Texinfo - The GNU Documentation System

Texinfo is the official documentation format of the GNU project. It was invented by Richard Stallman and Bob Chassell many years ago, loosely based on Brian Reid's Scribe and other formatting languages of the time. It is used by many non-GNU projects as well.

Texinfo uses a single source file to produce output in a number of formats, both online and printed (dvi, html, info, pdf, xml, etc.). This means that instead of writing different documents for online information and another for a printed manual, you need write only one document. And when the work is revised, you need revise only that one document. The Texinfo system is well-integrated with GNU Emacs.

Help wanted: I would be grateful for help maintaining Texinfo. I have a long list of bug reports and feature requests for makeinfo, the Texinfo language, etc. For an overview of some of them, see the Texinfo tracker on Savannah and the TODO file in the distribution. There have also been requests for conversion from Texinfo to MediaWiki and helping packages create Texinfo manuals. Please write me if you can help.

Basics

• Texinfo project page on savannah.gnu.org.
• Download the latest official release as a gzipped tar file (also on all GNU mirrors). Or browse the unpacked release (also on all CTAN mirrors). Older releases are also available.
• The Texinfo manual, Info manual, and standalone Info reader manual from the latest official release, in various formats. See the GNU documentation page for manuals for other GNU packages (and more).
• The Texinfo reference card formatted for letter-size paper (four landscape pages) and for A4-size paper.
• The latest texinfo.tex macro file used for converting Texinfo source to DVI or PDF files for printing and viewing, using the TeX typesetting system. The latest texinfo.tex is also available via the Savannah gnulib project, ftp.gnu.org mirrors, and CTAN mirrors, among other places. (texinfo.tex is updated much more frequently than full Texinfo releases are made; please use the latest version.)
• If available, the latest pretest. Pretests are inherently unstable. Please try them and report problems—that's why they are done, so the official release will be as reliable as it can be.
• The development sources via CVS.
• The NEWS file listing notable changes by release, the ChangeLog file detailing all changes, and the TODO file with future projects large and small, awaiting volunteers.

Mailing lists

bug-texinfo@gnu.org

The main address for bug reporting, developer discussion, pretest announcements, and more (info, web archive, plain text archive).

help-texinfo@gnu.org

For Texinfo authoring help and discussion (info, web archive, plain text archive).

texinfo-commits@gnu.org

To get mail with every commit to the repository (info, web archive, plain text archive).

To subscribe to these or any GNU mailing lists, please send an empty mail with a Subject: header of just subscribe to the relevant -request list. For example, to subscribe yourself to the GNU announcement list, you would send mail to <info-gnu-request@gnu.org>. Or you can use the mailing list web interface.

More Texinfo

Documentation:

• The official GNU documentation page contains much more information about Texinfo and GNU manuals.
• You can search all GNU documentation (among other interesting things).
• An introductory article written by Arnold Robbins.

Programs/etc.:

• a2ps, for generating printable files from plain text, has a Texinfo style option.
• docbook2x, conversion from Docbook to Texinfo.
• gdoc, for extracting Texinfo (and other format) documentation from source files.
• help2man, for generating good man pages from --help output.
• janix-texinfo.css, a CSS style sheet
• ltxindex, for typesetting indices of LaTeX documents with Texinfo's texindex program.
• man2texi, generate Texinfo from man pages.
• my-bib-macros.texi, a start at bibliography support via Texinfo macros. For a start at integration with BibTeX, see the Web2C manual sources.
• pinfo, a curses-based Info reader with color support and a lynx-like interface.
• sgmltexi, Texinfo authoring via SGML tools.
• Scheme Scribe, which can convert Texinfo to Scribe and generate Info files.
• Sphinx Python documentation generator has support for Texinfo, used by MediaGoblin.
• texi2html, a prior translator for generating HTML, roff, and chm. texi2html has been merged into the Texinfo sources and will be the basis of the next major release.
• texi2latex, converting Texinfo to LaTeX via XML, no longer maintainer.
• texi2roff, an old standalone program that converts to troff format; it is not maintained and not up to date.
• TexiWEB, a literate programming system based on Texinfo and C, by Ben Pfaff as part of his GNU AVL package.
• tkinfo, a Tk-based Info reader.

If you know of free software or documentation that would be useful to add here, please email.

Translating Texinfo

To translate Texinfo's messages into other languages, please see the Translation Project page for Texinfo. If you have a new translation of the message strings, or updates to the existing strings, please have the changes made in this repository. Only translations from this site will be incorporated into Texinfo. For more information, see the Translation Project welcome page.

Please send FSF & GNU inquiries to <gnu@gnu.org>. There are also other ways to contact the FSF.
Please send broken links and other corrections or suggestions to <bug-texinfo@gnu.org>.

Copyright © 2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.

Updated: $Date: 2012/11/17 23:21:27 $