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:
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 $