 An example of printed Texinfo output; page 25 of the official GNU Texinfo manual. | |
| Original author(s) | Richard Stallman Robert Chassell |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Brian Fox[1] Karl Berry |
| Initial release | February 1986[2] |
| Stable release | 7.1.1[3] 
/ 7 September 2024 |
| Repository | |
| Written in | C, Perl |
| Operating system | GNU/Linux, BSD |
| Type | Documentation |
| License | GPL-3.0-or-later |
| Website | www |
Texinfo is a typesetting syntax used for generating documentation in both on-line and printed form (creating filetypes as dvi, html, pdf, etc., and a specific hypertext format, Info) with a single source file. It is implemented by a computer program released as free software of the same name, created and made available by the GNU Project from the Free Software Foundation.[4]
The main purpose of Texinfo is to provide a way to easily typeset software manuals. Similar to the LaTeX syntax, all the normal features of a book, such as chapters, sections, cross references, tables and indices are available for use in documents. Using the various output generators that are available for Texinfo, it is possible to keep several documentation types up-to-date (such as on-line documentation provided via a Web site, and printed documentation, as generated using the TeX typesetting system) using only a single source file.
The official Texinfo documentation states that the first syllable of "Texinfo" is pronounced so as to rhyme with "speck", not "hex"; this pronunciation is derived from the pronunciation of TeX, in which the X represents the Greek letter chi rather than the English letter x. The maintainers state that "Texinfo" should be written with only a capital "T" and the rest of the letters in lower case.
- ^ GNU's Who, The GNU Team has grown larger in the last few months: Brian Fox and Opus Goldstein have joined Jay Fenlason as the only employees of the Foundation. Most recently, Brian created a stand-alone texinfo formatter and browser..., February, 1988, GNU's Bulletin, vol. 1 no. 4
- ^ Gnu Status, by Richard M. Stallman. "5. Documentation system. I now have a truly compatible pair of programs which can convert a file of texinfo format documentation into either a printed manual or an Info file. Documentation files are needed for many utilities.", February 1986, GNU's Bulletin, Volume 1 No. 1
- ^ Gavin Smith (7 September 2024). "Texinfo 7.1.1 released". Retrieved 7 September 2024.
- ^ What's GNU: Texinfo, Issue 6, Oct 01, 1994, By Arnold Robbins, Linux Journal