[sgt/halibut] / doc / intro.but

\versionid $Id$

\C{intro} Introduction to Halibut

Halibut is a multi-format documentation processing system.

What that means is that you write your document once, in Halibut's
input format, and then the Halibut program processes it into several
output formats which all contain the same text. So, for example, if
you want your application to have a Windows help file, and you also
want the same documentation available in HTML on your web site,
Halibut can do that for you.

\H{intro-formats} Output formats supported by Halibut

Currently Halibut supports the following output formats:

\b Plain ASCII text.

\b HTML.

\b Windows Help.

\b Unix \cw{man} page format.

\b GNU \c{info} format.

\b PostScript.

\b PDF.

\H{intro-features} Features supported by Halibut

Here's a list of Halibut's notable features.

\b Halibut automatically assigns sequential numbers to your
chapters, sections and subsections, and keeps track of them for you.
You supply a \e{keyword} for each section, and then you can generate
cross-references to that section using the keyword, and Halibut will
substitute the correct section number. Also, in any output format
where it makes sense, the cross-references will be hyperlinks to
that section of the document.

\b Halibut has some support for Unicode: you can include arbitrary
Unicode characters in your document, and specify fallback text in
case any output format doesn't support that character.

\b Halibut's indexing support is comprehensive and carefully
designed. It's easy to use in the simple case, but has powerful
features that should make it possible to maintain a high-quality and
useful index.
Commit	Line	Data
0929484e	1	\versionid $Id$
0929484e	2
11f2edfa	3	\C{intro} Introduction to Halibut
	4
	5	Halibut is a multi-format documentation processing system.
	6
	7	What that means is that you write your document once, in Halibut's
	8	input format, and then the Halibut program processes it into several
	9	output formats which all contain the same text. So, for example, if
	10	you want your application to have a Windows help file, and you also
	11	want the same documentation available in HTML on your web site,
	12	Halibut can do that for you.
	13
	14	\H{intro-formats} Output formats supported by Halibut
	15
	16	Currently Halibut supports the following output formats:
	17
	18	\b Plain ASCII text.
	19
	20	\b HTML.
	21
	22	\b Windows Help.
	23
43f61c25	24	\b Unix \cw{man} page format.
11f2edfa	25
43f61c25	26	\b GNU \c{info} format.
43f61c25	27
0287083a	28	\b PostScript.
	29
	30	\b PDF.
11f2edfa	31
	32	\H{intro-features} Features supported by Halibut
	33
	34	Here's a list of Halibut's notable features.
	35
	36	\b Halibut automatically assigns sequential numbers to your
	37	chapters, sections and subsections, and keeps track of them for you.
	38	You supply a \e{keyword} for each section, and then you can generate
	39	cross-references to that section using the keyword, and Halibut will
	40	substitute the correct section number. Also, in any output format
	41	where it makes sense, the cross-references will be hyperlinks to
	42	that section of the document.
	43
	44	\b Halibut has some support for Unicode: you can include arbitrary
	45	Unicode characters in your document, and specify fallback text in
	46	case any output format doesn't support that character.
	47
	48	\b Halibut's indexing support is comprehensive and carefully
	49	designed. It's easy to use in the simple case, but has powerful
	50	features that should make it possible to maintain a high-quality and
	51	useful index.