GNU Texinfo

GNU Texinfo is an open source and 100% free software project designed from the ground up to act as the official documentation format of the GNU project. It was invented by Bob Chassell and Richard Stallman many years ago, and inspired by Brian Reid's Scribe formatting language, among other formatting languages that were popular at the point in time.

Can produce printed and online documentation

The software uses a single source file to produce output in a number of formats, both printed and online in various file formats, including HTML (HyperText Markup Language), PDF (Portable Document Format), XML (Extensible Markup Language), DVI (Digital Visual Interface), INFO, and many others.

It is used by many non-GNU projects

The GNU Texinfo system is very well integrated with the GNU Emacs application and it is used by many non-GNU projects as well. The software is distributed across all known GNU/Linux operating systems, as well as on several UNIX-like variants, such as BSD (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD).

Consists of various command-line tools

The GNU Texinfo package consists of various command-line tools, among which we can mention detexinfo, pdftexi2dvi for converting .pdf and .texi files to .dvi, texi2dvi for converting .texi files to .dvi, texi2html for converting .texi files to .html, texi2pdf for converting .texi files to .pdf, texindex, and txixml2texi for convertign .xml files to .texi.

Getting started with GNU Texinfo

To install the GNU Texinfo software on your GNU/Linux operating system, download the latest release from either Softoware or its website, save the archive on your Home directory, unpack it, and open a Terminal app.

In the terminal emulator window, go to the location of the extracted archive files (e.g. cd /home/softoware/texinfo-5.2), run the ‘./configure && make’ command to configure and compile the program, which can be installed by running the ‘sudo make install’ command.

What is new in this release:

• Language:
• new commands @inlinefmtifelse, @inlineifset, @inlineifclear, for more brace-delimited alternatives to the conditional environments.
• texi2any:
• warns about node names, menu items, and cross-references (but not index entries) containing problematic characters; can be disabled with -c INFO_SPECIAL_CHARS_WARNING=0.
• info:
• new option -x (--debug) for debugging output; -x -1 to get everything.
• new option -v (--variable) assigns a value to an Info variable, with the usual syntax, -v VARIABLE=VALUE.
• new option -a (--all) instructs Info to display all documents matching the command line arguments, not just the first. In conjunction with the -w option, it shows full names of all Info files matching the command line arguments; with -o, it outputs all matching files.
• new variable search-skip-screen controls the starting position for repeated search commands ({ and }). When set to On, repeated searches skip the lines displayed on the screen, i.e., forward searches (}) start at the beginning of the next page, and backward searches ({) start at the end of the previous page.
• new command display-file-info (bound to = by default, C-g in vi mode) shows full file name of the node being displayed and position in it.
• texi2dvi:
• support for biblatex+biber.
• Distribution: automake-1.14, gettext-0.18.3.1.

What is new in version 6.4:

• Language:
• new commands @inlinefmtifelse, @inlineifset, @inlineifclear, for more brace-delimited alternatives to the conditional environments.
• texi2any:
• warns about node names, menu items, and cross-references (but not index entries) containing problematic characters; can be disabled with -c INFO_SPECIAL_CHARS_WARNING=0.
• info:
• new option -x (--debug) for debugging output; -x -1 to get everything.
• new option -v (--variable) assigns a value to an Info variable, with the usual syntax, -v VARIABLE=VALUE.
• new option -a (--all) instructs Info to display all documents matching the command line arguments, not just the first. In conjunction with the -w option, it shows full names of all Info files matching the command line arguments; with -o, it outputs all matching files.
• new variable search-skip-screen controls the starting position for repeated search commands ({ and }). When set to On, repeated searches skip the lines displayed on the screen, i.e., forward searches (}) start at the beginning of the next page, and backward searches ({) start at the end of the previous page.
• new command display-file-info (bound to = by default, C-g in vi mode) shows full file name of the node being displayed and position in it.
• texi2dvi:
• support for biblatex+biber.
• Distribution: automake-1.14, gettext-0.18.3.1.

What is new in version 6.3:

• Language:
• new commands @inlinefmtifelse, @inlineifset, @inlineifclear, for more brace-delimited alternatives to the conditional environments.
• texi2any:
• warns about node names, menu items, and cross-references (but not index entries) containing problematic characters; can be disabled with -c INFO_SPECIAL_CHARS_WARNING=0.
• info:
• new option -x (--debug) for debugging output; -x -1 to get everything.
• new option -v (--variable) assigns a value to an Info variable, with the usual syntax, -v VARIABLE=VALUE.
• new option -a (--all) instructs Info to display all documents matching the command line arguments, not just the first. In conjunction with the -w option, it shows full names of all Info files matching the command line arguments; with -o, it outputs all matching files.
• new variable search-skip-screen controls the starting position for repeated search commands ({ and }). When set to On, repeated searches skip the lines displayed on the screen, i.e., forward searches (}) start at the beginning of the next page, and backward searches ({) start at the end of the previous page.
• new command display-file-info (bound to = by default, C-g in vi mode) shows full file name of the node being displayed and position in it.
• texi2dvi:
• support for biblatex+biber.
• Distribution: automake-1.14, gettext-0.18.3.1.

What is new in version 5.2:

• Language:
• new commands @inlinefmtifelse, @inlineifset, @inlineifclear, for more brace-delimited alternatives to the conditional environments.
• texi2any:
• warns about node names, menu items, and cross-references (but not index entries) containing problematic characters; can be disabled with -c INFO_SPECIAL_CHARS_WARNING=0.
• info:
• new option -x (--debug) for debugging output; -x -1 to get everything.
• new option -v (--variable) assigns a value to an Info variable, with the usual syntax, -v VARIABLE=VALUE.
• new option -a (--all) instructs Info to display all documents matching the command line arguments, not just the first. In conjunction with the -w option, it shows full names of all Info files matching the command line arguments; with -o, it outputs all matching files.
• new variable search-skip-screen controls the starting position for repeated search commands ({ and }). When set to On, repeated searches skip the lines displayed on the screen, i.e., forward searches (}) start at the beginning of the next page, and backward searches ({) start at the end of the previous page.
• new command display-file-info (bound to = by default, C-g in vi mode) shows full file name of the node being displayed and position in it.
• texi2dvi:
• support for biblatex+biber.
• Distribution: automake-1.14, gettext-0.18.3.1.

What is new in version 5.1:

• texi2any:
• irregular sectioning trees (see 5.0 news item) produce a warning rather than an error.
• @set in the middle of the line no longer produces a warning.
• info:
• lzip (.lz) compression supported.
• install-info:
• lzip (.lz) compression supported.