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Edit File: Output-Formats.html
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> <html> <!-- Created by GNU Texinfo 6.8, https://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/ --> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> <!-- This manual is for GNU Texinfo (version 6.8, 8 June 2021), a documentation system that can produce both online information and a printed manual from a single source using semantic markup. Copyright (C) 1988, 1990-1993, 1995-1999, 2001-2021 Free Software Foundation, Inc. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License". --> <title>Output Formats (GNU Texinfo 6.8)</title> <meta name="description" content="Output Formats (GNU Texinfo 6.8)"> <meta name="keywords" content="Output Formats (GNU Texinfo 6.8)"> <meta name="resource-type" content="document"> <meta name="distribution" content="global"> <meta name="Generator" content="texi2any"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width,initial-scale=1"> <link href="index.html" rel="start" title="Top"> <link href="Command-and-Variable-Index.html" rel="index" title="Command and Variable Index"> <link href="index.html#SEC_Contents" rel="contents" title="Table of Contents"> <link href="Overview.html" rel="up" title="Overview"> <link href="Info-Files.html" rel="next" title="Info Files"> <link href="Reporting-Bugs.html" rel="prev" title="Reporting Bugs"> <style type="text/css"> <!-- a.copiable-anchor {visibility: hidden; text-decoration: none; line-height: 0em} a.summary-letter {text-decoration: none} blockquote.indentedblock {margin-right: 0em} div.display {margin-left: 3.2em} div.example {margin-left: 3.2em} kbd {font-style: oblique} pre.display {font-family: inherit} pre.format {font-family: inherit} pre.menu-comment {font-family: serif} pre.menu-preformatted {font-family: serif} span.nolinebreak {white-space: nowrap} span.roman {font-family: initial; font-weight: normal} span.sansserif {font-family: sans-serif; font-weight: normal} span:hover a.copiable-anchor {visibility: visible} ul.no-bullet {list-style: none} --> </style> </head> <body lang="en"> <div class="section" id="Output-Formats"> <div class="header"> <p> Next: <a href="Info-Files.html" accesskey="n" rel="next">Info Files</a>, Previous: <a href="Reporting-Bugs.html" accesskey="p" rel="prev">Reporting Bugs</a>, Up: <a href="Overview.html" accesskey="u" rel="up">Overview of Texinfo</a> [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Command-and-Variable-Index.html" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p> </div> <hr> <span id="Output-Formats-1"></span><h3 class="section">1.2 Output Formats</h3> <span id="index-Output-formats"></span> <span id="index-Back_002dend-output-formats"></span> <p>Here is a brief overview of the output formats currently supported by Texinfo. </p> <dl compact="compact"> <dt id='index-Info-output_002c-overview'><span>Info<a href='#index-Info-output_002c-overview' class='copiable-anchor'> ¶</a></span></dt> <dd><p>(Generated via <code>makeinfo</code>.) Info format is mostly a plain text transliteration of the Texinfo source. It adds a few control characters to provide navigational information for cross-references, indices, and so on. The Emacs Info subsystem (see <cite><a data-manual="info" href="../info/index.html#Top">Info</a></cite>), and the standalone <code>info</code> program (see <cite><a data-manual="info-stnd" href="../info-stnd/index.html#Top">GNU Info</a></cite>), among others, can read these files. See <a href="Info-Files.html">Info Files</a>, and <a href="Creating-and-Installing-Info-Files.html">Creating and Installing Info Files</a>. </p> </dd> <dt id='index-Plain-text-output_002c-overview'><span>Plain text<a href='#index-Plain-text-output_002c-overview' class='copiable-anchor'> ¶</a></span></dt> <dd><p>(Generated via <code>makeinfo --plaintext</code>.) This is almost the same as Info output with the navigational control characters are omitted. </p> </dd> <dt id='index-HTML-output_002c-overview'><span>HTML<a href='#index-HTML-output_002c-overview' class='copiable-anchor'> ¶</a></span></dt> <dd><span id="index-W3-consortium"></span> <span id="index-Mozilla"></span> <span id="index-Lynx"></span> <span id="index-Emacs_002dW3"></span> <p>(Generated via <code>makeinfo --html</code>.) HTML, standing for Hyper Text Markup Language, has become the most commonly used language for writing documents on the World Wide Web. Web browsers, such as Mozilla, Lynx, and Emacs-W3, can render this language online. There are many versions of HTML, both different standards and browser-specific variations. <code>makeinfo</code> tries to use a subset of the language that can be interpreted by any common browser, intentionally not using many newer or less widely-supported tags. Although the native output is thus rather plain, it can be customized at various levels, if desired. For details of the HTML language and much related information, see <a href="http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/">http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/</a>. See <a href="Generating-HTML.html">Generating HTML</a>. </p> </dd> <dt id='index-DVI-output_002c-overview'><span>DVI<a href='#index-DVI-output_002c-overview' class='copiable-anchor'> ¶</a></span></dt> <dd><span id="index-dvips"></span> <span id="index-xdvi"></span> <p>(Generated via <code>texi2dvi</code>.) The DeVIce Independent binary format is output by the TeX typesetting program (<a href="http://tug.org">http://tug.org</a>). This is then read by a DVI ‘driver’, which knows the actual device-specific commands that can be viewed or printed, notably Dvips for translation to PostScript (see <cite><a data-manual="dvips" href="../dvips/index.html#Top">Dvips</a></cite>) and Xdvi for viewing on an X display (<a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/xdvi/">http://sourceforge.net/projects/xdvi/</a>). See <a href="Hardcopy.html">Formatting and Printing Hardcopy</a>. (Be aware that the Texinfo language is very different from and much stricter than TeX’s usual languages: plain TeX, LaTeX, ConTeXt, etc.) </p> </dd> <dt id='index-PostScript-output_002c-overview'><span>PostScript<a href='#index-PostScript-output_002c-overview' class='copiable-anchor'> ¶</a></span></dt> <dd><p>(Generated via <code>texi2dvi --ps</code>.) PostScript is a page description language that became widely used around 1985 and is still used today. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostScript">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostScript</a> gives a basic description and more preferences. By default, Texinfo uses the <code>dvips</code> program to convert TeX’s DVI output to PostScript. See <cite><a data-manual="dvips" href="../dvips/index.html#Top">Dvips</a></cite>. </p> </dd> <dt id='index-PDF-output_002c-overview'><span>PDF<a href='#index-PDF-output_002c-overview' class='copiable-anchor'> ¶</a></span></dt> <dd><span id="index-Beebe_002c-Nelson"></span> <p>(Generated via <code>texi2dvi --pdf</code> or <code>texi2pdf</code>.) This format was developed by Adobe Systems for portable document interchange, based on their previous PostScript language. It can represent the exact appearance of a document, including fonts and graphics, and supporting arbitrary scaling. It is intended to be platform-independent and easily viewable, among other design goals; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Document_Format">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Document_Format</a> and <a href="http://tug.org/TUGboat/tb22-3/tb72beebe-pdf.pdf">http://tug.org/TUGboat/tb22-3/tb72beebe-pdf.pdf</a> have some background. By default, Texinfo uses the <code>pdftex</code> program, an extension of TeX, to output PDF; see <a href="http://tug.org/applications/pdftex">http://tug.org/applications/pdftex</a>. See <a href="PDF-Output.html">PDF Output</a>. </p> </dd> <dt id='index-DocBook-output_002c-overview'><span>DocBook<a href='#index-DocBook-output_002c-overview' class='copiable-anchor'> ¶</a></span></dt> <dd><span id="index-XML-DocBook-output_002c-overview"></span> <p>(Generated via <code>makeinfo --docbook</code>.) This is an XML-based format developed some years ago, primarily for technical documentation. It therefore bears some resemblance, in broad outline, to Texinfo. See <a href="http://www.docbook.org">http://www.docbook.org</a>. Various converters from DocBook <em>to</em> Texinfo have also been developed; see the Texinfo web pages. </p> </dd> <dt id='index-XML-Texinfo-output_002c-overview'><span>XML<a href='#index-XML-Texinfo-output_002c-overview' class='copiable-anchor'> ¶</a></span></dt> <dd><span id="index-Texinfo-XML-output_002c-overview"></span> <span id="index-DTD_002c-for-Texinfo-XML"></span> <span id="index-texinfo_002edtd"></span> <span id="index-txixml2texi"></span> <p>(Generated via <code>makeinfo --xml</code>.) XML is a generic syntax specification usable for any sort of content (a reference is at <a href="http://www.w3.org/XML">http://www.w3.org/XML</a>). The <code>makeinfo</code> XML output, unlike all the other output formats, is a transliteration of the Texinfo source rather than processed output. That is, it translates the Texinfo markup commands into XML syntax, for further processing by XML tools. The XML contains enough information to recreate the original content, except for syntactic constructs such as Texinfo macros and conditionals. The Texinfo source distribution includes a utility script <samp>txixml2texi</samp> to do that backward transformation. </p> <p>The details of the output syntax are defined in an XML DTD as usual, which is contained in a file <samp>texinfo.dtd</samp> included in the Texinfo source distribution and available via the Texinfo web pages. Texinfo XML files, and XML files in general, cannot be viewed in typical web browsers; they won’t follow the DTD reference and as a result will simply report a (misleading) syntax error. </p></dd> </dl> </div> <hr> <div class="header"> <p> Next: <a href="Info-Files.html">Info Files</a>, Previous: <a href="Reporting-Bugs.html">Reporting Bugs</a>, Up: <a href="Overview.html">Overview of Texinfo</a> [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Command-and-Variable-Index.html" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p> </div> </body> </html>