@dircategory Textconverter @direntry * LaTeX2rtf: (latex2rtf). Convert LaTeX files to RTF format.
@defLaTeX{L@kern-.36em A@kern-.15em@TeX}
@defLaTeX2rtf{LaTeX @kern-.2em@lower.7ex @hbox{2}rtf}
In 1994 the first Version of LaTeX2rtf was written by a group of students of the Viena University supervised by Ralf Schlatterbeck. They took up a LaTeX parser and added most of the functionality to the program. In 1995 work continued with a second group of students. The result was LaTeX2rtf Version 1.5.
In 1998 Georg Lehner glehner@unanleon.edu.ni found the reference to LaTeX2rtf on the Textconversion webpage http://www.kfa-juelich.de/isr/1/texconv.htm of Wilfried Hennings W.Hennings@fz-juelich.de, added some functionality and took over the maintainence of the program. Wilfried Hennings actually coordinates the development of the program and maintains a mailing list latex2rtf@fz-juelich.de.
In July prerelease 1.7 was made available to the beta-tester group. Version 1.8 is to be released soon, with a couple of bug-fixes and some enhancements for several document-classes/styles.
Afterwards there shall be a jump to Version 2.0 with a complete redesign, but this is not history but future ...
Copyright (C) 1994, Andreas Granzer & Fernando Dorner, 1995 Friedrich Polzer& Gerhard Trisko, 1998 Georg Lehner
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANT-ABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
Note that this Copyright note only applies to the changes made to get the actual version. The older versions have their own Copyright policy stated in their distribution.
The contents of this manual is composed by copying shamelessly what was available in the original sources and documentation.
LaTeX2rtf is a translator program from LaTeX text into the RTF format which is native to Microsoft Word and Word for Windows. RTF can be exported and/or imported by several textprocessors.
The text and much of the formatting information is translated to RTF, making the new file look very similar to the original.
Now, for what do we need such a thing? There are three purposes:
Nevertheless there are drawbacks in the conversion. In fact, don't expect any LaTeX-file to be converted like you want, don't expect it to be converted without errors or warnings, and: don't even expect it to be converted at all, since LaTeX2rtf is at most at a very experimental stage. LaTeX2rtf is known to have a lot of bugs. And they grow more and more each day. In fact we could state that there are some special cases, where a LaTeX-file can be translated to RTF satisfactorily by LaTeX2rtf.
-- This was sort of disclaimer, ok? Ok!
LaTeX is a system for typesetting text and therefore it focuses on the logical structure of a document, whilst RTF is meant to be a transport format for a family of Desktop Publishing Software, dealing mostly with the design of a text.
Although the posible different commands and styles in LaTeX are much more delimited and better standardized than in RTF, only a small subset of them is (yet) implemented. Look at See section Unimplemented Features for more details.
Some of the capabilities are restricted or buggy, see also See section Known Bugs.
RTF is a moving target, i.e. Microsoft(tm) does not stop to invent new extensions and features for it. So you cannot view newer RTF files with older Word Processors. LaTeX2rtf eventually will generate RTF-output that is unreadable with your Programm.
Also the syntax and semantics are somewhat deliberate, i.e. you can generate a syntactically correct RTF file that cannot be displayed by some Word Processors.
For more details on RTF look at the RTF-Tools by Paul DuBois, and the corresponding newsgroups, etc. http://www.primate.wisc.edu/
LaTeX2rtf is available for a lot of Unix Platforms, for Windows 95, Windows NT and for MS-DOS.
The last oficial version 1.5 as maintained by Ralf Schlatterbeck ralf@zoo.priv.at has been available via ftp from the Viena University but I don't have the reference at hand by now, and from the CTAN sites: e.g. http://www.dante.de or http://www.ctan.org.
There is an MSDOS version available on ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/vmenkov/latex2rtf. The port was made by Vladimir Menkov vmenkov@cs.indiana.edu
Starting from Release 1.8 there should be included an MSDOS executable `l2r.exe', made directly from the sources.
The Windows 95 (NT) Version requires Cygnus-Cygwin32 (See http://www.cygnus.com/misc/gnu-win32/)
Actually work is going on to improve LaTeX2rtf and yet exist prereleases maintained by Georg Lehner glehner@unanleon.edu.ni (1).
There are a couple of persons working on the LaTeX2rtf-revival, coordinated by Wilfried Hennings W.Hennings@fz-juelich.de. By now we are looking for a new home for LaTeX2rtf, where you can download the sources.
Wilfried installed a Mailing-List on his Server: latex2rtf@fz-juelich.de so contact us for the latest news.
The latex2rtf command converts a LaTeX file into RTF text
format. The text and much of the formatting information is translated to
RTF making the new file look very similar to the original.
The command line syntax is:
latex2rtf [-V] [-l] [-v #] [-o outputfile] [-a auxfile]
[-b bblfile] [-i idiom] [inputfile]
See section Missing and Faulty command line options for actual implementations irregularities.
The `-V' option prints version information on standard output and exits.
The `-l' option enables you to convert ISO 8859-1 (Latin-1) special characters in the LaTeX source.
The `-i' option requires a language (idiom) as an option. The corresponding `idiom.cfg' file is then used to translate the predefined section headings of LaTeX to idiom.
The `-v' (verbosity) option determines the amount of information while processing the inputfiles. `0' means only Errors, `1' Warning Messages (default) also. See section Verbosity for more details.
Unless an outputfile is specified with the `-o' option, the resulting RTF is produced on standard output.
You can specify an auxfile (for citations) with the `-a' option. If this is omitted, the name of the inputfile with the suffix replaced `.aux' will be taken.
The `.aux'-file is needed for cross-references and citations. You have to provide both, the `.tex'- and the `.aux'-file to be able to convert LaTeX-files with this features.
You can specify a bblfile (for citations) with the `-b' option. If this is omitted, the name of the inputfile with the suffix replaced by `.bbl' will be taken.
If inputfile is not specified, standard input is read.
User defined LaTeX commands are ignored. If you are familiar with the RTF format and the commands can be translated by simply inserting a format string into the RTF file you can add these commands to the direct.cfg configuration file. See section `direct.cfg' for a format description.
To correctly convert font names you must edit the fonts.cfg configuration file. You have to specify the font names you use and how the LaTeX default font names should be converted to RTF. See format description inf section `fonts.cfg'.
LaTeX variables and user defined commands are not evaluated. They will be simply ignored. To let latex2rtf know the names of variables you can add them in the ignore.cfg file. See section `ignore.cfg' for a format description.
The language dependent sectioning names can be redefined to meet the idiom of the LaTeX document. See See section `language.cfg' for a description.
The environment variable RTFPATH may contain a search path for the support files (all files ending in .cfg). If no file is found during the search in the search-path or if the environment variable is not set, the compiled-in default for the configuration-file directory is used. If the files are not found at all the program aborts.
In the MS-DOS version the search path is separated by `;' in the Unix version by `:'. For the paths themselves apply `\' and `/'. A separator may appear at the beginning or ending of RTFPATH.
CAUTION: Please make sure that the input file is a correct LaTeX file. Use LaTeX to find and correct errors before using latex2rtf. The conversion command does not properly handle all errors caused by corrupt input files.
Make sure that the configuration files are in the correct directory. LaTeX2rtf will need at least `fonts.cfg', `direct.cfg', `ignore.cfg', `english.cfg'.
You may have to change one ore more of them to suit your needs, see section Configuring LaTeX2rtf for details.
See See section Reporting Bugs on how to reach the maintainer.
With the `-v' option you can specify how much of its internal working LaTeX2rtf is reporting.
If there is a logfile specified the output goes to this file. Nonetheless Warnings and Errors are logged to stderr always.
(Actually) possible values of `-v' are
It is not necesary to specify the -l option if you use
\usepackage{isolatin1} or
\documentstyle[isolatin1]{...} . LaTeX2rtf automagically detects
this packages/style options and switches to processing of ISO-Latin1 codes.
Do not append the `.cfg' suffix to the idiom parameter to
-i switch. If you specify an idiom that does not exist in
the search path for configuration files as described above the program
aborts.
In the actual version there are three language files delivered:
english, german, spanish. If you specify
\usepackage or a documentstyle option with one of these
idioms LaTeX2rtf automagically loads the correct language file and
you can omit the -i switch.
See See section `language.cfg' for details on how to write a `idiom.cfg' file for your language by yourself.
In this chapter you find what styles is LaTeX2rtf supposed to translate correctly to RTF.
Otfried Schwarzkopf has created the "Hyperlatex Markup Language" which
is a "little package that allows you to use LaTeX to prepare
documents in HTML."\/. It brings an Emacs lisp program with it to
convert the Hyperlatex file to HTML.
Hyperlatex can be obtained from the CTAN-sites, see section Availability.
There are two handsome commands that avoid typing: \link and
\xlink that generate an "internal" label which then is used in
the following \Ref and \Pageref commands.
LaTeX makes it possible to write `\link{anchor}[ltx]{label}', which typesets: `anchor ltx'. LaTeX2rtf does NOT support this aproach since the optional parameter is thrown away by now, see section LaTeX2rtf under Development for details.
Note that you have to update your `.cfg' files if you are
upgrading, since there are a lot of HTML oriented commands in
Hyperlatex that we simply can `ignore'.
LaTeX2rtf understands \documentclass{...} and
\usepackage{...}, but the optional parameter of the latter is
thrown away. See See section Known Bugs.
If using the -l command line option or the isolatin1
package or style, LaTeX2rtf automagically interprets the contents of the
input file as ISO_8859_1 encoded and generates the corresponding RTF
tokens on output.
In some situations this conversion does not take place, or is faulty. See See section Known Bugs.
If you have another package that provides support for this or another codepage please notify us (section Reporting Bugs), to include support for it.
If RTF version 1.1 is chosen (see section Missing and Faulty command line options) \label, \ref, and \pageref commands from LaTeX are translated to hidden text in the RTF file. This makes it possible to correctly edit the resulting file in the target word processor. If RTF version 1.4 (or higher) is chosen, crossreference updating is automated by the RTF reader.
If there is no \pagestyle command, the RTF output is generated as
with plain pagestyle, i.e. each page get's its page number
centered at the bottom.
You must turn this off with the \pagestyle{empty} command in
the LaTeX file if you don't want pagenumbers.
The headings and myheadings styles are silently ignored by
now.
The twosided option to the \documentstyle or
\documentclass produces the corresponding RTF tokens.
Note that these features require RTF Version 1.4.
LaTeX2rtf translates automatically the sectioning titles for `Part', `References', `Bibliography' and `Abstract' if it encounters a `german' or `spanish' package or documentstyle option.
The other fixed sectioning titles ("Table of Contents" and the like) are not yet needed, because LaTeX2rtf does not handle these LaTeX features.
See See section Missing and Faulty command line options for information on other languages.
Encountering the `german' package or documentstyle option (by H.Partl of the Viena University) makes LaTeX2rtf behave like that: German Quotes, German Umlauts by `"a', etc. ...
On processing input LaTeX2rtf first converts the LaTeX special characters. If it encounters one of the standard commands it is converted internally. If a command is not known to LaTeX2rtf it is first looked up in the section `direct.cfg' and the RTF code specified there is output. If not found there it is looked up in the section `ignore.cfg', since there are a lot of LaTeX commands that do not show up in the .dvi output (cross reference information and the like), or that we are not able or willing to convert to rtf.
You can use `ignore.cfg' if you get bored to see "WARNING: command: foo not found - ignored" and you don't need `foo' in your Word(R) document, but it would be nice to send me the offending command to include it in the distributions configuration files.
LaTeX2rtf accepts Unix-like, MSDOS and Macintosh line ending codes
(\n, \r\n and \r).
Optionally the input is interpreted as iso-latin1 encoded, section Character encoding.
Since the RTF-Readers normally have their own mood of typesetting and font handling we have to convert the LaTeX fonts to RTF fontnames. This is handled by the file section `fonts.cfg'.
If you have information about adequate font mappings from Metafont to TrueType fonts please send me a note, so I can improve the resemblence beetween LaTeX and RTF output. I would be happy to include a font resource list in this manual.
Nevertheless you are free to make all fancy things you like, map \rm on WingDings if you feel somewhat strange today...
The standard LaTeX styles have some fixed Title names like `Part', `Reference' or `Bibliography' that appeared in English or German in the output with the original versions of LaTeX2rtf.
Now you can determine what should appear at this places with an appropiate section `language.cfg' file.
Actually I grep-ed the descriptions out of the `babel' files from teTeX to supply english, german and spanish translations.
On writing output, LaTeX2rtf generates \n (lf, Newline) as
line ending code. Your RTF-Reader should accept this on any platform. If
you ftp your RTf-file from or to MSDOS platforms the line ending
code can be converted to \r\n. As this should also be legal to
any RTf-Reader the resulting RTF-rendering should not be affected.
The file direct.cfg is used for converting LaTeX commands by simple text replacement. The format consists of lines with a LaTeX command with backslash followed by comma. The rest of the line until a '.' character will be written to the RTF file when the command is recognized in the LaTeX file. Lines starting with a '#' character are ignored. After the '.' everything is ignored to end of line. To select a specific font use *fontname*. Make sure that the font name fontname is listed in the fonts configuration file at least as dummy. To write the '*' character use "**". example:
`\alpha,{\f*Symbol* a}. #alpha under Windows Symbol Font'
`\copyright,{\ansi\'a9\pc}.'
The file ignore.cfg is used for defining how to ignore certain commands. This file is used for recognition of LaTeX-variables, user defined variables, and some simple commands. All variables are ignored but the converter must know the names to correctly ignore assignments to variables. Lines in this file consist of a variable-name with backslash, followed by comma and the type of the variable followed by '.'. Possible Types are:
NUMBER
MEASURE
OTHER
COMMAND
SINGLE
PARAMETER
PACKAGE
ENVCMD
ENVIRONMENT
The types are in upper case exactly as above. Do not use spaces. Lines starting with a '#' character are ignored. After the '.' everything is ignored to end of line. Example:
`\pagelength,MEASURE.'
The file `fonts.cfg' contains the fonts conversion table. A line consists of a font name in LaTeX followed by comma and a font name in RTF. The end is marked by a '.'. No spaces are allowed. The LaTeX font will be converted to the RTF font if encountered in the LaTeX file. If multi- ple translations for a LateX font are specified, only the first is used. All fonts in a LaTeX file that are not in this file will be mapped to the default font. All RTF fonts listed in this file will be in every RTF file header whether used or not. Lines starting with a '#' character are ignored. After the '.' everything is ignored to end of line. To add a RTF font not used as substitute for a LaTeX font - for example a Symbol font used in direct.cfg - use a dummy LaTeX name like in the following example:
`Dummy3,MathematicalSymbols.'
Make sure you use the correct font name. Take care of spaces in font names. The default fonts are named Roman (command \rm), Slanted (command \sl), Sans Serif (command \sf), Typewriter (command \tt).
The file(s) `language.cfg' control the traduction of LaTeX's "hardcoded" sectioning names.
I have put in what I found whith grep "\renewcommand" * in the LaTeX style directory (teTex, babel), the tokens have the "name" stripped of and are all uppercase i.e. `\contentsname' mutes to `CONTENTS'. Actually LaTeX2rtf uses only REF and PART.
CONTENTS
LISTFIGURE
LISTTABLE
REF
REFARTICLE
INDEX
FIGURE
TABLE
PART
APPENDIX
ABSTRACT
Actually there is an english, a german and a spanish Version. You are welcome contribute with `language.cfg' files in other idioms to include them in the distribution. Send them to glehner@unanleon.edu.ni or latex2rtf@fz-juelich.de.
Note: Error reporting and logging is one of the most chaotic aspects of the program. There are a lot of inconsistencies, but I hope to get it cleaner with time.
As stated in section Verbosity LaTeX2rtf provides a means to control the amount of information it put's out on stderr.
Error and Warning messages should follow the GNU Coding standards, i.e. they have the format:
``inputfile':line: Error|Warning: message'
Note: Neither the inputfile may be correctly announced if `\input'ing it, nor can you rely on the linenumber, see section Known Bugs.
The other messages only indicate `filename' (sometimes wrong) and linenumber (also sometimes wrong) and some more or less usefull or interesting message. Don't try to encounter any sense in Verbosity levels above 3, these are for my own delight only and can change significantly between versions.
\documentstyle on to
\usepackage, LaTeX2rtf doesn't do this. LaTeX2rtf{} now accepts
optional arguments to \usepackage, but only uses them if they
contain latin1
headings and myheadings
pagestyles. Implement \markboth and \markright.
mac RTF encodings?
Here comes a list of LaTeX-commands that are not implemented:
`setlength, bigcap, dag, ddag, oe, OE, sharp, clubsuit, sim, nobreak, vspace, today, left-((, right-))'
In this section you find comments about missing and buggy command line options.
-v 0 option.
There is a need for a `--language' option (`-l' is yet used, and could be changed to -e # (--encoding). `-i' as for `--international' is chosen meanwhile so that the user can select an alternate language file, see section Output formatting.
It would be useful to implement the GNU long option names, e.g.: `--verbosity', `--output_file', `--quiet', etc.
\link{anchor}[ltx]{label} is
converted to the rtf-output. Label is stored to hyperref for later use,
the optional parameter is ignored. [ltx] should be processed as Otfried
recommends it, to use for exclusive latex output.e.g:
\link{readhere}[~\Ref]{explaining:chapter}.
Since {explaining:chapter} is yet read by latex and hyperlatex when
[...] is evaluated it produces the correct reference. LaTeX2rtf is only
strolling from left to right through the text and can't remember what
she will see in the future.
\item[...] in the description
environment is converted to isolatin1 if applicable, but not LaTeX
converted. Try `\item[Best~Friends]'.
\section* command is accepted, but as I don't know how to
produce a section without numbering it in rtf it does precisly this:
print a section number.
diagnostics routine does not output the correct (actual)
inputfilename. (`.aux', `.bbl', \input).
Report bugs to glehner@unanleon.edu.ni (Georg Lehner). Ralf Schlatterbeck is no longer the maintainer and will forward all mails refering LaTeX2rtf to me. Please give the following information and observe the following guidelines when reporting a bug in the program:
Tell me the version of the program. For the executable you get the version by specifying the `-V' option to LaTeX2rtf. For the sources the version is the version number of the file `version.h'.
The Operating System and version number where you are running or trying to install LaTeX2rtf. Be sure to check the file `Makefile' for settings that may be specific to your machine, especially for some versions of SunOS there may be settings which are needed to compile successfully. Do this before writing to me.
For problems with the DOS version, report installation problems to the mainainer of the DOS port, Vladimir Menkov, vmenkov@cs.indiana.edu
If the program produces wrong output or does not work for you, include a short LaTeX file along with a description of the problem. Do not send me large LaTeX or rtf files, I simply do not have the time to wade through large files to search for a bug! If necessary (i.e., the program produces wrong or invalid rtf), send the rtf file that is produced along with the LaTeX input file.
Be patient with me. I am maintaining the program in my free time. I did not write most of the code. Often I do not have the time to answer to your question. I will, however, try to fix reported bugs in upcoming releases.
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