TeX4ht: LaTeX and TeX for Hypertext

TeX4ht is a highly configurable TeX-based authoring system for producing hypertext. It interacts with TeX-based applications through style files and postprocessors, leaving the processing of the source files to the native TeX compiler. Consequently, TeX4ht can handle the features of TeX-based systems in general, and of the LaTeX and AMS style files in particular.

This document relates mainly to configurations tailored for different variants of HTML, MathML, OpenOffice, DocBook, TEI, and CSS. The document and code are available for downloading in zipped format (osu, tug).[unzip]

 Table of Contents  Using the System  Calling Commands  Configurations  Installation  Bug Reports  Resources  License  Acknowledgment  Index

Using the System

Typical LaTeX source files can be compiled into standard HTML and XML formats in a manner similar to the way they are compiled into print formats, namely, through variations of the command htlatex filename "options1" "option2" "options3"’. For instance,

htlatex  filename 
htlatex  filename "html,2,info"  "dbcs/!" 
htlatex  filename "foo,frames"   ""        "-p" 
xhlatex  filename 
mzlatex  filename 
oolatex  filename 

In some platforms the double quotes should be replaced with single right-quotes, and in some cases they might be omitted.

For details, visit the calling commands section.

References

The main features of TeX4ht are described in:

The documents From LaTeX to MathML and Back with TeX4ht and PassiveTeX, LaTeX to XML/MathML, A demonstration of TeX4ht, and From LaTeX to MathML and Beyond may provide additional insight into the system (and some outdated details).

Installation

To be installed, the system needs a port made up of native utilities of TeX4ht and of non-native utilities. The easiest way to establish an up to date port is to download an installed distribution of the system, and refresh it with the files provided here.

Establishing ports from scratch for Unix and MS Windows require additional effort, mainly because of the need to set up non-native utilities. Alternative ports for these and other platforms can be tailored in a similar manner.

Philip A. Viton discusses in details issues of installing TeX4ht under MikTeX and Scientific Word/WorkPlace, but many of the topics apply also to other platforms. Steven Zeil offers improvements for the above settings.

TeX4ht can be integrated into the WinShell graphical user interface of Ingo H. de Boer for working with TeX. Steve Mayer programmed a graphical user interface for a set of converters on MS Windows, supporting also TeX4ht.

trouble shooting | Q/A | bug fixes

Bug Reports

The development of the TeX4ht system is to a large degree driven by users’ bug reports and requests. In most cases, when providing feedback, it is essential to include the following information.

Translations of source files are centered around logical structures. Formatting instructions receive only limited attention.

Resources

Languages: LaTeX/TeX, HTML, XML/XSLT, MathML, DocBook, TEI, Style Sheets, DTDs, Validators
Converters
into
HTML/XML:
Backward
Converters:
Converters for
other formats:
Conversion to Bitmaps | math on the web | web publishing with LaTeX | conversion services

License

TeX4ht is provided under the LaTeX Project Public License (LPPL). However, it is allowed to modify the files without changing their names, if the signatures of the files are modified (see copyright notices within the files).

Acknowledgment

I am very grateful for the suggestions, contributions, and bug reports offered by many people. In particular, thanks go to Gertjan Klein and Sebastian Rahtz who got deeply involved in the project for long periods of time, to Carmen Fierro and Piotr Grabowski for extensive feedback regarding the MathML configurations, and to Philip Viton for his superb documentation.

This work is partially sponsored by NSF grant IIS-0312487.

Eitan M. Gurari
gurari@cis.ohio-state.edu
February 11, 2004