mn.html
Date: 2001-02-28 17:02:00

# 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.

The examples of this document relate mainly to configurations tailored for HTML transitional 4.0, XHTML, HTML 3.2, HTML for Microsoft Word, MathML, DocBook, TEI, and CSS. The document itself is available for downloading in zipped format (osu, tug).[unzip]

• Using the System • Features • Installation • 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  foo
    htlatex  foo "html,2,info"
    htlatex  foo ""             "dbcs/!"
    htlatex  foo "foo,frames"   ""         "-p"
    wlatex   foo

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

### References

The main features of TeX4ht are described in:

- M. Goosen and S. Rahtz with E. Gurari, R. Moore, and R. Sutor, The LaTeX Web Companion, Addison-Wesley, 1999 (German translation; changes in recent distributions).
- Fabrice Popineau, Affichez vos documents LaTeX sur le Web avec TeX4ht, Cahiers GUTenberg 37-38, December 2000, 5-43 (French, PDF).
- Within the current document.
- In the .log files of the compilations.

The documents From LaTeX to MathML and Back with TeX4ht and PassiveTeX, LaTeX to XML/MathML, and A demonstration of TeX4ht may provide additional insight into the system (and some outdated details).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 (see overview). The TeX Live and 4allTeX CD-ROM distributions, the SuSE package management (RPM) directory, and the Debian Linux, fpTeX , and simtelnet distributions, include installed versions of these utilities. Hence, users having no need for the latest version of TeX4ht might be well served by getting the system from the above distributions.

The current document gives instructions on how to establish ports for Unix and MS Windows. 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. The port Gertjan Klein proposed for an older version of TeX4ht suggests alternative ways to conduct the translation of pictures into gif’s. Steven Zeil offers improvements for the above settings.

Steve Mayer programmed a graphical user interface for a set of converters on MS Windows, supporting also TeX4ht.

trouble shooting | Q/A | bug fixes

## Resources

Languages: | LaTeX, TeX, HTML, XML, MathML, DocBook, TEI, Style Sheets, DTDs, Validators
Converters into HTML/XML: | Bbl2HTML 1, BibHTML 2, Bib2HTML 3, Bib2HTML 4, BibTeX2HTML 5, Dlh 6, Euromath 7, GELLMU 8, HEVEA 9, HTeX 10, HtmlTeX 11, HTMX 12, HyperLaTeX 13, HyperTeX 14, LaTeX2HTML 15, LaTeX2hyp 16, LaTeX2man 17, Ltoh 18, Ltx2x 19, Math2HTML 20, MathWriter 21, MicroPress TeXpider 22, Ml2om 23, TeX2HTML 24, TeX2Page 25, TeX2RTF 26, Texi2HTML 27, Texi2www 28 , TeXPort WEB 29, Tohtml 30, Tth 31, Vulcanize 32
Backward Converters: | Gf 1, Htex 2, HTML2LaTeX 3, HTML2LaTeX 4, HTML2TeX 5, JadeTeX 6, Passive TeX 7, SGML2TeX 8, SGMLbase 9, TeXML 10, TypeHTML 11, TypeXML 12, XMLTeX 13, XT 14, Brute Force 15
Converters for other formats: | Dvi2bitmap 1, Dvipdfm 2, LEQ 3, PdfTeX 4, Plain2 5, LaTeX to ... 6
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, and to Philip Viton for his documentation.

Eitan M. Gurari
gurari@cis.ohio-state.edu
February 28, 2001