🚀 go-pugleaf

zender@sage.cgd.ucar.edu (Charlie Zender) writes:

>i am really trying to figure out how texinfo files work.
>as an example, i downloaded the latest latex documentation
>i could find, latex2e.texi, which is some sort of texinfo
>file. i thought you could just run
>this file through latex, generating a .dvi file, and then
>dvips it for hardcopy. this doesn't work.

A texinfo file (extension .texi or .texinfo) is processed with Plain TeX
to produce the .dvi file. The first line in a .texi file should be  
    \input texinfo
so the file texinfo.tex needs to be in the TeX input path.
 
Many .texi files will produce one or more indices, which need to be
processed with a program called texindex. These indices will have same
base name as the .texi file an a two-letter extension (such as
latex2e.in or latex2e.fn). After running texindex (for example:
"texindex latex2e.in") a letter "s" (for "sorted", I guess) is added to 
the extension (so latex2e.in becomes latex2e.ins). After texindex is run
on all the index files, run Plain TeX again on the .texi file.

The .dvi file is printed in the usual way. To produce on-line 
documentation, the program makeinfo is run on the .texi file and a .info
file is produced. You can read the .info file tolerably well with any ascii
file viewer, but to have the hypertext links available you need either
the program info, or emacs with an info mode. 

To learn the TeXinfo language, find the file texinfo.texi and process it
as above. This will produce the TeXinfo manual.

Dan Luecking
--
luecking@comp.uark.edu               |   Anti-disclaimer:
Department of Mathematical Sciences  |   To first approximation, all
University of Arkansas               |   views expressed here are not
Fayetteville, AR 72701 USA           |   opinions, but undisputed facts.