| Introduction |
| ============ |
| |
| This is the documentation for the Sphinx documentation builder. Sphinx is a |
| tool that translates a set of reStructuredText_ source files into various output |
| formats, automatically producing cross-references, indices etc. That is, if |
| you have a directory containing a bunch of reST-formatted documents (and |
| possibly subdirectories of docs in there as well), Sphinx can generate a |
| nicely-organized arrangement of HTML files (in some other directory) for easy |
| browsing and navigation. But from the same source, it can also generate a |
| LaTeX file that you can compile into a PDF version of the documents, or a |
| PDF file directly using `rst2pdf <http://rst2pdf.googlecode.com>`_. |
| |
| The focus is on hand-written documentation, rather than auto-generated API docs. |
| Though there is support for that kind of docs as well (which is intended to be |
| freely mixed with hand-written content), if you need pure API docs have a look |
| at `Epydoc <http://epydoc.sf.net/>`_, which also understands reST. |
| |
| For a great "introduction" to writing docs in general -- the whys and hows, see |
| also `Write the docs <http://write-the-docs.readthedocs.org/>`_, written by Eric |
| Holscher. |
| |
| |
| Conversion from other systems |
| ----------------------------- |
| |
| This section is intended to collect helpful hints for those wanting to migrate |
| to reStructuredText/Sphinx from other documentation systems. |
| |
| * Gerard Flanagan has written a script to convert pure HTML to reST; it can be |
| found at the `Python Package Index <https://pypi.python.org/pypi/html2rest>`_. |
| |
| * For converting the old Python docs to Sphinx, a converter was written which |
| can be found at `the Python SVN repository |
| <http://svn.python.org/projects/doctools/converter>`_. It contains generic |
| code to convert Python-doc-style LaTeX markup to Sphinx reST. |
| |
| * Marcin Wojdyr has written a script to convert Docbook to reST with Sphinx |
| markup; it is at `Google Code <http://code.google.com/p/db2rst/>`_. |
| |
| * Christophe de Vienne wrote a tool to convert from Open/LibreOffice documents |
| to Sphinx: `odt2sphinx <https://pypi.python.org/pypi/odt2sphinx/>`_. |
| |
| * To convert different markups, `Pandoc <http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/>`_ is |
| a very helpful tool. |
| |
| |
| Use with other systems |
| ---------------------- |
| |
| See the :ref:`pertinent section in the FAQ list <usingwith>`. |
| |
| |
| Prerequisites |
| ------------- |
| |
| Sphinx needs at least **Python 2.6** or **Python 3.2** to run, as well as the |
| docutils_ and Jinja2_ libraries. Sphinx should work with docutils version 0.10 |
| or some (not broken) SVN trunk snapshot. If you like to have source code |
| highlighting support, you must also install the Pygments_ library. |
| |
| .. _reStructuredText: http://docutils.sf.net/rst.html |
| .. _docutils: http://docutils.sf.net/ |
| .. _Jinja2: http://jinja.pocoo.org/ |
| .. _Pygments: http://pygments.org/ |
| |
| |
| Usage |
| ----- |
| |
| See :doc:`tutorial` for an introduction. It also contains links to more |
| advanced sections in this manual for the topics it discusses. |