[Doc-SIG] Producing output

Moore, Paul Paul.Moore@atosorigin.com
Mon, 10 Sep 2001 10:53:01 +0100


This is probably documented somewhere, but I couldn't find it, so I wonder
if I'm asking the wrong questions...

I understand how to write re-structured text documents, or Python docstrings
in that format. So far, so good - thanks to those who put so much work into
the documentation (and particularly the quick reference card).

So I want to use the format. I have two requirements, and I'm not sure how
to proceed:

1. Given a text file in RST format, how do I produce nicely formatted
   output? Ideally, this question should reduce to the form "what
   command line should I type", but I'm willing to accept that this
   could be over-ambitions :-) Note that "nicely formatted" to me
   generally means something like PDF, or something (eg, (La-)TeX),
   which can be transformed into PDF. HTML is *not* what I have in
   mind (although if HTML is the only current output format available,
   I'd be willing to look at the output formatter, to see if I can
   help write the formatter for something better).

2. Given a Python module with RST docstrings, the same question.

Maybe the answer in both cases is "you can't - we haven't got that far yet".
Which is fine, but I'd say that getting some form of output formatter is a
priority, so that you can start getting feedback from the unwashed masses
like me, who are only looking for something they can use... So the question
then becomes, how soon is such a thing likely to exist, so I can start
helping instead of just posting nuisance E-Mails :-)

Paul.