The l2h help pages   © Leon van Dommelen 
The latest version of this document is online at eng.famu.fsu.edu or at dommelen.net.

Frequently asked questions

Installation
Can I run l2h from a terminal?
Can I install one copy of l2h for all users?
Speed up image generation?
Rebuilding latex2html
Running l2h
The menu keys do not work
The menu crashes
Creating the source index.tex
Can I use spaces in folder names?
Can I use another name than index.tex?
Do I need to use one of the given examples?
Are there better LaTeX editors?
Can I put \makeindex or \bibliography in another file?
What if \webengine or \pdfengine are already defined?
Creating the pdf document
I have a problem creating the pdf
Why would I want to make a ps document
Creating web pages
I have a problem making web pages
Are \input files checked by l2h?
Are \input files in \input files checked by l2h?
How can I prevent l2h from checking \input or \include files?
How can I disable the web-page syntax checker?
Can I use plain latex2html?

Can I run l2h from a terminal?

Yes. If you double-click "terminal" inside the l2h folder, it will open up a suitable terminal. If you use your own terminal instead, make sure to "source" (unix, after entering tcsh) or "call" (DOS) init.bat in the l2h folder.

You can "call" the files that GUI users double-click. For example, "call l2h_menu.desktop" (unix) or "call l2h_menu.bat" (dos), without the quotes, used in a document folder, will run the l2h menu for that document. See nonGUI.html for more details.

If you want to do without the menu, relevant commands are, for example, assuming you use a plain latex template,

latex index        (to run latex)
bibtex index       (for the bibliographical references)
makeindex index    (for the index)
makepdf.bat        (to make the index.pdf pdf file)
makewebpages.bat   (to make the web-pages)


Can I install one copy of l2h for all users?

With the price of disk storage nowadays, this hardly seems worth the trouble. But if you want to do it to encourage LaTeX use by making it easier accessible, go for it. The biggest problem will be the temporary-space folder "temp" in the l2h folder. You will have to give everyone write access to it. Or redirect the temporary space to somewhere else. In unix, a symbolic link to /tmp should do it; I am using that on a College Sun station. Using Microsoft, you could change $TMP in l2hconf.pm in the l2h folder, and in pstoimg in the bin subfolder. Also, if you give everyone access to the same temporary space, there is a nag-message about existing files in that folder that you might want to turn off. It is inside makewebpages.bat in the bin subfolder. Feel free to contact me for help. (It can already be turned off by the user for each document.)

You still have to give the individual users their own copy of the "example" folder, and any folders inside "convert" they may need. (That would primarily be the "any_eps" folder. For XeLaTeX they also need the "eps_pdf" folder.) Of course, you can explain to them how to copy such folders themselves.

Do not move l2h elsewhere afterwards. It will be an impossible task to update all user files in the folders they copied from l2h.


Speed up image generation?

I think the bottle-neck is CPU speed. So my answer would be: buy a new computer. However, without doubt also a lot of disk access is going on. That you could conceivably speed up by making the temp folder in l2h a a RAM disk. Windows users would have to change the name in files l2hconf.pm and pstoimg.bat, the latter being in the bin subfolder. Look for TMP. Unix users could just replace temp by a symbolic link to the RAM disk.


Can I use spaces in folder names?

Yes. Latex2html has been changed to accommodate spaces in the path names. (Except if you want to rebuild latex2html for some reason. The rebuild must be done in a path without spaces.)


Can I use another name than index.tex?

No, unless you want to modify large amounts of DOS or tcsh scripts. It is a lot easier to rename things after you are all done with processing. (The same holds for the name of folder name web-pages.)


Do I need to use one of the given examples?

If you want to use l2h to make web pages, the answer is probably yes. If you read through the examples, you will see why. However, you could start with your own latex file and then copy in the parts from the examples that you want.

Note in particular the following:

See the use_your_own web page for more.


Can I put \makeindex or \bibliography in another file?

Not at this time. Script checknewer.bat currently only looks at index.tex for these quantities. Not in files loaded through \input or \include commands. (The same holds for the \pdfengine and \webengine commands.)

That could in principle be changed, by running a modified version of texfiles.sub on the input files. The modified script could create a script to append to texfiles.lst. Iteration could be done until there are no further changes.

But why? It would slow down l2h. And the added complexity would be a potential source of additional problems. Infinite loops, anyone? On the other hand, as is you can "hide" such commands from l2h, if neccessary, by putting them in an input file.


What if \webengine or \pdfengine are already defined?

L2h currently does not recognize \renewcommands for these. Instead put the \newcommand in a comment environment. (This environment is defined, for example, in package html.) The l2h reading algorithm is not smart enough to note the comment environment.


Why would I want to make a ps document

If you use plain latex, making a ps document is much quicker than making a pdf. However, you need to have a viewer that will view ps files. Debian/Ubuntu has evince, but in MS Windows you may have to install one. Ghostview jumps to mind. (But the full TeX Live for Windows comes with a viewer.)

If you use pdflatex, xelatex, or lualatex, I cannot think of a good reason to create a ps right now. Unless you want a file that you can send directly to a postscript printer.


Are \input files checked by l2h?

Yes. Files that you \input or \include in index.tex are checked just like index.tex. In particular their syntax is checked for latex2html problems. And their date is checked to see whether the document must be reprocessed with latex.


Are \input files in \input files checked by l2h?

No, not at this time. But I might change later that if I see a very good reason.


How can I prevent l2h from checking \input or \include files?

Use a space between \input or \include and {file_to_input}.


How can I disable the web-page syntax checker?

Move the offending code to a separate file, called say "hidden.tex". Make the second line in hidden.tex equal to:

% skip l2h syntax checking

Now in index.tex, include hidden.tex in the appropriate place using a line of the form:

\input{hidden.tex}

Do not be surprised if the web page generation fails miserably. The syntax checking is done for very good reasons.


Can I use plain latex2html?

Yes. If you mix l2h and latex2html however, note that l2h will overwrite the .latex2html-init file you would use for plain latex2html, based on settings.pl. Also, unless you have a system/setwe.bat file like created by l2h, plain latex will be used for image generation. So figures will need to be eps with only limited international characters.

If for some reason you want to use the original latex2html 99.2, with all its bugs, you will need to rebuild it. A simple way to do that is using the scripts in the system-files/bin folder. But you can instead follow the instructions in the latex2html zip file in the external-programs folder. My own FAQ is: "Why the hell would you want to do this?"


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