| Python main documentation -- in LaTeX |
| ------------------------------------- |
| |
| This directory contains the LaTeX sources to the Python documentation. |
| They now require LaTeX2e (LaTeX 2.09 compatibility is dropped). |
| |
| The Python Reference Manual is no longer maintained in LaTeX. It is |
| now a FrameMaker document. The FrameMaker 5.0 files (ref.book, |
| ref*.doc) as well as PostScript generated (ref.ps) from it are in the |
| subdirectory ref/. (See ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/framereader for |
| a free reader for FrameMaker documents, for some platforms.) Many |
| thanks to Robin Friedrich for the conversion of the Reference Manual |
| to FrameMaker and his work on its index. |
| |
| If you don't have LaTeX, or if you'd rather not format the |
| documentation yourself, you can ftp a tar file containing HTML, PDF, |
| or PostScript versions of all documents. Additional formats may be |
| available. These should be in the same place where you fetched the |
| main Python distribution (try http://www.python.org or |
| ftp://ftp.python.org). |
| |
| The following are the LaTeX source files: |
| |
| tut.tex The tutorial |
| lib.tex, lib*.tex The library reference |
| ext.tex How to extend Python |
| api.tex Reference for the Python/C API |
| |
| All use the "manual" document class and "python" package, derived from |
| the old "myformat.sty" style file. These contains many macro |
| definitions useful in documenting Python, and set some style parameters. |
| |
| There's a Makefile to call LaTeX and the other utilities in the right |
| order and the right number of times. This will produce DVI files for |
| each document made; to preview them, use xdvi. PostScript is produced |
| by the same Makefile target that produces the DVI files. This uses |
| the dvips tool. Printing depends on local conventions; at my site, I |
| use lpr. For example: |
| |
| make lib # create lib.dvi and lib.ps |
| xdvi lib # preview lib.dvi |
| lpr lib.ps # print on default printer |
| |
| |
| What tools do I need? |
| --------------------- |
| |
| You need to install Python; some of the scripts used to produce the |
| documentation are written in Python. |
| |
| The simplest way to get the rest of the tools in the configuration we |
| used is to install the teTeX TeX distribution, version 0.9. More |
| information is available on teTeX at http://www.tug.org/tetex/. This |
| is a UNIX-only TeX distribution at this time. |
| |
| If you don't want to get teTeX, or if you're not using UNIX, here is |
| what you'll need: |
| |
| To create DVI, PDF, or PostScript files: |
| |
| - LaTeX2e, 1995/12/01 or newer. Older versions are likely to |
| choke. |
| |
| - makeindex. This is used to produce the indexes for the |
| library reference and Python/C API reference. |
| |
| To create PDF files: |
| |
| - pdflatex. We used the one in the teTeX 0.9 distribution |
| (version 0.11 at the time of this writing). |
| |
| To create PostScript files: |
| |
| - dvips. Most TeX installations include this. If you don't |
| have one, check CTAN (ftp://ctan.tug.org/tex-archive/). |
| |
| To create info files: |
| |
| - makeinfo. This is available from any GNU mirror. |
| |
| To create HTML files: |
| |
| - Perl 5.004_04 or newer. Try www.perl.org for pointers. |
| |
| - LaTeX2HTML 98.1p1, or newer. Releases are available at |
| http://www-dsed.llnl.gov/files/programs/unix/latex2html/. |
| |
| |
| What if Times fonts are not available? |
| -------------------------------------- |
| |
| As distributed, the LaTeX documents use PostScript Times fonts. This |
| is done since they are much better looking and produce smaller |
| PostScript files. If, however, your TeX installation does not support |
| them, they may be easily disabled. Edit the file manual.cls and |
| comment out the line that starts "\RequirePackage{times}" using a "%" |
| character at the beginning of the line. An alternative is to install |
| the right fonts and LaTeX style file. |
| |
| |
| Making HTML files |
| ----------------- |
| |
| The LaTeX documents can be converted to HTML using Nikos Drakos' |
| LaTeX2HTML converter. See the Makefile; after some twiddling, "make |
| l2h" should do the trick. |
| |
| For the reference manual, I use Harlequin's webmaker. I'm not very |
| happy with it and hope that eventually FrameMaker will be able to |
| produce HTML without third party help. |