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<H2><A NAME="SECTION000810000000000000000"></A><A NAME="tools-external"></A>
<BR>
7.1 External Tools
</H2>
<P>
Many tools are needed to be able to process the Python
documentation if all supported formats are required. This
section lists the tools used and when each is required. Consult
the <span class="file">Doc/README</span> file to see if there are specific version
requirements for any of these.
<P>
<DL>
<DT><STRONG><b class="program">dvips</b></STRONG></DT>
<DD>This program is a typical part of <span class="TeX">TeX</span> installations. It is
used to generate PostScript from the ``device independent''
<span class="file">.dvi</span> files. It is needed for the conversion to
PostScript.
<P>
</DD>
<DT><STRONG><b class="program">emacs</b></STRONG></DT>
<DD>Emacs is the kitchen sink of programmers' editors, and a damn
fine kitchen sink it is. It also comes with some of the
processing needed to support the proper menu structures for
Texinfo documents when an info conversion is desired. This is
needed for the info conversion. Using <b class="program">xemacs</b>
instead of FSF <b class="program">emacs</b> may lead to instability in the
conversion, but that's because nobody seems to maintain the
Emacs Texinfo code in a portable manner.
<P>
</DD>
<DT><STRONG><b class="program">latex</b></STRONG></DT>
<DD><span class="LaTeX">LaTeX</span> is a large and extensible macro package by Leslie
Lamport, based on <span class="TeX">TeX</span>, a world-class typesetter by Donald
Knuth. It is used for the conversion to PostScript, and is
needed for the HTML conversion as well (<span class="LaTeX">LaTeX</span>2HTML requires
one of the intermediate files it creates).
<P>
</DD>
<DT><STRONG><b class="program">latex2html</b></STRONG></DT>
<DD>Probably the longest Perl script anyone ever attempted to
maintain. This converts <span class="LaTeX">LaTeX</span> documents to HTML documents,
and does a pretty reasonable job. It is required for the
conversions to HTML and GNU info.
<P>
</DD>
<DT><STRONG><b class="program">lynx</b></STRONG></DT>
<DD>This is a text-mode Web browser which includes an
HTML-to-plain text conversion. This is used to convert
<code>howto</code> documents to text.
<P>
</DD>
<DT><STRONG><b class="program">make</b></STRONG></DT>
<DD>Just about any version should work for the standard documents,
but GNU <b class="program">make</b> is required for the experimental
processes in <span class="file">Doc/tools/sgmlconv/</span>, at least while
they're experimental. This is not required for running the
<b class="program">mkhowto</b> script.
<P>
</DD>
<DT><STRONG><b class="program">makeindex</b></STRONG></DT>
<DD>This is a standard program for converting <span class="LaTeX">LaTeX</span> index data
to a formatted index; it should be included with all <span class="LaTeX">LaTeX</span>
installations. It is needed for the PDF and PostScript
conversions.
<P>
</DD>
<DT><STRONG><b class="program">makeinfo</b></STRONG></DT>
<DD>GNU <b class="program">makeinfo</b> is used to convert Texinfo documents to
GNU info files. Since Texinfo is used as an intermediate
format in the info conversion, this program is needed in that
conversion.
<P>
</DD>
<DT><STRONG><b class="program">pdflatex</b></STRONG></DT>
<DD>pdf<span class="TeX">TeX</span> is a relatively new variant of <span class="TeX">TeX</span>, and is used to
generate the PDF version of the manuals. It is typically
installed as part of most of the large <span class="TeX">TeX</span> distributions.
<b class="program">pdflatex</b> is pdf<span class="TeX">TeX</span> using the <span class="LaTeX">LaTeX</span> format.
<P>
</DD>
<DT><STRONG><b class="program">perl</b></STRONG></DT>
<DD>Perl is required for <span class="LaTeX">LaTeX</span>2HTML and one of the scripts used
to post-process <span class="LaTeX">LaTeX</span>2HTML output, as well as the
HTML-to-Texinfo conversion. This is required for
the HTML and GNU info conversions.
<P>
</DD>
<DT><STRONG><b class="program">python</b></STRONG></DT>
<DD>Python is used for many of the scripts in the
<span class="file">Doc/tools/</span> directory; it is required for all
conversions. This shouldn't be a problem if you're interested
in writing documentation for Python!
</DD>
</DL>
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<span class="release-info">Release 2.4.3, documentation updated on 29 March 2006.</span>
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