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Mainly I'm looking for a tool which supports batch conversion to PDF/HTML from some markup language (reST/Markdown/Textile), but... there are few conditions:

  • Markup language has to be reST/Markdown or like them
  • there should be simple editor with preview (for example Gedit3 + Markdown plugin or something like that)
  • there has to be batch converter between many formats - just like Pandoc, but with full markup language support

Pandoc is great, but unfortunately it doesn't support reST directives ex. ..container

Right now I can't decide which markup lang is the best for me. I was using Markdown, because I had quite simple Gedit's plugin to preview output during writing. Right now I'm testing Sphinx, because I have to find a tool to create good documentation and Sphinx uses reST. reST also supports custom directives and today I found out that "container" directive would help me a lot. I've never tried Textile.

I'm trying to write almost all documents in some markup language - I'd like to avoid DOC, DOCX, pure Latex, but still I can't find the one. Some of them supports tables, other with extensions, another ones has no simple editor with preview etc.

tshepang
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Simon
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2 Answers2

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The reference (Python) implementation of reStructuredText is docutils, which obviously has full support for the reStructuredText language specification and which Sphinx is in fact built upon. It is not as versatile as Pandoc, but if you are looking for a full implementation of reStructuredText and are already using Sphinx then docutils may be a good bet. Some limitations of docutils to note:

  • Less output formats than Pandoc.
  • Only supports reStructuredText as an input format, Pandoc supports reStructuredText, markdown, HTML, LaTeX etc.
  • One way only conversion (Pandoc, for example can convert, say, reStructuredText to HTML and then HTML to reStructuredText; docutils can only perform the former conversion).

I have never come across a markdown or reStructuredText editor with a built-in preview window.

Docutils is very easy to script, so should be more than suitable for batch processing of text files. I have seen a number of websites written in reStructuredText which use a simple makefile rule to build the HTML and deploy to a server.

Chris
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You can use Pandoc with a preprocessor like gpp.

A markdown editor with beautiful typography (but not so complete) preview is iA Writer.

mb21
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