Comparison of RST and LaTeX

Abstract

This document aims at a comparison between two markup languages one of which will be chosen as the documentation language for the upcoming Selenium book.

Comparison

Characteristic
RST
LaTeX
Free software
Yes (public domain with specific copyright restrictions)
Yes  (LPPL)
Goals
  • the establishment of a set of standard conventions allowing the expression of structure within plaintext
  • the conversion of such documents into useful structured data formats.
  • document preparation system for high-quality typesetting of technical/scientific documents
  • the conversion of such documents into useful structured data formats.
Document size
Small Medium/Large
Documentation Yes (reference)
Yes (books, references)
Usage Probably mostly used by Python developers (djangobook, pylons, etc.)
Widely adopted
IDE Yes (emacs, vi, vim)
Yes (eclipse plugin, vi, vim, emacs, ...)
Syntax Very easy and fluent
Easy
Output formats
HTML, S5, LaTeX, XML, ODF, PDF... (the rest available through LaTeX export). PDF, HTML, PS, DVI, Word, RTF, ...
Automated TOC generation
Yes Yes
Bibliography handling
Yes Yes
Footer/header handling
Yes Yes
Image processing
No (you can use images, but not processing on the fly)
Yes
Deep structures
Yes Yes
Easy References
Yes (but only for targets on the same file) Yes
Document hierarchy (main/sub)
No Yes
Maven Plugin
Yes (using JRST which quality is not good enough)
Yes
Short examples
Your Document
=============

:Author: Your Name
:Version: $Revision: 5801 $
:Copyright: This document has been placed in the public domain.

.. contents::

Carnivorous Plants
---------------------

Here is my first paragraph on carnivorous plants.

Here is my second paragraph
on carnivorous plants.


Lists
-----
    1. numbers

    A. upper-case letters
       and it goes over many lines

       with two paragraphs and all!

    a. lower-case letters

       3. with a sub-list starting at a different number
       4. make sure the numbers are in the correct sequence though!

    I. upper-case roman numerals

    i. lower-case roman numerals

    (1) numbers again
1) and again

more: http://docutils.sourceforge.net/docs/user/rst/quickref.html

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\title{My Document}

\author{Your Name}
\maketitle

\tableofcontents

\section{Carnivorous Plants}

Here is my first paragraph on carnivorous plants.

Here is my second paragraph
 on carnivorous plants.

\end{document}


/section{Lists}

\begin{itemize}

\item Here is a bullet.
\item Here is another bullet.

\end{itemize}

\begin{enumerate}

\item Here is item one.
\item Here is item two.

\end{enumerate}

more: http://lahelper.sourceforge.net/mini_latex_tutorial.html

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