- Home
- Get it
- Docs
- Extend/Develop

# Available builders

These are the built-in Sphinx builders. More builders can be added by extensions.

The builder’s “name” must be given to the -b command-line option of sphinx-build to select a builder.

class `sphinx.builders.html.``StandaloneHTMLBuilder`

  This is the standard HTML builder. Its output is a directory with HTML files, complete with style sheets and optionally the reST sources. There are quite a few configuration values that customize the output of this builder, see the chapter Options for HTML output for details.

  `name` = 'html'
  `format` = 'html'
  `supported_image_types` = ['image/svg+xml', 'image/png', 'image/gif', 'image/jpeg']

class `sphinx.builders.html.``DirectoryHTMLBuilder`

  This is a subclass of the standard HTML builder. Its output is a directory with HTML files, where each file is called `index.html` and placed in a subdirectory named like its page name. For example, the document `markup/rest.rst` will not result in an output file `markup/rest.html`, but `markup/rest/index.html`. When generating links between pages, the `index.html` is omitted, so that the URL would look like `markup/rest/`.

  `name` = 'dirhtml'
  `format` = 'html'
  `supported_image_types` = ['image/svg+xml', 'image/png', 'image/gif', 'image/jpeg']

  New in version 0.6.

class `sphinx.builders.html.``SingleFileHTMLBuilder`

  This is an HTML builder that combines the whole project in one output file. (Obviously this only works with smaller projects.) The file is named like the master document. No indices will be generated.

  `name` = 'singlehtml'
  `format` = 'html'
  `supported_image_types` = ['image/svg+xml', 'image/png', 'image/gif', 'image/jpeg']

  New in version 1.0.

class `sphinx.builders.htmlhelp.``HTMLHelpBuilder`

  This builder produces the same output as the standalone HTML builder, but also generates HTML Help support files that allow the Microsoft HTML Help Workshop to compile them into a CHM file.

  `name` = 'htmlhelp'
  `format` = 'html'
  `supported_image_types` = ['image/png', 'image/gif', 'image/jpeg']

class `sphinx.builders.qthelp.``QtHelpBuilder`

  This builder produces the same output as the standalone HTML builder, but also generates Qt help collection support files that allow the Qt collection generator to compile them.

  `name` = 'qthelp'
  `format` = 'html'
  `supported_image_types` = ['image/svg+xml', 'image/png', 'image/gif', 'image/jpeg']

class `sphinx.builders.applehelp.``AppleHelpBuilder`

  This builder produces an Apple Help Book based on the same output as the standalone HTML builder.

  If the source directory contains any `.lproj` folders, the one corresponding to the selected language will have its contents merged with the generated output. These folders will be ignored by all other documentation types.

  In order to generate a valid help book, this builder requires the command line tool hiutil, which is only available on Mac OS X 10.6 and above. You can disable the indexing step by setting `applehelp_disable_external_tools` to `True`, in which case the output will not be valid until hiutil has been run on all of the `.lproj` folders within the bundle.

  `name` = 'applehelp'
  `format` = 'html'
  `supported_image_types` = ['image/png', 'image/gif', 'image/jpeg', 'image/tiff', 'image/jp2', 'image/svg+xml']

  New in version 1.3.

class `sphinx.builders.devhelp.``DevhelpBuilder`

  This builder produces the same output as the standalone HTML builder, but also generates GNOME Devhelp support file that allows the GNOME Devhelp reader to view them.

  `name` = 'devhelp'
  `format` = 'html'
  `supported_image_types` = ['image/png', 'image/gif', 'image/jpeg']

class `sphinx.builders.epub2.``Epub2Builder`

  This builder produces the same output as the standalone HTML builder, but also generates an epub file for ebook readers. See Epub info for details about it. For definition of the epub format, have a look at http://idpf.org/epub or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPUB. The builder creates EPUB 2 files.

  `name` = 'epub2'
  `format` = 'html'
  `supported_image_types` = ['image/svg+xml', 'image/png', 'image/gif', 'image/jpeg']

  Deprecated since version 1.5: Since Sphinx-1.5, the epub3 builder is used for the default builder of epub. Now EpubBuilder is renamed to epub2.

class `sphinx.builders.epub3.``Epub3Builder`

  This builder produces the same output as the standalone HTML builder, but also generates an epub file for ebook readers. See Epub info for details about it. For definition of the epub format, have a look at http://idpf.org/epub or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPUB. The builder creates EPUB 3 files.

  `name` = 'epub'
  `format` = 'html'
  `supported_image_types` = ['image/svg+xml', 'image/png', 'image/gif', 'image/jpeg']

  New in version 1.4.

  Changed in version 1.5: Since Sphinx-1.5, the epub3 builder is used for the default builder of epub.

class `sphinx.builders.latex.``LaTeXBuilder`

  This builder produces a bunch of LaTeX files in the output directory. You have to specify which documents are to be included in which LaTeX files via the `latex_documents` configuration value. There are a few configuration values that customize the output of this builder, see the chapter Options for LaTeX output for details.

  Note

  The produced LaTeX file uses several LaTeX packages that may not be present in a “minimal” TeX distribution installation. For example, on Ubuntu, the following packages need to be installed for successful PDF builds:

  - texlive-latex-recommended
  - texlive-fonts-recommended
  - texlive-latex-extra
  - latexmk (for `make latexpdf`)

  Sphinx will use `xcolor.sty` if present: recent Ubuntu distributions have `xcolor.sty` included in latex-recommended, earlier ones have it in latex-xcolor. Unicode engines will need texlive-luatex or texlive-xetex.

  The testing of Sphinx LaTeX is done on Ubuntu trusty with the above mentioned packages, which are from a TeXLive 2013 snapshot dated February 2014.

  Changed in version 1.6: Formerly, testing had been done for some years on Ubuntu precise (based on TeXLive 2009).

  Changed in version 1.6: Use of `latexmk` for `make latexpdf` on GNU/Linux and Mac OS X

  Since 1.6, `make latexpdf` (or `make -C "<builddir>/latex"` after a `sphinx-build` run) uses `latexmk` (not on Windows). One can pass to `latexmk` options via the `LATEXMKOPTS` Makefile variable. For example:

      make latexpdf LATEXMKOPTS="-silent"

  reduces console output to a minimum. Also, if `latexmk` version is 4.52b or higher (Jan 17) and `xelatex` is the `latex_engine`, then `LATEXMKOPTS="-xelatex"` will speed up PDF builds.

  To pass options directly to the `(pdf|xe|lua)latex` executable, use variable `LATEXOPTS` (for example `LATEXOPTS="--interaction=nonstopmode"`).

  `name` = 'latex'
  `format` = 'latex'
  `supported_image_types` = ['application/pdf', 'image/png', 'image/jpeg']

Note that a direct PDF builder is being provided by rinohtype. The builder’s name is `rinoh`. Refer to the rinohtype manual for details. There is also PDF builder using ReportLab in rst2pdf version 0.12 or greater. However, rst2pdf is no longer being actively maintained and suffers from some problems when used with recent Sphinx versions. See the rst2pdf manual for usage instructions.

class `sphinx.builders.text.``TextBuilder`

  This builder produces a text file for each reST file – this is almost the same as the reST source, but with much of the markup stripped for better readability.

  `name` = 'text'
  `format` = 'text'
  `supported_image_types` = []

  New in version 0.4.

class `sphinx.builders.manpage.``ManualPageBuilder`

  This builder produces manual pages in the groff format. You have to specify which documents are to be included in which manual pages via the `man_pages` configuration value.

  `name` = 'man'
  `format` = 'man'
  `supported_image_types` = []

  New in version 1.0.

class `sphinx.builders.texinfo.``TexinfoBuilder`

  This builder produces Texinfo files that can be processed into Info files by the makeinfo program. You have to specify which documents are to be included in which Texinfo files via the `texinfo_documents` configuration value.

  The Info format is the basis of the on-line help system used by GNU Emacs and the terminal-based program info. See Texinfo info for more details. The Texinfo format is the official documentation system used by the GNU project. More information on Texinfo can be found at https://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/.

  `name` = 'texinfo'
  `format` = 'texinfo'
  `supported_image_types` = ['image/png', 'image/jpeg', 'image/gif']

  New in version 1.1.

class `sphinx.builders.html.``SerializingHTMLBuilder`

  This builder uses a module that implements the Python serialization API (pickle, simplejson, phpserialize, and others) to dump the generated HTML documentation. The pickle builder is a subclass of it.

  A concrete subclass of this builder serializing to the PHP serialization format could look like this:

      import phpserialize

      class PHPSerializedBuilder(SerializingHTMLBuilder):
          name = 'phpserialized'
          implementation = phpserialize
          out_suffix = '.file.phpdump'
          globalcontext_filename = 'globalcontext.phpdump'
          searchindex_filename = 'searchindex.phpdump'

  `implementation`

    A module that implements dump(), load(), dumps() and loads() functions that conform to the functions with the same names from the pickle module. Known modules implementing this interface are simplejson, phpserialize, plistlib, and others.

  `out_suffix`

    The suffix for all regular files.

  `globalcontext_filename`

    The filename for the file that contains the “global context”. This is a dict with some general configuration values such as the name of the project.

  `searchindex_filename`

    The filename for the search index Sphinx generates.

  See Serialization builder details for details about the output format.

  New in version 0.5.

class `sphinx.builders.html.``PickleHTMLBuilder`

  This builder produces a directory with pickle files containing mostly HTML fragments and TOC information, for use of a web application (or custom postprocessing tool) that doesn’t use the standard HTML templates.

  See Serialization builder details for details about the output format.

  `name` = 'pickle'

    The old name `web` still works as well.

  `format` = 'html'
  `supported_image_types` = ['image/svg+xml', 'image/png', 'image/gif', 'image/jpeg']

  The file suffix is `.fpickle`. The global context is called `globalcontext.pickle`, the search index `searchindex.pickle`.

class `sphinx.builders.html.``JSONHTMLBuilder`

  This builder produces a directory with JSON files containing mostly HTML fragments and TOC information, for use of a web application (or custom postprocessing tool) that doesn’t use the standard HTML templates.

  See Serialization builder details for details about the output format.

  `name` = 'json'
  `format` = 'html'
  `supported_image_types` = ['image/svg+xml', 'image/png', 'image/gif', 'image/jpeg']

  The file suffix is `.fjson`. The global context is called `globalcontext.json`, the search index `searchindex.json`.

  New in version 0.5.

class `sphinx.builders.gettext.``MessageCatalogBuilder`

  This builder produces gettext-style message catalogs. Each top-level file or subdirectory grows a single `.pot` catalog template.

  See the documentation on Internationalization for further reference.

  `name` = u'gettext'
  `format` = ''
  `supported_image_types` = []

  New in version 1.1.

class `sphinx.builders.changes.``ChangesBuilder`

  This builder produces an HTML overview of all `versionadded`, `versionchanged` and `deprecated` directives for the current `version`. This is useful to generate a ChangeLog file, for example.

  `name` = 'changes'
  `format` = ''
  `supported_image_types` = []

class `sphinx.builders.dummy.``DummyBuilder`

  This builder produces no output. The input is only parsed and checked for consistency. This is useful for linting purposes.

  `name` = 'dummy'
  `supported_image_types` = []

  New in version 1.4.

class `sphinx.builders.linkcheck.``CheckExternalLinksBuilder`

  This builder scans all documents for external links, tries to open them with `urllib2`, and writes an overview which ones are broken and redirected to standard output and to `output.txt` in the output directory.

  `name` = 'linkcheck'
  `format` = ''
  `supported_image_types` = []

class `sphinx.builders.xml.``XMLBuilder`

  This builder produces Docutils-native XML files. The output can be transformed with standard XML tools such as XSLT processors into arbitrary final forms.

  `name` = 'xml'
  `format` = 'xml'
  `supported_image_types` = []

  New in version 1.2.

class `sphinx.builders.xml.``PseudoXMLBuilder`

  This builder is used for debugging the Sphinx/Docutils “Reader to Transform to Writer” pipeline. It produces compact pretty-printed “pseudo-XML”, files where nesting is indicated by indentation (no end-tags). External attributes for all elements are output, and internal attributes for any leftover “pending” elements are also given.

  `name` = 'pseudoxml'
  `format` = 'pseudoxml'
  `supported_image_types` = []

  New in version 1.2.

Built-in Sphinx extensions that offer more builders are:

- `doctest`
- `coverage`

## Serialization builder details

All serialization builders outputs one file per source file and a few special files. They also copy the reST source files in the directory `_sources` under the output directory.

The `PickleHTMLBuilder` is a builtin subclass that implements the pickle serialization interface.

The files per source file have the extensions of `out_suffix`, and are arranged in directories just as the source files are. They unserialize to a dictionary (or dictionary like structure) with these keys:

`body`
  The HTML “body” (that is, the HTML rendering of the source file), as rendered by the HTML translator.
`title`
  The title of the document, as HTML (may contain markup).
`toc`
  The table of contents for the file, rendered as an HTML `<ul>`.
`display_toc`
  A boolean that is `True` if the `toc` contains more than one entry.
`current_page_name`
  The document name of the current file.
`parents`, `prev` and `next`
  Information about related chapters in the TOC tree. Each relation is a dictionary with the keys `link` (HREF for the relation) and `title` (title of the related document, as HTML). `parents` is a list of relations, while `prev` and `next` are a single relation.
`sourcename`
  The name of the source file under `_sources`.

The special files are located in the root output directory. They are:

`SerializingHTMLBuilder.globalcontext_filename`

  A pickled dict with these keys:

  `project`, `copyright`, `release`, `version`
    The same values as given in the configuration file.
  `style`
    `html_style`.
  `last_updated`
    Date of last build.
  `builder`
    Name of the used builder, in the case of pickles this is always `'pickle'`.
  `titles`
    A dictionary of all documents’ titles, as HTML strings.
`SerializingHTMLBuilder.searchindex_filename`

  An index that can be used for searching the documentation. It is a pickled list with these entries:

  - A list of indexed docnames.
  - A list of document titles, as HTML strings, in the same order as the first list.
  - A dict mapping word roots (processed by an English-language stemmer) to a list of integers, which are indices into the first list.
`environment.pickle`

  The build environment. This is always a pickle file, independent of the builder and a copy of the environment that was used when the builder was started.

  Todo

  Document common members.

  Unlike the other pickle files this pickle file requires that the `sphinx` package is available on unpickling.