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.
Customization
Most front-end tools support the options/settings from the generic configuration file sections plus the sections of their components (reader, writer, parser). [4] Some front-end tools also add application-specific settings.
Command-Line Options
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
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.