[Linux] Generate Documentation quickly

[Michael Uplawski]

Good morning

I describe a way to generate HTML, man-pages and PDF-files from 1 reStructuredText (raw text) document.

Wanting to use only readily available software, I had to accustom to these, and as nobody seems to be interested in too much interoperability, shell-scripting becomes an integral part of the process. But those of you who are less exigent or want only one file-type may find inspiration.
Okay, courageous as I feel this morning, here is the URL: https://www.uplawski.eu/software/doc/index.html

WIP means “work in progress”, of course, but expresses much more than that. The files that I reference and – less frequently – also the text of the linked page may and will probably change in the future, as I am learning things and am correcting ill-chosen commands against better ones.

But it is also about attitude and feasibility.

I hope that I am not conveying too much pride, as that would be misplaced, here. You could find now, that it is easy to produce man-pages and – as many of you know to do it better than most of the actual authors of the doc that comes with Linux –, you may finally be tempted to write comprehensible manuals. Or you can become so detached and serene that you can just ignore the whole topic. Both would be okay, I guess.

What I feel is bafflement and frustration. From the early nineties to today.., this should be it?

Edits for clarity and Kraut2English

[Michael Uplawski]

Wow.
Until today, this 1-article thread had been opened over 39.000 times.
Challenge: Provide a way to convert TextMaker TMDX to reStructuredText.
My part of the endeavor is the presentation of a procedure for AbiWord:
https://www.uplawski.eu/software/doc/index.html#wpman