INSTALL - texinfo - Git at Google

 INSTALL file for texinfo.

      Copyright 1992-2026 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

      Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
      are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
      notice and this notice are preserved.

 For generic installation instructions on compiling and installing this
 Automake-based distribution, please read the file `INSTALL.generic'.

 Installation notes specific to Texinfo:

 * texinfo.tex and the other *.tex files are not installed by
   `make install', because TeX installations vary so widely.
   Installing them in the wrong place would give a false sense of
   security.   Instead, you have to run an additional make command
   after the normal make install:

     make TEXMF=/your/texmf install-tex

   where TEXMF is a root of a TeX hierachy that follows the TeX
   Directory Structure standard (http://tug.org/tds/).
   texinfo.tex is installed in ${TEXMF}/tex/texinfo, epsf.tex
   in ${TEXMF}/tex/generic/epsf/, etc.

   (Alternatively, you can simply cp *.tex to the appropriate places.)

   For information on how or where to install files, see your TeX
   documentation in general (i.e. web2c and kpathsea manuals), and the
   texmf.cnf file.

   It is possible to put these .tex files in a `local' place instead of
   overwriting existing ones.  You might find where this is by running
   `kpsewhich -var-value TEXMFLOCAL'.

   If you add files to your TeX installations, not just replace existing
   ones, you very likely will also have to update your ls-R file; do this
   by running the mktexlsr command.

   An alternative is to copy texinfo.tex to the same directory as your
   Texinfo manual, but this is not especially recommended.

   You can get the latest texinfo.tex from
   https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/texinfo/texinfo.tex (and all GNU mirrors)
   ftp://tug.org/tex/texinfo.tex (and all CTAN mirrors)
   or from the gnulib project on Savannah (among other places).
   If you have problems with the texinfo.tex in this distribution, please
   check for a newer version.

 * If you're maintaining a TeX distribution and keeping the files up to
   date yourself, you may not want to see the installation warnings.

   For that, run configure --disable-install-warnings, or set
   enable_install_warnings=no in the environment.

 * `texi2any' depends on having a locale installed that is not "C", "C.UTF-8"
    or "POSIX" in order to translate strings in its output, if @documentlanguage
    appears in a document.  This is due to a limitation in the libc
    "gettext" interface.

 * The texi2any program can use extension (XS) modules.  The configure
   script will attempt to detect whether such modules can be built and
   loaded on your installation.  If you want to disable the use of XS modules,
   you can give the --disable-perl-xs flag to `configure'; likewise, to use
   them without checking, give the --enable-perl-xs flag.

 * When `configure' is running in the texi2any subdirectory and XS modules
   are used, instead of the standard CC, CFLAGS, LDFLAGS etc., it uses special
   variables with a PERL_EXT_ prefix.  These are all listed in the output of
   `configure --help'.  This is necessary because it is possible that the C
   compiler being used to compile Perl extension modules and other texi2any C
   codes is a different compiler to that used for the rest of the package.
   (However, if you need to override these variables when running `make', use
   the unprefixed variants, e.g. CFLAGS instead of PERL_EXT_CFLAGS.  Exception:
   you cannot override CPPFLAGS this way as gnulib uses this variable.)

 * After building the program, the use of XS modules in the Perl
   texi2any implementation can be controlled with the `TEXINFO_XS'
   environment variable, which may be useful for troubleshooting.  Set
   TEXINFO_XS=warn to print some information if loading XS modules fail,
   TEXINFO_XS=debug to print some information as the modules are looked
   for and loaded, TEXINFO_XS=omit to disable their use,
   TEXINFO_XS=required to force their use or TEXINFO_XS=requiredifenabled
   to force their use if enabled at run time based on the environment
   variables values described next.

   Specific focused XS modules are only controlled by TEXINFO_XS.
   XS modules replacing perl code for the main processing steps can be
   controlled more finely.  Three steps are distinguished: the parsing
   step, the structure step for the determination of sectioning and node
   structures, and the conversion step.  If the XS modules are not used
   for a step, they cannot be used for the following steps.

   If you want to use the XS modules but not the XS parser, you can
   set the `TEXINFO_XS_PARSER' environment variable to 0.  If you use
   the XS parser but do not want to use XS for the structure step, you
   can set the `TEXINFO_XS_STRUCTURE' environment variable to 0.  If you
   use the XS modules for the structure but do not want to use XS for the
   conversion step, you can set the `TEXINFO_XS_CONVERT' environment
   variable to 0.

 * Native code (in XS modules) get translations for strings to be put in
   output files using libc gettext, using the LANGUAGE variable.  If the
   gettext implementation (such as that on musl) does not support this
   variable, this will not work and strings will not be translated.
   However, if you pass the --enable-xs-perl-libintl flag to `configure',
   an alternative translation method is activated where C code calls back
   into the Perl interpreter to get translations, which does work.

 * The Info tree uses a file `dir' as its root node; the `dir-example'
   file in this distribution is included as a possible starting point.
   Use it, modify it, or ignore it just as you like.

 * You can create a file texinfo.cnf to be read by TeX when
   processing Texinfo manuals.  For example, you might like to use
   @afourpaper by default.  See the `Preparing for TeX' node in
   the Texinfo manual for more details.  You don't have to create the
   file if you have nothing to put in it.

 * Texinfo uses code from the Gnulib portability library.  For correct
   localization of Gnulib strings, you may need to install a 'gnulib-l10n'
   package.
   + Documentation:
     https://www.gnu.org/software/gnulib/manual/html_node/Localization.html
   + Download:
     https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gnulib/gnulib-l10n-*
	INSTALL file for texinfo.

	Copyright 1992-2026 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

	Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
	are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
	notice and this notice are preserved.

	For generic installation instructions on compiling and installing this
	Automake-based distribution, please read the file `INSTALL.generic'.

	Installation notes specific to Texinfo:

	* texinfo.tex and the other *.tex files are not installed by
	`make install', because TeX installations vary so widely.
	Installing them in the wrong place would give a false sense of
	security. Instead, you have to run an additional make command
	after the normal make install:

	make TEXMF=/your/texmf install-tex

	where TEXMF is a root of a TeX hierachy that follows the TeX
	Directory Structure standard (http://tug.org/tds/).
	texinfo.tex is installed in ${TEXMF}/tex/texinfo, epsf.tex
	in ${TEXMF}/tex/generic/epsf/, etc.

	(Alternatively, you can simply cp *.tex to the appropriate places.)

	For information on how or where to install files, see your TeX
	documentation in general (i.e. web2c and kpathsea manuals), and the
	texmf.cnf file.

	It is possible to put these .tex files in a `local' place instead of
	overwriting existing ones. You might find where this is by running
	`kpsewhich -var-value TEXMFLOCAL'.

	If you add files to your TeX installations, not just replace existing
	ones, you very likely will also have to update your ls-R file; do this
	by running the mktexlsr command.

	An alternative is to copy texinfo.tex to the same directory as your
	Texinfo manual, but this is not especially recommended.

	You can get the latest texinfo.tex from
	https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/texinfo/texinfo.tex (and all GNU mirrors)
	ftp://tug.org/tex/texinfo.tex (and all CTAN mirrors)
	or from the gnulib project on Savannah (among other places).
	If you have problems with the texinfo.tex in this distribution, please
	check for a newer version.

	* If you're maintaining a TeX distribution and keeping the files up to
	date yourself, you may not want to see the installation warnings.

	For that, run configure --disable-install-warnings, or set
	enable_install_warnings=no in the environment.

	* `texi2any' depends on having a locale installed that is not "C", "C.UTF-8"
	or "POSIX" in order to translate strings in its output, if @documentlanguage
	appears in a document. This is due to a limitation in the libc
	"gettext" interface.

	* The texi2any program can use extension (XS) modules. The configure
	script will attempt to detect whether such modules can be built and
	loaded on your installation. If you want to disable the use of XS modules,
	you can give the --disable-perl-xs flag to `configure'; likewise, to use
	them without checking, give the --enable-perl-xs flag.

	* When `configure' is running in the texi2any subdirectory and XS modules
	are used, instead of the standard CC, CFLAGS, LDFLAGS etc., it uses special
	variables with a PERL_EXT_ prefix. These are all listed in the output of
	`configure --help'. This is necessary because it is possible that the C
	compiler being used to compile Perl extension modules and other texi2any C
	codes is a different compiler to that used for the rest of the package.
	(However, if you need to override these variables when running `make', use
	the unprefixed variants, e.g. CFLAGS instead of PERL_EXT_CFLAGS. Exception:
	you cannot override CPPFLAGS this way as gnulib uses this variable.)

	* After building the program, the use of XS modules in the Perl
	texi2any implementation can be controlled with the `TEXINFO_XS'
	environment variable, which may be useful for troubleshooting. Set
	TEXINFO_XS=warn to print some information if loading XS modules fail,
	TEXINFO_XS=debug to print some information as the modules are looked
	for and loaded, TEXINFO_XS=omit to disable their use,
	TEXINFO_XS=required to force their use or TEXINFO_XS=requiredifenabled
	to force their use if enabled at run time based on the environment
	variables values described next.

	Specific focused XS modules are only controlled by TEXINFO_XS.
	XS modules replacing perl code for the main processing steps can be
	controlled more finely. Three steps are distinguished: the parsing
	step, the structure step for the determination of sectioning and node
	structures, and the conversion step. If the XS modules are not used
	for a step, they cannot be used for the following steps.

	If you want to use the XS modules but not the XS parser, you can
	set the `TEXINFO_XS_PARSER' environment variable to 0. If you use
	the XS parser but do not want to use XS for the structure step, you
	can set the `TEXINFO_XS_STRUCTURE' environment variable to 0. If you
	use the XS modules for the structure but do not want to use XS for the
	conversion step, you can set the `TEXINFO_XS_CONVERT' environment
	variable to 0.

	* Native code (in XS modules) get translations for strings to be put in
	output files using libc gettext, using the LANGUAGE variable. If the
	gettext implementation (such as that on musl) does not support this
	variable, this will not work and strings will not be translated.
	However, if you pass the --enable-xs-perl-libintl flag to `configure',
	an alternative translation method is activated where C code calls back
	into the Perl interpreter to get translations, which does work.

	* The Info tree uses a file `dir' as its root node; the `dir-example'
	file in this distribution is included as a possible starting point.
	Use it, modify it, or ignore it just as you like.

	* You can create a file texinfo.cnf to be read by TeX when
	processing Texinfo manuals. For example, you might like to use
	@afourpaper by default. See the `Preparing for TeX' node in
	the Texinfo manual for more details. You don't have to create the
	file if you have nothing to put in it.

	* Texinfo uses code from the Gnulib portability library. For correct
	localization of Gnulib strings, you may need to install a 'gnulib-l10n'
	package.
	+ Documentation:
	https://www.gnu.org/software/gnulib/manual/html_node/Localization.html
	+ Download:
	https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gnulib/gnulib-l10n-*