A2X(1)

NAME
a2x - convert Asciidoc text file to PDF, XHTML, HTML Help, manpage or plain text

SYNOPSIS
a2x [OPTIONS] FILE

DESCRIPTION
A DocBook toolchain wrapper script that translates an AsciiDoc text file FILE to PDF, DVI, PS, LaTeX, XHTML (single page or chunked), man page, HTML Help or plain text formats. PDF, XHTML, man page and HTML Help formats are are generated using the asciidoc(1), xsltproc(1), DocBook XSL Stylesheets, dblatex (or FOP) toolchain. Plain text is produced by passing asciidoc(1) generated HTML through lynx(1). The htmlhelp format option generates .hhp, .hhc and .html files suitable for compilation to an HTML Help .chm file.

OPTIONS

-a, --attribute=ATTRIBUTE
    Set asciidoc(1) attribute value (shortcut for --asciidoc-opts="-a ATTRIBUTE" option). This option may be specified more than once.

--asciidoc-opts=ASCIIDOC_OPTS
    Additional asciidoc(1) options. This option may be specified more than once.

--copy
    Copy distributed docbook-xsl CSS stylesheet admonition and navigation icons to their respective destinations. Applies to xhtml, chunked, htmlhelp formats. The default behavior is to suppress copying.

-D, --destination-dir=PATH
    Output directory. Defaults to source FILE directory.

-d, --doctype=DOCTYPE
    DocBook document type: article, manpage or book. Default document type is article unless the format is manpage (in which case it defaults to manpage).

-f, --format=FORMAT
    Output format: chunked, dvi, htmlhelp, manpage, pdf, ps, tex, text or xhtml.

-h, --help
    Print command-line syntax and program options to stdout.

--icons
    Use admonition or navigation icon images in output documents. The default behavior is to use text in place of icons.

--icons-dir=PATH
    A path (relative to destination HTML files) containing admonition and navigation icons. Defaults to ./images/icons/. Applies to xhtml, chunked, htmlhelp formats.

-n, --dry-run
    Don't do anything just print what would have been done.

-s, --skip-asciidoc
    Skip asciidoc execution. This is useful for converting DocBook XML files not derived from AsciiDoc sources. Ignored if --format*=text.

--stylesheet=PATH
    A path (relative to destination HTML files) specifying the docbook-xsl CSS stylesheet file. Defaults to ./docbook-xsl.css. Applies to xhtml, chunked, htmlhelp formats.

-v, --verbose
    Print operational details to stderr. A second -v option applies the verbose option to toolchain commands.

--version
    Print program version to stdout.

--xsltproc-opts=XSLTPROC_OPTS
    Additional xsltproc(1) options. This option may be specified more than once.

--fop-opts=FOP_OPTS
    Additional fop options. This option may be specified more than once. If this option is specified fop is used to generate PDFs.

--dblatex-opts=DBLATEX_OPTS
    Additional dblatex options. This option may be specified more than once.

OUTPUT FILES
Output files are written to the directory specified by the --destination-dir option. If no --destination-dir option is set output files are written to the source FILE directory.

Output files have the same name as the source FILE but with an appropriate file name extension: .html for xhtml; .hhp for htmlhelp; .pdf for pdf; .text for text. By convention manpages have no .man extension (man page section number only). Chunked HTML directory names have a .chunked extension; chunked HTML Help directory names have a .htmlhelp extension.

Same named existing files are overwritten.

Intermediate output files are written to the source FILE directory and are not automatically deleted.

Intermediate DocBook XML files generated by AsciiDoc are only regenerated if out of date with respect to the AsciiDoc source FILE.

In addition to generating HTML files the xhtml, chunked and htmlhelp formats copy the DocBook XSL stylesheet plus admonition and navigation icons distributed with AsciiDoc to their respective destination locations. Existing stylesheets and icons are only copied if they are newer than the destination files or if the destination files are missing.

The xhtml format generates a single XHTML output page. The chunked format writes multiple per-section HTML pages to a chunked directory in the destination directory. The chunked directory has the same name as the source FILE name plus a .chunked extension.

EXAMPLES

a2x -f pdf doc/source-highlight-filter.txt
    Generates doc/source-highlight-filter.pdf file.

a2x -f chunked -D ../webpages guide.txt
    Creates chunked directory ../webpages/guide.chunked containing chunked HTML files. Also copies docbook-xsl.css stylesheet to the ../webpages/guide.chunked directory plus admonition and navigation icons to the ../webpages/guide.chunked/images/icons directory.

REQUISITES
This script runs under the bash(1) shell and requires the following programs (which may or may not be prepackaged with your Linux distribution):

Asciidoc
    http://www.methods.co.nz/asciidoc/

xsltproc
    http://xmlsoft.org/XSLT/

DocBook XSL Stylesheets
    http://docbook.sourceforge.net/projects/xsl/

dblatex (for PDF, DVI, PostScript and LaTeX file generation)
    http://dblatex.sourceforge.net/

FOP (alternative PDF file generation)
    http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/

Lynx (for text file generation)
    http://lynx.isc.org/
See also the latest README file.

BUGS

    • The odt output format is undocumented and experimental.

    • See also the AsciiDoc distribution BUGS file.

AUTHOR
Written by Stuart Rackham, <srackham@gmail.com>

RESOURCES
SourceForge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/asciidoc/

Main web site: http://www.methods.co.nz/asciidoc/

COPYING
Copyright (C) 2002-2008 Stuart Rackham. Free use of this software is granted under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).

REFERENCES

1.  srackham@gmail.com
    mailto:srackham@gmail.com