---
name: "stx2any"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "stx2any"
version: "1.56-2.3"
release: "Debian 12 (Bookworm)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/stx2any"
---

# stx2any(1)

converter from structured text to multiple formats

## NAME

stx2any - converter from structured text to multiple formats

## SYNOPSIS

`stx2any` \[ -T *format* \] \[ *stx and m4 options* \] \[ *file*  *file* ... \]

## DESCRIPTION

`stx2any` converts files in structured text (Stx) format into other formats.  Formats currently implemented are HTML, man, raw text, PostScript, LaTeX, XHTML and DocBook XML.

The source format, structured text, is a kind of plain text format with standard markup for representing headings, lists, emphasis etc.  The markup is both quicker to write and easier to remember than conventional tag-based markup languages, and is beautifully legible also in source form.  Stx markup is better explained in *Stx quickie guide*, which is available in the `examples` directory.

Most of the conversion happens in `m4`, and you can define your own macros and other stuff for giving structure to your documents. `stx2any` provides a LaTeX-like extensible environment system and a diversion system for rearranging input.  (Tårta på tårta, as they say in Swedish.)

Because `stx2any` doesn't perform any kind of quoting on the input, markup that isn't available can be written directly in the destination language (losing convertibility to multiple languages).  This way, if you are only interested in one output format (eg. LaTeX), you can use Stx as an abbreviation format for the most common constructs.

Some formatting is not available as abbreviations, but by calling m4 macros.  You need macros relatively rarely: for example, floats (material that can “float” around in the document) are created by macros.

## OPTIONS

`stx2any` accepts all command line options of `m4`, passing them directly on.  Of these, the `-D` argument is important enough to mention here separately.

- `-DNAME=VALUE`

  Define macro NAME to have the expansion VALUE.  This allows you to pass information into the document from the command line.

- `-T `*format*

  *Sets the output format.  Default format is* `html`*.  format* *should be one of:*

  - *html*

    *produces basic HTML (hypertext markup language) output.*

  - *man*

    *produces man macro output.  This output is usable as a* *man page directly (although see WRITING MAN PAGES below), or* *can be fed to* `troff` */* `groff` *for formatting to e.g.* *postscript.*

  - *latex*

    *produces LaTeX document preparation language output.* *You can run* `latex` *on the result to produce e.g. high* *quality pdf's.*

  - *text*

    *produces raw text output by postprocessing HTML output* *with* `w3m`*.  The resulting output is very basic, like* *stripping away most Stx markup; if you want more* *formatted output, consider piping man output to* `nroff` `-man`*.*

  - *ps*

    *produces simple postscript output by postprocessing man* *output with* `groff`*.  If you want to do real* *publishing, consider the LaTeX format instead.*

  - *xhtml*

    *produces XHTML output by postprocessing HTML output with* *W3C* `tidy`*.  By the way, check* `http://hixie.ch/advocacy/xhtml` *for discussion* *about HTML and XHTML.*

  - *docbook-xml*

    *produces rudimentary DocBook XML output.  See BUGS below* *for more discussion about this.*

- `--link-abbrevs`

  *Take link abbreviation syntax into use.  Note that because link* *abbreviation processing occurs in two phases, it doesn't work* *totally when the input comes from standard input (for example,* *if you use* `stx2any` *as a middle part of a pipeline).*

- `--quote`

  *Request quoting of characters (other than underscores and dollar* *signs) that are somehow magical in the requested output format.* *This will make it quite difficult to put markup in the output* *format directly in your document, but will greatly increase the* *possibility that your document will be correct (ie. does not* *have syntax errors) in the output format.*

- `--quote-me-harder`

  *Request quoting of underscores and dollar signs.  This might* *make some LaTeX documents work but might break some documents* *where underscores are used in macro names or dollar signs in* *macro definitions.*

- `--numbering { on | off }`

  *Request numbering of section headings.  The default varies by* *output format: section numbering is by default* `off` *for HTML,* *DocBook XML and man,* `on` *for LaTeX.*

- `--table-of-contents { on | off }`

  *Request producing a table of contents from the headings.  The* *default is to produce a TOC when numbering is on.  Not* *implemented for DocBook XML.*

- `--make-title { on | off }`

  *Request a “title page”.  The default is “on”.  This setting does* *not have any effect in some formats.  In HTML, it produces a big* *heading at the beginning of the document.  In LaTeX, it produces* *the canonical maketitle.*

- `--no-template`

  *Do not produce a document template at all, only the formatted* *input text.  You probably need this if your document will be* *included as a part of a bigger document.  If that bigger* *document is written totally in Stx, however, it will be cleaner* *to give all the source files directly as arguments to* `stx2any` *rather than combine the results afterwards.*

- `--symmetric-crossrefs`

  *In document formats that support linking (HTML, DocBook),* *produce reverse links from labels to referrers as well as links* *from referrers to labels.*

- `--latex-params `*params*

  *Set the document class parameters for LaTeX documents.  The* *default is affected by system paper size; for example, on a* *European system it is typically* `a4paper,notitlepage`*.  (See* *“ENVIRONMENT” below.)*

- `--html-params `*params*

  *Set the body tag parameters for HTML documents.  The default is* *no parameters.*

- `--picture-suffix `*suffix*

  *Inline images will refer to files with suffix suffix.  The* *default is* `png` *for HTML and DocBook,* `eps` *for LaTeX and* *man.*

- `--no-emdash-separate`

  *In the output, don't separate em dashes from adjacent text with* *spaces.  This is in accordance to traditional English typography* *(if I understand correctly), but is not standard in many other* *languages — including Finnish, my mother tongue.*

- `--more-secure`

  *Disable some insecure features of m4 and check some command line* *arguments that are passed to shell for problematic characters.* *This might be desirable if you've received the document from* *somewhere else and want to make sure it won't do anything* *malicious when converted.  Currently this denies execution of* *shell escapes.*

- *Note that clearly no implementation of m4 has been designed with*

  *security in mind. As a consequence, this option cannot prevent* *every potentially harmful thing.  Things not prevented which I'm* *aware of are including contents of arbitrary files in the output* *and writing busy loops (so that the conversion will use all* *processor time it can get, until terminated).*

- `--sed-preprocessor `*scriptname*

  *Run the sed script scriptname for all input.  This allows you* *to add custom abbreviation markups.  It is almost the same as* *preprocessing input with* `sed`*, then piping it into* `stx2any`*, but interacts better with* `--link-abbrevs` *(see* *its explanation for details).*

- `--version`*,* `-V`

  *Just show version information and exit.*

- `--help`*,* `-?`

  *Just show a short help message and exit.*

## WRITING MAN PAGES

*Basically, man pages are simply files in the man macro format.  However,* *there are some programs (first and foremost* `mandb`*) that require* *parts of man pages to be in a specific format, and man pages should* *generally adhere to the standard sectioning and form (see* `man` *(1)* *and* `lexgrog` *(1) for details).*

*When writing a man page, the title (w\_title) of the page should be the* *program/file/format/utility name, and you should define the section* *(w\_section).  To make the page suitable for* `mandb` *parsing, you* *should start the page with one or more calls to w\_man\_desc.  This will* *create a proper “NAME” section for you.  (Although you could write one* *by yourself.)*

## DIAGNOSTICS

`stx2any` *may give any error message that* `m4` *may give, e.g. on* *malformatted input (a macro call with missing closing parenthesis etc).* *In addition, it has the following own error messages:*

- *unknown output format: “X”*

  *You requested unsupported output format X with the* `-T` *option.*

- *unknown macro “X” called*

  `stx2any` *encountered a macro beginning with* `w_`*, but knows* *no definition for it.  This is a warning, not an error — the* *offending macro and its arguments are stripped from the output.*

- *environment “X” closed by “Y” in layer N*

  *Environments in* `stx2any` *must be properly nested.* `stx2any` *encountered w\_end(Y) when it was expecting* *w\_end(X).  Often this is a sign of a forgotten w\_end(X).*

- *If N (the layer) is something other than 0, then the problem*

  *is probably in your environment definitions, not at the point* *that* `stx2any` *was processing when it encountered the error.*

- *unknown environment “X”*

  *There was an attempt to begin an environment whose name is* *unknown to* `stx2any`*, i.e. no such environment has been* *defined.*

- *diversion “X” closed by “Y”*

  - *unknown diversion “X”*

  *Same as above, but for diversions (w\_begdiv and w\_enddiv).*

- *attempt to use “X” in secure environment*

  *You requested secure processing with* `--more-secure` *and the* *document contained an “insecure” macro.  This is a warning* *message, not an error — the causing macro is left in the text* *verbatim.*

- *unknown cross link to “X”*

  *There was a cross link to document X, but* `stx2any` *does not* *know about such a document.  Probably you didn't gather /X/'s* *data with* `gather_stx_titles` *or you misspelled the document* *reference.  This is a warning, not an error — the reference is* *left in the output verbatim, without any kind of link.*

*The return value of* `stx2any` *is zero on success, one if there was* *some problem.*

## ENVIRONMENT

- *PAPERCONF*

  - *PAPERSIZE*

  *used for determining the default paper size for LaTeX documents.*

## FILES

- `/etc/papersize`

  *used for determining the default paper size for LaTeX documents.*

- `/usr/share/stx2any/common`

  *directory for the definitions shared by all formats*

- `/usr/share/stx2any/{html,man,latex,docbook-xml}`

  *directory for output format specific definitions*

## SEE ALSO

`m4` *(1),* `latex` *(1),* `groff` *(1),* `lexgrog` *(1),* `w3m` *(1),* `strip_stx` *(1),* `gather_stx_titles` *(1),* `html2stx` *(1),* `extract_usage_from_stx` *(1)* \
 *Stx quickie guide (*`/usr/share/doc/stx2any/Stx-doc.txt`*)* \
 *Stx markup reference (*`/usr/share/doc/stx2any/Stx-ref.txt`*)*

## BUGS

*The structured text format is not yet fully standardised.  There are* *some corner cases where it is unclear what the result of the formatting* *should be.  In these cases, the output of* `stx2any` *is authoritative,* *so it cannot have bugs :)*

*Some old GNU libc's seem to be abysmally slow on some instances of the* *emphasis regexps.  It would be possible to make the regexps faster and* *less correct, but as newer GNU libc's and BSD libc seem to work OK in* *these cases, I guess it's not worth it.*

*The* `--more-secure` *switch is not really very secure for reasons* *explained above.*

*The support for DocBook XML sucks.  It is only included because someone* *will show up anyway and ask, “hey, does it support* **DocBook XML***?”* *Partly this sucking is due to my laziness, but partly it is because of* *the nature of DocBook.  For instance,* `stx2any` *will transform literal* *formatting into DocBook Literal elements, but the point of using* *DocBook is to convey more information than that — whether it is some* *ComputerOutput, UserInput, EnVar, or Application, or... and the result* *is still very abstract, not actually meant for humans to read but rather* *for computers to process into something readable.  Now the truth is that* *I doubt you will ever come up with a DSSSL stylesheet whose output* *outperforms LaTeX (for publishing on paper) or direct conversion to HTML* *(for publishing on the web).*

*The only sensible reasons I can think of for using Stx as a DocBook* *frontend are:*

- 1\.

  *the ability to use both DocBook constructs and Stx abbreviations*

- 2\.

  *if you have to write DocBook for some interesting reason (your boss* *told you so) but don't want to learn it*

- 3\.

  *you happen to already have infrastructure for processing DocBook* *documents, and you want to take advantage of it*

## AUTHOR

*This page is written by Panu A. Kalliokoski.*