Which technology should I use to transform my latex documents into html documents

Question

Hey,

I want to write a little program that transforms my TeX files into HTML. I want to parse the documents and turn the macros (the build-in and of course my own) into HTML pieces. Here are my requirements:

• predefined rules (e.g. begin{itemize} \item text \end{itemize} => <br> <p>text </p> <br/>)
• defining own CSS style
• ability to convert formulars (extract the formulars, load them in an imagecreator and then save the jpg/png)
• easy to maintain and concise

I know there are several technologies out there, but I don't exactly know which is the best for me. Here are the technologies which flow into my mind

1. Ruby (I/O is easy, formular loading via webrat),
2. XML XSLT (I don't think that I need just overhead)
3. perl (there are many libs out there but I'm not quite familiar with it)
4. bash (I worked with sed and was surprised how easy it was to work with regular expressions)
5. latex2html ... (these converters won't work for me and they don't give me freedom in parsing)

Any suggestions, hints and comments are welcome.

Thanks for your time, folks.

Answer 1

Six: TeX

Seven: Haskell

(I gave up trying to persuade SO to start numbering my list from 6).

Answer 2

have a look at pandoc here. it can also be installed on linux or os x. Though it won't do your custom macros. The only thing I've seen that can do a decent job with custom macros is tex4ht, but to really work well you need to be producing .DVI files. If you have a ton of custom macros, writing your own converter is going to take an ass load of time. Even if you only have a few custom macros, it's still going to be a pain. good luck!