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## The First Questions You May Have

This chapter is a txt2tags overview, that will introduce the program purpose and features.

### What is it?

Txt2tags is a text formatting and conversion tool.

Txt2tags converts a plain text file with little marks, to any of the supported targets:

- HTML document
- XHTML document
- SGML document
- DocBook document
- LaTeX document
- Lout document
- UNIX man page
- MagicPoint presentation
- Creole 1.0 document
- Wikipedia page (MediaWiki)
- Google Wiki page
- PmWiki page
- DokuWiki page
- MoinMoin page
- PageMaker 6.0 document
- AsciiDoc document
- ASCII Art text
- Plain Text (no marks)

### Why should I use it?

You'll find txt2tags really useful if you:

- Need to publish documents in different formats
- Need to maintain updated documents in different formats
- Write technical documents or guides
- Don't know how to write a document in a specific format
- Don't have an editor for a specific format
- Want to use a simple text editor to update your documents

And the main motivation is:

- Save time, writing contents and forgetting about formatting

### Why is it a good choice among other tools?

Txt2tags has a very straight way of growing, following basic concepts. These are the highlights:

Source File Readable | Txt2tags marks are very simple, almost natural.
Target Document Readable | The target document is also readable, with indentation and spacing.
Consistent Marks | Txt2tags marks are simple symbols, designed to be unique enough to don't mix up with the document contents.
Consistent Rules | As the marks, the rules that applies to them are tied to each other, there are no "exceptions" or "special cases".
Simple Structures | All the supported formatting are simple, with no extra-options or complicated behavior modifiers. A mark is just a mark, with no options at all.
Easy to Learn | With simple marks and readable source, the txt2tags learning curve is user friendly.
Nice Examples | The sample files included on the package gives real life examples of documents written for txt2tags.
Valuable Tools | The syntax files included on the package help you to write documents with no syntax errors.
Three User Interfaces | There is a user friendly Graphical interface, a handy Web interface easy to install in intranets and a Command Line interface for power-users and scripting.
Scripting | With the full featured command line mode, an experienced user can automatize tasks and do post-editing on the converted files.
Download and Run / Multi-platform | Txt2tags is a single Python script. There is no need to compile it or download extra modules. So it runs nicely on *NIX, Linux, Windows and Macs.
Mature | First released in 2001, txt2tags is now a mature program with years of improvements and bug fixes, extensive documentation, translations and an loyal user base.

### Do I have to pay for it?

Absolutely NO!

It's free, GPL licensed.

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