Docutils HTML writers

注釈

This document is a working draft. Naming of writers, aliases, and front-ends may change before the release of Docutils 0.13.

Overview

Generic HTML writers

html4css1

aliases:html4, html
front-ends:rst2html4.py, rst2html.py
config:[html4css1 writer]

The HTML Writer module, docutils/writers/html4css1.py, started as a proof-of-concept reference implementation. It is the first Docutils writer and was up to release 0.13 the only official HTML writer.

The output conforms to the XHTML 1 Transitional specification. It does not validate as HTML 4.01 Transitional due to the closing of empty tags required in XML but not allowed in HTML 4. However, the output follows the HTML Compatibility Guidelines for proper rendering on most HTML user agents.

Correct rendering depends on a CSS style sheet. A reference style sheet, html4css1.css, is provided and used by default.

To support the Internet Explorer (with a market share of about 90% around 2002, the time this writer was written), documents contain some hard-coded formatting hints and are tagged as "text/html" (instead of "application/xhtml+xml"). [1]

[1]Conformance to CSS 2.1 has been added in IE 8 (2009), support for XHTML in IE 9 (2011).

html_plain

aliases:html5
front-end:rst2html5.py
config:[html-plain writer]

The html_plain module is both, basis for other HTML writers and a versatile writer for end-users or programmatic use.

The html_plain writer generates polyglot HTML output that is compatible with HTML 5 and XHTML 1 Transitional. New features and elements will only be used if they are widely supported to make documents viewable with any browser. There is no hard-coded formatting information in the HTML document. Correct rendering of elements not directly supported by HTML depends on a CSS style sheet. The provided style sheets minimal.css and plain.css define required and optional styling rules respectively. Adaption of the layout is possible with custom style sheets.

New in Docutils 0.13

Aliases

html

Currently, html is an alias for the html4css1 writer.

Suggestion

The alias html points to the "recommended Docutils HTML writer". Its target may change with the development of HTML, browsers, Docutils, and the web.

  • Use get_writer_by_name('html') or the ``rst2html.py` front end, if you want the output to be up-to-date automatically.
  • Use a specific writer name or front end, if you depend on stability of the generated HTML code, e.g. because you use a custom style sheet or post-processing that may break otherwise.

html4

The alias html4 provides a stable shortcut for the html4css1 writer.

New in Docutils 0.13

html5

In Docutils 0.13, html5 is an alias to the html_plain writer.

In future releases, html5 may become a separate HTML writer that makes use of new features and objects defined in HTML5 but not (yet) fit for use in html_plain because of limited browser support (like <video>, <aside>, or <section>).

Special HTML writers

pep_html

front-end:rstpep2html.py
config:[pep_html writer]

This is a special writer for the generation of Python Enhancement Proposals (PEPs). It inherits from html4css1 and adds some PEP-specific options, a style sheet and template. The front-end uses also a specialised reader.

s5_html

alias:s5
front-end:rst2s5.py
config:[s5_html writer]

The s5 writer inherits from html4css1. It produces XHTML for use with S5, the “Simple Standards-based Slide Show System” by Eric Meyer. See Easy Slide Shows With reST & S5 for details.

HTML writers in the sandbox

There are two more HTML writers in the sandbox:

xhtml11

aliases:xhtml, html4strict
front-end:rst2xhtml.py
config:[xhtml11 writer]

XHTML 1.1 is the current version of the XML based extensible Hypertext Markup Language.

The xhtml11 writer inherits from html_plain and adds compatibility to the strict requirements of XHTML 1.1:

  • There is no attribute "lang" (only "xml:lang").

  • Enumerated lists don't support the 'start' attribute.

    The style sheet xhtml11.css adds support for a "start" value for enumerated lists via a CSS-counter. This allows also nested enumeration.

  • <sup> and <sub> tags are not allowed in preformatted blocks (<pre>).

The math-output config setting defaults to "MathML".

html4trans

front-end:rst2html_trans.py

The HTML writer for lightweight browsers lives in the Docutils sandbox (sandbox/html4trans) since 2008. It removes the dependency on CSS. The output conforms to XHTML 1 Transitional and contains sufficient formatting information for rendering without style sheet. (Of course, this has some drawbacks.)

HTML and CSS Versions

HTML 5
HTML5, A vocabulary and associated APIs for HTML and XHTML, W3C Recommendation, 28 October 2014. http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/
XHTML 1.1
XHTML™ 1.1 - Module-based XHTML - Second Edition, W3C Recommendation, 23 November 2010. http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/
XHTML 1 Transitional
Transitional version of: XHTML™ 1.0 The Extensible HyperText Markup Language (Second Edition), A Reformulation of HTML 4 in XML 1.0, W3C Recommendation, 26 January 2000, revised 1 August 2002. http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/
XHTML Basic
XHTML™ Basic 1.1 - Second Edition, W3C Recommendation, 23 November 2010. http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-basic/
HTML 4.01 Transitional
Transitional version of: HTML 4.01 Specification, W3C Recommendation 24 December 1999. http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/
CSS Level 1:
The features defined in the CSS1 specification, but using the syntax and definitions in the CSS 2.1 specification.
CSS 2.1 Cascading Style Sheets Level 2 Revision 1 (CSS 2.1) Specification,
W3C Recommendation 07 June 2011. http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/
CSS 3:

CSS Level 3 builds on CSS Level 2 module by module, using the CSS2.1 specification as its core.

Specifications: http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/specs.en.html

Validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/