Whole document tree

9. Other Formats of this Document

This document is published in 14 different formats namely - DVI, Postscript, Latex, Adobe Acrobat PDF, LyX, GNU-info, HTML, RTF(Rich Text Format), Plain-text, Unix man pages, single HTML file, SGML (Linuxdoc format), SGML (Docbook format), MS WinHelp format.

This howto document is located at -

• http://www.linuxdoc.org and click on HOWTOs and search for howto document name using CTRL+f or ALT+f within the web-browser.

You can also find this document at the following mirrors sites -

• http://www.caldera.com/LDP/HOWTO
• http://www.linux.ucla.edu/LDP
• http://www.cc.gatech.edu/linux/LDP
• http://www.redhat.com/mirrors/LDP
• Other mirror sites near you (network-address-wise) can be found at http://www.linuxdoc.org/mirrors.html select a site and go to directory /LDP/HOWTO/xxxxx-HOWTO.html

• You can get this HOWTO document as a single file tar ball in HTML, DVI, Postscript or SGML formats from - ftp://www.linuxdoc.org/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/other-formats/ and http://www.linuxdoc.org/docs.html#howto

• Plain text format is in: ftp://www.linuxdoc.org/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO and http://www.linuxdoc.org/docs.html#howto

• Single HTML file format is in: http://www.linuxdoc.org/docs.html#howto

  Single HTML file can be created with command (see man sgml2html) - sgml2html -split 0 xxxxhowto.sgml

• Translations to other languages like French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese are in ftp://www.linuxdoc.org/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO and http://www.linuxdoc.org/docs.html#howto Any help from you to translate to other languages is welcome.

• sgml2html xxxxhowto.sgml (to generate html file)
• sgml2html -split 0 xxxxhowto.sgml (to generate a single page html file)
• sgml2rtf xxxxhowto.sgml (to generate RTF file)
• sgml2latex xxxxhowto.sgml (to generate latex file)

9.1 Acrobat PDF format

PDF file can be generated from postscript file using either acrobat distill or Ghostscript. And postscript file is generated from DVI which in turn is generated from LaTex file. You can download distill software from http://www.adobe.com. Given below is a sample session:

bash$ man sgml2latex
bash$ sgml2latex filename.sgml
bash$ man dvips
bash$ dvips -o filename.ps filename.dvi
bash$ distill filename.ps
bash$ man ghostscript
bash$ man ps2pdf
bash$ ps2pdf input.ps output.pdf
bash$ acroread output.pdf &

9.2 Convert Linuxdoc to Docbook format

This document is written in linuxdoc SGML format. The Docbook SGML format supercedes the linuxdoc format and has lot more features than linuxdoc. The linuxdoc is very simple and is easy to use. To convert linuxdoc SGML file to Docbook SGML use the program ld2db.sh and some perl scripts. The ld2db output is not 100% clean and you need to use the clean_ld2db.pl perl script. You may need to manually correct few lines in the document.

• Download ld2db program from http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~rrt/docbook.html or from Milkyway Galaxy site
• Download the cleanup_ld2db.pl perl script from from Milkyway Galaxy site

        bash$ ld2db.sh file-linuxdoc.sgml db.sgml
        bash$ cleanup.pl db.sgml > db_clean.sgml
        bash$ gvim db_clean.sgml 
        bash$ docbook2html db.sgml

9.3 Convert to MS WinHelp format

You can convert the SGML howto document to Microsoft Windows Help file, first convert the sgml to html using:

        bash$ sgml2html xxxxhowto.sgml     (to generate html file)
        bash$ sgml2html -split 0   xxxxhowto.sgml (to generate a single page html file)

9.4 Reading various formats

In order to view the document in dvi format, use the xdvi program. The xdvi program is located in tetex-xdvi*.rpm package in Redhat Linux which can be located through ControlPanel | Applications | Publishing | TeX menu buttons. To read dvi document give the command -

        xdvi -geometry 80x90 howto.dvi
        man xdvi

You can read postscript file using the program 'gv' (ghostview) or 'ghostscript'. The ghostscript program is in ghostscript*.rpm package and gv program is in gv*.rpm package in Redhat Linux which can be located through ControlPanel | Applications | Graphics menu buttons. The gv program is much more user friendly than ghostscript. Also ghostscript and gv are available on other platforms like OS/2, Windows 95 and NT, you view this document even on those platforms.

• Get ghostscript for Windows 95, OS/2, and for all OSes from http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost

To read postscript document give the command -

                gv howto.ps
                ghostscript howto.ps

You can read HTML format document using Netscape Navigator, Microsoft Internet explorer, Redhat Baron Web browser or any of the 10 other web browsers.

You can read the latex, LyX output using LyX a X-Windows front end to latex.