Introduction

po4a extracts the translatable material from its input in a PO file.

When the PO file is translated, it re-injects the translation in the structure of the document, and generates the translated document.

If a string is not translated (i.e. it was not translated or it is "fuzzy" because the original document was updated), the original string is used.

This permits to provide always up-to-date documentation.

Supported formats

po4a supports currently the following formats:

• manpages
• pod
• xml (generic, docbook, xhtml, dia, or guide)
• sgml
• TeX (generic, LaTeX, or Texinfo)
• text (simple text files with some formatting)
• ini
• KernelHelp

Configuration file

You can use a configuration file to ease its usage to a single command invocation. This configuration file will contain the list of documents, the options, etc.

When invoked with a configuration file, po4a uses an 'a la make' algorithm to detect if files changed and if an operation is required.