Re:VIEW & publishing workflows

For book-length publishing — especially Japanese technical books (技術書) — writing raw LaTeX is not the only path. Re:VIEW lets you author in a simple markup and build PDF (via LaTeX) and EPUB (and HTML, InDesign) from one source. This page introduces it.

What Re:VIEW is

Re:VIEW (by kmuto and others) is a publishing system you write in its own lightweight markup — simpler than LaTeX (= chapter, == section, //list, inline @<b>{...}). From one set of .re source files it converts to LaTeX, HTML, EPUB, InDesign, and text. It is the de facto tool for Japanese technical self-publishing (技術書典 and the like). For PDF it uses LaTeX (TeX Live) as the backend, so you get TeX-quality output without writing TeX directly.

terminal
= はじめに
本文です。インラインの強調は @<b>{ここ}。
//image[fig1][図の説明]{
//}

The build — PDF / EPUB

A project consists of per-chapter .re files plus config.yml (metadata/options) and catalog.yml (chapter order). Build with rake pdf / rake epub (or review-pdfmaker config.yml / review-epubmaker). The PDF goes through LaTeX; since Re:VIEW 3.0 the default class is review-jsbook, and you can customize the LaTeX side (class, .sty, ERB templates).

terminal
rake pdf     # PDF(LaTeX 経由)/ PDF via LaTeX
rake epub    # EPUB
# または / or:
review-pdfmaker config.yml

When to reach for it

Reach for Re:VIEW when you want one source → PDF + EPUB for a book and prefer simpler markup over raw LaTeX (and the rich Japanese-publishing ecosystem and templates). Stick with plain LaTeX when you need fine typographic control or do not target EPUB. For building large LaTeX books, see “Handling large documents.”