The build configuration file

Sphinx

The build configuration file

The configuration directory must contain a file named conf.py. This file (containing Python code) is called the “build configuration file” and contains all configuration needed to customize Sphinx input and output behavior.

The configuration file is executed as Python code at build time (using execfile(), and with the current directory set to its containing directory), and therefore can execute arbitrarily complex code. Sphinx then reads simple names from the file’s namespace as its configuration.

Important points to note:

  • If not otherwise documented, values must be strings, and their default is the empty string.
  • The term “fully-qualified name” refers to a string that names an importable Python object inside a module; for example, the FQN "sphinx.builders.Builder" means the Builder class in the sphinx.builders module.
  • Remember that document names use / as the path separator and don’t contain the file name extension.
  • Since conf.py is read as a Python file, the usual rules apply for encodings and Unicode support: declare the encoding using an encoding cookie (a comment like # -*- coding: utf-8 -*-) and use Unicode string literals when you include non-ASCII characters in configuration values.
  • The contents of the config namespace are pickled (so that Sphinx can find out when configuration changes), so it may not contain unpickleable values – delete them from the namespace with del if appropriate. Modules are removed automatically, so you don’t need to del your imports after use.
  • There is a special object named tags available in the config file. It can be used to query and change the tags (see Including content based on tags). Use tags.has('tag') to query, tags.add('tag') and tags.remove('tag') to change.

General configuration

extensions

A list of strings that are module names of Sphinx extensions. These can be extensions coming with Sphinx (named sphinx.ext.*) or custom ones.

Note that you can extend sys.path within the conf file if your extensions live in another directory – but make sure you use absolute paths. If your extension path is relative to the configuration directory, use os.path.abspath() like so:

import sys, os

sys.path.append(os.path.abspath('sphinxext'))

extensions = ['extname']

That way, you can load an extension called extname from the subdirectory sphinxext.

The configuration file itself can be an extension; for that, you only need to provide a setup() function in it.

source_suffix

The file name extension of source files. Only files with this suffix will be read as sources. Default is '.rst'.

source_encoding

The encoding of all reST source files. The recommended encoding, and the default value, is 'utf-8-sig'.

New in version 0.5: Previously, Sphinx accepted only UTF-8 encoded sources.

master_doc

The document name of the “master” document, that is, the document that contains the root toctree directive. Default is 'contents'.

exclude_patterns

A list of glob-style patterns that should be excluded when looking for source files. [1] They are matched against the source file names relative to the source directory, using slashes as directory separators on all platforms.

Example patterns:

  • 'library/xml.rst' – ignores the library/xml.rst file (replaces entry in unused_docs)
  • 'library/xml' – ignores the library/xml directory (replaces entry in exclude_trees)
  • 'library/xml*' – ignores all files and directories starting with library/xml
  • '**/.svn' – ignores all .svn directories (replaces entry in exclude_dirnames)

exclude_patterns is also consulted when looking for static files in html_static_path.

New in version 1.0.

unused_docs

A list of document names that are present, but not currently included in the toctree. Use this setting to suppress the warning that is normally emitted in that case.

Deprecated since version 1.0: Use exclude_patterns instead.

exclude_trees

A list of directory paths, relative to the source directory, that are to be recursively excluded from the search for source files, that is, their subdirectories won’t be searched too. The default is [].

New in version 0.4.

Deprecated since version 1.0: Use exclude_patterns instead.

exclude_dirnames

A list of directory names that are to be excluded from any recursive operation Sphinx performs (e.g. searching for source files or copying static files). This is useful, for example, to exclude version-control-specific directories like 'CVS'. The default is [].

New in version 0.5.

Deprecated since version 1.0: Use exclude_patterns instead.

templates_path

A list of paths that contain extra templates (or templates that overwrite builtin/theme-specific templates). Relative paths are taken as relative to the configuration directory.

template_bridge

A string with the fully-qualified name of a callable (or simply a class) that returns an instance of TemplateBridge. This instance is then used to render HTML documents, and possibly the output of other builders (currently the changes builder). (Note that the template bridge must be made theme-aware if HTML themes are to be used.)

rst_epilog

A string of reStructuredText that will be included at the end of every source file that is read. This is the right place to add substitutions that should be available in every file. An example:

rst_epilog = """
.. |psf| replace:: Python Software Foundation
"""

New in version 0.6.

rst_prolog

A string of reStructuredText that will be included at the beginning of every source file that is read.

New in version 1.0.

primary_domain

The name of the default domain. Can also be None to disable a default domain. The default is 'py'. Those objects in other domains (whether the domain name is given explicitly, or selected by a default-domain directive) will have the domain name explicitly prepended when named (e.g., when the default domain is C, Python functions will be named “Python function”, not just “function”).

New in version 1.0.

default_role

The name of a reST role (builtin or Sphinx extension) to use as the default role, that is, for text marked up `like this`. This can be set to 'py:obj' to make `filter` a cross-reference to the Python function “filter”. The default is None, which doesn’t reassign the default role.

The default role can always be set within individual documents using the standard reST default-role directive.

New in version 0.4.

keep_warnings

If true, keep warnings as “system message” paragraphs in the built documents. Regardless of this setting, warnings are always written to the standard error stream when sphinx-build is run.

The default is False, the pre-0.5 behavior was to always keep them.

New in version 0.5.

needs_sphinx

If set to a major.minor version string like '1.1', Sphinx will compare it with its version and refuse to build if it is too old. Default is no requirement.

New in version 1.0.

nitpicky

If true, Sphinx will warn about all references where the target cannot be found. Default is False. You can activate this mode temporarily using the -n command-line switch.

New in version 1.0.

nitpick_ignore

A list of (type, target) tuples (by default empty) that should be ignored when generating warnings in “nitpicky mode”. Note that type should include the domain name. An example entry would be ('py:func', 'int').

New in version 1.1.

Project information

project

The documented project’s name.

A copyright statement in the style '2008, Author Name'.

version

The major project version, used as the replacement for |version|. For example, for the Python documentation, this may be something like 2.6.

release

The full project version, used as the replacement for |release| and e.g. in the HTML templates. For example, for the Python documentation, this may be something like 2.6.0rc1.

If you don’t need the separation provided between version and release, just set them both to the same value.

today
today_fmt

These values determine how to format the current date, used as the replacement for |today|.

  • If you set today to a non-empty value, it is used.
  • Otherwise, the current time is formatted using time.strftime() and the format given in today_fmt.

The default is no today and a today_fmt of '%B %d, %Y' (or, if translation is enabled with language, an equivalent %format for the selected locale).

highlight_language

The default language to highlight source code in. The default is 'python'. The value should be a valid Pygments lexer name, see Showing code examples for more details.

New in version 0.5.

pygments_style

The style name to use for Pygments highlighting of source code. The default style is selected by the theme for HTML output, and 'sphinx' otherwise.

Changed in version 0.3: If the value is a fully-qualified name of a custom Pygments style class, this is then used as custom style.

add_function_parentheses

A boolean that decides whether parentheses are appended to function and method role text (e.g. the content of :func:`input`) to signify that the name is callable. Default is True.

add_module_names

A boolean that decides whether module names are prepended to all object names (for object types where a “module” of some kind is defined), e.g. for py:function directives. Default is True.

show_authors

A boolean that decides whether codeauthor and sectionauthor directives produce any output in the built files.

modindex_common_prefix

A list of prefixes that are ignored for sorting the Python module index (e.g., if this is set to ['foo.'], then foo.bar is shown under B, not F). This can be handy if you document a project that consists of a single package. Works only for the HTML builder currently. Default is [].

New in version 0.6.

trim_footnote_reference_space

Trim spaces before footnote references that are necessary for the reST parser to recognize the footnote, but do not look too nice in the output.

New in version 0.6.

trim_doctest_flags

If true, doctest flags (comments looking like # doctest: FLAG, ...) at the ends of lines and <BLANKLINE> markers are removed for all code blocks showing interactive Python sessions (i.e. doctests). Default is true. See the extension doctest for more possibilities of including doctests.

New in version 1.0.

Changed in version 1.1: Now also removes <BLANKLINE>.

Options for internationalization

These options influence Sphinx’ Native Language Support. See the documentation on Internationalization for details.

language

The code for the language the docs are written in. Any text automatically generated by Sphinx will be in that language. Also, Sphinx will try to substitute individual paragraphs from your documents with the translation sets obtained from locale_dirs. In the LaTeX builder, a suitable language will be selected as an option for the Babel package. Default is None, which means that no translation will be done.

New in version 0.5.

Currently supported languages by Sphinx are:

  • bn – Bengali
  • ca – Catalan
  • cs – Czech
  • da – Danish
  • de – German
  • en – English
  • es – Spanish
  • et – Estonian
  • eu – Basque
  • fa – Iranian
  • fi – Finnish
  • fr – French
  • hr – Croatian
  • hu – Hungarian
  • id – Indonesian
  • it – Italian
  • ja – Japanese
  • ko – Korean
  • lt – Lithuanian
  • lv – Latvian
  • mk – Macedonian
  • nb_NO – Norwegian Bokmal
  • ne – Nepali
  • nl – Dutch
  • pl – Polish
  • pt_BR – Brazilian Portuguese
  • ru – Russian
  • si – Sinhala
  • sk – Slovak
  • sl – Slovenian
  • sv – Swedish
  • tr – Turkish
  • uk_UA – Ukrainian
  • zh_CN – Simplified Chinese
  • zh_TW – Traditional Chinese
locale_dirs

New in version 0.5.

Directories in which to search for additional message catalogs (see language), relative to the source directory. The directories on this path are searched by the standard gettext module.

Internal messages are fetched from a text domain of sphinx; so if you add the directory ./locale to this settting, the message catalogs (compiled from .po format using msgfmt) must be in ./locale/language/LC_MESSAGES/sphinx.mo. The text domain of individual documents depends on gettext_compact.

The default is [].

gettext_compact

New in version 1.1.

If true, a document’s text domain is its docname if it is a top-level project file and its very base directory otherwise.

By default, the document markup/code.rst ends up in the markup text domain. With this option set to False, it is markup/code.

Options for HTML output

These options influence HTML as well as HTML Help output, and other builders that use Sphinx’ HTMLWriter class.

html_theme

The “theme” that the HTML output should use. See the section about theming. The default is 'default'.

New in version 0.6.

html_theme_options

A dictionary of options that influence the look and feel of the selected theme. These are theme-specific. For the options understood by the builtin themes, see this section.

New in version 0.6.

html_theme_path

A list of paths that contain custom themes, either as subdirectories or as zip files. Relative paths are taken as relative to the configuration directory.

New in version 0.6.

html_style

The style sheet to use for HTML pages. A file of that name must exist either in Sphinx’ static/ path, or in one of the custom paths given in html_static_path. Default is the stylesheet given by the selected theme. If you only want to add or override a few things compared to the theme’s stylesheet, use CSS @import to import the theme’s stylesheet.

html_title

The “title” for HTML documentation generated with Sphinx’ own templates. This is appended to the <title> tag of individual pages, and used in the navigation bar as the “topmost” element. It defaults to '<project> v<revision> documentation', where the placeholders are replaced by the config values of the same name.

html_short_title

A shorter “title” for the HTML docs. This is used in for links in the header and in the HTML Help docs. If not given, it defaults to the value of html_title.

New in version 0.4.

html_context

A dictionary of values to pass into the template engine’s context for all pages. Single values can also be put in this dictionary using the -A command-line option of sphinx-build.

New in version 0.5.

If given, this must be the name of an image file that is the logo of the docs. It is placed at the top of the sidebar; its width should therefore not exceed 200 pixels. Default: None.

New in version 0.4.1: The image file will be copied to the _static directory of the output HTML, so an already existing file with that name will be overwritten.

html_favicon

If given, this must be the name of an image file (within the static path, see below) that is the favicon of the docs. Modern browsers use this as icon for tabs, windows and bookmarks. It should be a Windows-style icon file (.ico), which is 16x16 or 32x32 pixels large. Default: None.

New in version 0.4.

html_static_path

A list of paths that contain custom static files (such as style sheets or script files). Relative paths are taken as relative to the configuration directory. They are copied to the output’s _static directory after the theme’s static files, so a file named default.css will overwrite the theme’s default.css.

Changed in version 0.4: The paths in html_static_path can now contain subdirectories.

Changed in version 1.0: The entries in html_static_path can now be single files.

html_extra_path

A list of paths that contain extra files not directly related to the documentation, such as robots.txt or .htaccess. Relative paths are taken as relative to the configuration directory. They are copied to the output directory. They will overwrite any existing file of the same name.

As these files are not meant to be built, they are automatically added to exclude_patterns.

New in version 1.2.

html_last_updated_fmt

If this is not the empty string, a ‘Last updated on:’ timestamp is inserted at every page bottom, using the given strftime() format. Default is '%b %d, %Y' (or a locale-dependent equivalent).

html_use_smartypants

If true, SmartyPants will be used to convert quotes and dashes to typographically correct entities. Default: True.

Sphinx will add “permalinks” for each heading and description environment as paragraph signs that become visible when the mouse hovers over them.

This value determines the text for the permalink; it defaults to "¶". Set it to None or the empty string to disable permalinks.

New in version 0.6: Previously, this was always activated.

Changed in version 1.1: This can now be a string to select the actual text of the link. Previously, only boolean values were accepted.

html_sidebars

Custom sidebar templates, must be a dictionary that maps document names to template names.

The keys can contain glob-style patterns [1], in which case all matching documents will get the specified sidebars. (A warning is emitted when a more than one glob-style pattern matches for any document.)

The values can be either lists or single strings.

  • If a value is a list, it specifies the complete list of sidebar templates to include. If all or some of the default sidebars are to be included, they must be put into this list as well.

    The default sidebars (for documents that don’t match any pattern) are: ['localtoc.html', 'relations.html', 'sourcelink.html', 'searchbox.html'].

  • If a value is a single string, it specifies a custom sidebar to be added between the 'sourcelink.html' and 'searchbox.html' entries. This is for compatibility with Sphinx versions before 1.0.

Builtin sidebar templates that can be rendered are:

  • localtoc.html – a fine-grained table of contents of the current document
  • globaltoc.html – a coarse-grained table of contents for the whole documentation set, collapsed
  • relations.html – two links to the previous and next documents
  • sourcelink.html – a link to the source of the current document, if enabled in html_show_sourcelink
  • searchbox.html – the “quick search” box

Example:

html_sidebars = {
   '**': ['globaltoc.html', 'sourcelink.html', 'searchbox.html'],
   'using/windows': ['windowssidebar.html', 'searchbox.html'],
}

This will render the custom template windowssidebar.html and the quick search box within the sidebar of the given document, and render the default sidebars for all other pages (except that the local TOC is replaced by the global TOC).

New in version 1.0: The ability to use globbing keys and to specify multiple sidebars.

Note that this value only has no effect if the chosen theme does not possess a sidebar, like the builtin scrolls and haiku themes.

html_additional_pages

Additional templates that should be rendered to HTML pages, must be a dictionary that maps document names to template names.

Example:

html_additional_pages = {
    'download': 'customdownload.html',
}

This will render the template customdownload.html as the page download.html.

html_domain_indices

If true, generate domain-specific indices in addition to the general index. For e.g. the Python domain, this is the global module index. Default is True.

This value can be a bool or a list of index names that should be generated. To find out the index name for a specific index, look at the HTML file name. For example, the Python module index has the name 'py-modindex'.

New in version 1.0.

html_use_modindex

If true, add a module index to the HTML documents. Default is True.

Deprecated since version 1.0: Use html_domain_indices.

html_use_index

If true, add an index to the HTML documents. Default is True.

New in version 0.4.

html_split_index

If true, the index is generated twice: once as a single page with all the entries, and once as one page per starting letter. Default is False.

New in version 0.4.

html_copy_source

If true, the reST sources are included in the HTML build as _sources/name. The default is True.

Warning

If this config value is set to False, the JavaScript search function will only display the titles of matching documents, and no excerpt from the matching contents.

If true (and html_copy_source is true as well), links to the reST sources will be added to the sidebar. The default is True.

New in version 0.6.

html_use_opensearch

If nonempty, an OpenSearch <http://opensearch.org> description file will be output, and all pages will contain a <link> tag referring to it. Since OpenSearch doesn’t support relative URLs for its search page location, the value of this option must be the base URL from which these documents are served (without trailing slash), e.g. "http://docs.python.org". The default is ''.

html_file_suffix

This is the file name suffix for generated HTML files. The default is ".html".

New in version 0.4.

Suffix for generated links to HTML files. The default is whatever html_file_suffix is set to; it can be set differently (e.g. to support different web server setups).

New in version 0.6.

html_translator_class

A string with the fully-qualified name of a HTML Translator class, that is, a subclass of Sphinx’ HTMLTranslator, that is used to translate document trees to HTML. Default is None (use the builtin translator).

If true, “(C) Copyright ...” is shown in the HTML footer. Default is True.

New in version 1.0.

html_show_sphinx

If true, “Created using Sphinx” is shown in the HTML footer. Default is True.

New in version 0.4.

html_output_encoding

Encoding of HTML output files. Default is 'utf-8'. Note that this encoding name must both be a valid Python encoding name and a valid HTML charset value.

New in version 1.0.

html_compact_lists

If true, list items containing only a single paragraph will not be rendered with a <p> element. This is standard docutils behavior. Default: True.

New in version 1.0.

html_secnumber_suffix

Suffix for section numbers. Default: ". ". Set to " " to suppress the final dot on section numbers.

New in version 1.0.

html_search_language

Language to be used for generating the HTML full-text search index. This defaults to the global language selected with language. If there is no support for this language, "en" is used which selects the English language.

Support is present for these languages:

  • en – English
  • ja – Japanese

New in version 1.1.

html_search_options

A dictionary with options for the search language support, empty by default. The meaning of these options depends on the language selected.

The English support has no options.

The Japanese support has these options:

  • type'mecab' or 'default' (selects either MeCab or TinySegmenter word splitter algorithm)
  • dic_enc – the encoding for the MeCab algorithm
  • dict – the dictionary to use for the MeCab algorithm
  • lib – the library name for finding the MeCab library via ctypes if the Python binding is not installed

New in version 1.1.

html_search_scorer

The name of a javascript file (relative to the configuration directory) that implements a search results scorer. If empty, the default will be used.

New in version 1.2.

htmlhelp_basename

Output file base name for HTML help builder. Default is 'pydoc'.

Options for epub output

These options influence the epub output. As this builder derives from the HTML builder, the HTML options also apply where appropriate. The actual values for some of the options is not really important, they just have to be entered into the Dublin Core metadata.

epub_basename

The basename for the epub file. It defaults to the project name.

epub_theme

The HTML theme for the epub output. Since the default themes are not optimized for small screen space, using the same theme for HTML and epub output is usually not wise. This defaults to 'epub', a theme designed to save visual space.

epub_theme_options

A dictionary of options that influence the look and feel of the selected theme. These are theme-specific. For the options understood by the builtin themes, see this section.

New in version 1.2.

epub_title

The title of the document. It defaults to the html_title option but can be set independently for epub creation.

epub_author

The author of the document. This is put in the Dublin Core metadata. The default value is 'unknown'.

epub_language

The language of the document. This is put in the Dublin Core metadata. The default is the language option or 'en' if unset.

epub_publisher

The publisher of the document. This is put in the Dublin Core metadata. You may use any sensible string, e.g. the project homepage. The default value is 'unknown'.

The copyright of the document. It defaults to the copyright option but can be set independently for epub creation.

epub_identifier

An identifier for the document. This is put in the Dublin Core metadata. For published documents this is the ISBN number, but you can also use an alternative scheme, e.g. the project homepage. The default value is 'unknown'.

epub_scheme

The publication scheme for the epub_identifier. This is put in the Dublin Core metadata. For published books the scheme is 'ISBN'. If you use the project homepage, 'URL' seems reasonable. The default value is 'unknown'.

epub_uid

A unique identifier for the document. This is put in the Dublin Core metadata. You may use a random string. The default value is 'unknown'.

epub_cover

The cover page information. This is a tuple containing the filenames of the cover image and the html template. The rendered html cover page is inserted as the first item in the spine in content.opf. If the template filename is empty, no html cover page is created. No cover at all is created if the tuple is empty. Examples:

epub_cover = ('_static/cover.png', 'epub-cover.html')
epub_cover = ('_static/cover.png', '')
epub_cover = ()

The default value is ().

New in version 1.1.

epub_guide

Meta data for the guide element of content.opf. This is a sequence of tuples containing the type, the uri and the title of the optional guide information. See the OPF documentation at http://idpf.org/epub for details. If possible, default entries for the cover and toc types are automatically inserted. However, the types can be explicitely overwritten if the default entries are not appropriate. Example:

epub_guide = (('cover', 'cover.html', u'Cover Page'),)

The default value is ().

epub_pre_files

Additional files that should be inserted before the text generated by Sphinx. It is a list of tuples containing the file name and the title. If the title is empty, no entry is added to toc.ncx. Example:

epub_pre_files = [
    ('index.html', 'Welcome'),
]

The default value is [].

epub_post_files

Additional files that should be inserted after the text generated by Sphinx. It is a list of tuples containing the file name and the title. This option can be used to add an appendix. If the title is empty, no entry is added to toc.ncx. The default value is [].

epub_exclude_files

A list of files that are generated/copied in the build directory but should not be included in the epub file. The default value is [].

epub_tocdepth

The depth of the table of contents in the file toc.ncx. It should be an integer greater than zero. The default value is 3. Note: A deeply nested table of contents may be difficult to navigate.

epub_tocdup

This flag determines if a toc entry is inserted again at the beginning of it’s nested toc listing. This allows easier navitation to the top of a chapter, but can be confusing because it mixes entries of differnet depth in one list. The default value is True.

epub_tocscope

This setting control the scope of the epub table of contents. The setting can have the following values:

  • 'default' – include all toc entries that are not hidden (default)
  • 'includehidden' – include all toc entries

New in version 1.2.

epub_fix_images

This flag determines if sphinx should try to fix image formats that are not supported by some epub readers. At the moment palette images with a small color table are upgraded. You need the Python Image Library (PIL) installed to use this option. The default value is False because the automatic conversion may lose information.

New in version 1.2.

epub_max_image_width

This option specifies the maximum width of images. If it is set to a value greater than zero, images with a width larger than the given value are scaled accordingly. If it is zero, no scaling is performed. The default value is 0. You need the Python Image Library (PIL) installed to use this option.

New in version 1.2.

epub_show_urls

Control whether to display URL addresses. This is very useful for readers that have no other means to display the linked URL. The settings can have the following values:

  • 'inline' – display URLs inline in parentheses (default)
  • 'footnote' – display URLs in footnotes
  • 'no' – do not display URLs

The display of inline URLs can be customized by adding CSS rules for the class link-target.

New in version 1.2.

epub_use_index

If true, add an index to the epub document. It defaults to the html_use_index option but can be set independently for epub creation.

New in version 1.2.

Options for LaTeX output

These options influence LaTeX output.

latex_documents

This value determines how to group the document tree into LaTeX source files. It must be a list of tuples (startdocname, targetname, title, author, documentclass, toctree_only), where the items are:

  • startdocname: document name that is the “root” of the LaTeX file. All documents referenced by it in TOC trees will be included in the LaTeX file too. (If you want only one LaTeX file, use your master_doc here.)
  • targetname: file name of the LaTeX file in the output directory.
  • title: LaTeX document title. Can be empty to use the title of the startdoc. This is inserted as LaTeX markup, so special characters like a backslash or ampersand must be represented by the proper LaTeX commands if they are to be inserted literally.
  • author: Author for the LaTeX document. The same LaTeX markup caveat as for title applies. Use \and to separate multiple authors, as in: 'John \and Sarah'.
  • documentclass: Normally, one of 'manual' or 'howto' (provided by Sphinx). Other document classes can be given, but they must include the “sphinx” package in order to define Sphinx’ custom LaTeX commands. “howto” documents will not get appendices. Also, howtos will have a simpler title page.
  • toctree_only: Must be True or False. If True, the startdoc document itself is not included in the output, only the documents referenced by it via TOC trees. With this option, you can put extra stuff in the master document that shows up in the HTML, but not the LaTeX output.

New in version 1.2: In the past including your own document class required you to prepend the document class name with the string “sphinx”. This is not necessary anymore.

New in version 0.3: The 6th item toctree_only. Tuples with 5 items are still accepted.

If given, this must be the name of an image file (relative to the configuration directory) that is the logo of the docs. It is placed at the top of the title page. Default: None.

latex_use_parts

If true, the topmost sectioning unit is parts, else it is chapters. Default: False.

New in version 0.3.

latex_appendices

A list of document names to append as an appendix to all manuals.

latex_domain_indices

If true, generate domain-specific indices in addition to the general index. For e.g. the Python domain, this is the global module index. Default is True.

This value can be a bool or a list of index names that should be generated, like for html_domain_indices.

New in version 1.0.

latex_use_modindex

If true, add a module index to LaTeX documents. Default is True.

Deprecated since version 1.0: Use latex_domain_indices.

latex_show_pagerefs

If true, add page references after internal references. This is very useful for printed copies of the manual. Default is False.

New in version 1.0.

latex_show_urls

Control whether to display URL addresses. This is very useful for printed copies of the manual. The setting can have the following values:

  • 'no' – do not display URLs (default)
  • 'footnote' – display URLs in footnotes
  • 'inline' – display URLs inline in parentheses

New in version 1.0.

Changed in version 1.1: This value is now a string; previously it was a boolean value, and a true value selected the 'inline' display. For backwards compatibility, True is still accepted.

latex_elements

New in version 0.5.

A dictionary that contains LaTeX snippets that override those Sphinx usually puts into the generated .tex files.

Keep in mind that backslashes must be doubled in Python string literals to avoid interpretation as escape sequences.

  • Keys that you may want to override include:

    'papersize'

    Paper size option of the document class ('a4paper' or 'letterpaper'), default 'letterpaper'.

    'pointsize'

    Point size option of the document class ('10pt', '11pt' or '12pt'), default '10pt'.

    'babel'

    “babel” package inclusion, default '\\usepackage{babel}'.

    'fontpkg'

    Font package inclusion, default '\\usepackage{times}' (which uses Times and Helvetica). You can set this to '' to use the Computer Modern fonts.

    Changed in version 1.2: Defaults to '' when the language uses the Cyrillic script.

    'fncychap'

    Inclusion of the “fncychap” package (which makes fancy chapter titles), default '\\usepackage[Bjarne]{fncychap}' for English documentation, '\\usepackage[Sonny]{fncychap}' for internationalized docs (because the “Bjarne” style uses numbers spelled out in English). Other “fncychap” styles you can try include “Lenny”, “Glenn”, “Conny” and “Rejne”. You can also set this to '' to disable fncychap.

    'preamble'

    Additional preamble content, default empty.

    'footer'

    Additional footer content (before the indices), default empty.

  • Keys that don’t need be overridden unless in special cases are:

    'inputenc'

    “inputenc” package inclusion, default '\\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}'.

    'cmappkg'

    “cmap” package inclusion, default '\\usepackage{cmap}'.

    New in version 1.2.

    'fontenc'

    “fontenc” package inclusion, default '\\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}'.

    'maketitle'

    “maketitle” call, default '\\maketitle'. Override if you want to generate a differently-styled title page.

    'tableofcontents'

    “tableofcontents” call, default '\\tableofcontents'. Override if you want to generate a different table of contents or put content between the title page and the TOC.

    'transition'

    Commands used to display transitions, default '\n\n\\bigskip\\hrule{}\\bigskip\n\n'. Override if you want to display transitions differently.

    New in version 1.2.

    'printindex'

    “printindex” call, the last thing in the file, default '\\printindex'. Override if you want to generate the index differently or append some content after the index.

  • Keys that are set by other options and therefore should not be overridden are:

    'docclass' 'classoptions' 'title' 'date' 'release' 'author' 'logo' 'releasename' 'makeindex' 'shorthandoff'

latex_docclass

A dictionary mapping 'howto' and 'manual' to names of real document classes that will be used as the base for the two Sphinx classes. Default is to use 'article' for 'howto' and 'report' for 'manual'.

New in version 1.0.

latex_additional_files

A list of file names, relative to the configuration directory, to copy to the build directory when building LaTeX output. This is useful to copy files that Sphinx doesn’t copy automatically, e.g. if they are referenced in custom LaTeX added in latex_elements. Image files that are referenced in source files (e.g. via .. image::) are copied automatically.

You have to make sure yourself that the filenames don’t collide with those of any automatically copied files.

New in version 0.6.

Changed in version 1.2: This overrides the files which is provided from Sphinx such as sphinx.sty.

latex_preamble

Additional LaTeX markup for the preamble.

Deprecated since version 0.5: Use the 'preamble' key in the latex_elements value.

latex_paper_size

The output paper size ('letter' or 'a4'). Default is 'letter'.

Deprecated since version 0.5: Use the 'papersize' key in the latex_elements value.

latex_font_size

The font size (‘10pt’, ‘11pt’ or ‘12pt’). Default is '10pt'.

Deprecated since version 0.5: Use the 'pointsize' key in the latex_elements value.

Options for text output

These options influence text output.

text_newlines

Determines which end-of-line character(s) are used in text output.

  • 'unix': use Unix-style line endings (\n)
  • 'windows': use Windows-style line endings (\r\n)
  • 'native': use the line ending style of the platform the documentation is built on

Default: 'unix'.

New in version 1.1.

text_sectionchars

A string of 7 characters that should be used for underlining sections. The first character is used for first-level headings, the second for second-level headings and so on.

The default is '*=-~"+`'.

New in version 1.1.

Options for manual page output

These options influence manual page output.

man_pages

This value determines how to group the document tree into manual pages. It must be a list of tuples (startdocname, name, description, authors, section), where the items are:

  • startdocname: document name that is the “root” of the manual page. All documents referenced by it in TOC trees will be included in the manual file too. (If you want one master manual page, use your master_doc here.)
  • name: name of the manual page. This should be a short string without spaces or special characters. It is used to determine the file name as well as the name of the manual page (in the NAME section).
  • description: description of the manual page. This is used in the NAME section.
  • authors: A list of strings with authors, or a single string. Can be an empty string or list if you do not want to automatically generate an AUTHORS section in the manual page.
  • section: The manual page section. Used for the output file name as well as in the manual page header.

New in version 1.0.

man_show_urls

If true, add URL addresses after links. Default is False.

New in version 1.1.

Options for Texinfo output

These options influence Texinfo output.

texinfo_documents

This value determines how to group the document tree into Texinfo source files. It must be a list of tuples (startdocname, targetname, title, author, dir_entry, description, category, toctree_only), where the items are:

  • startdocname: document name that is the “root” of the Texinfo file. All documents referenced by it in TOC trees will be included in the Texinfo file too. (If you want only one Texinfo file, use your master_doc here.)
  • targetname: file name (no extension) of the Texinfo file in the output directory.
  • title: Texinfo document title. Can be empty to use the title of the startdoc. Inserted as Texinfo markup, so special characters like @ and {} will need to be escaped to be inserted literally.
  • author: Author for the Texinfo document. Inserted as Texinfo markup. Use @* to separate multiple authors, as in: 'John@*Sarah'.
  • dir_entry: The name that will appear in the top-level DIR menu file.
  • description: Descriptive text to appear in the top-level DIR menu file.
  • category: Specifies the section which this entry will appear in the top-level DIR menu file.
  • toctree_only: Must be True or False. If True, the startdoc document itself is not included in the output, only the documents referenced by it via TOC trees. With this option, you can put extra stuff in the master document that shows up in the HTML, but not the Texinfo output.

New in version 1.1.

texinfo_appendices

A list of document names to append as an appendix to all manuals.

New in version 1.1.

texinfo_domain_indices

If true, generate domain-specific indices in addition to the general index. For e.g. the Python domain, this is the global module index. Default is True.

This value can be a bool or a list of index names that should be generated, like for html_domain_indices.

New in version 1.1.

texinfo_show_urls

Control how to display URL addresses.

  • 'footnote' – display URLs in footnotes (default)
  • 'no' – do not display URLs
  • 'inline' – display URLs inline in parentheses

New in version 1.1.

texinfo_no_detailmenu

If true, do not generate a @detailmenu in the “Top” node’s menu containing entries for each sub-node in the document. Default is False.

New in version 1.2.

texinfo_elements

A dictionary that contains Texinfo snippets that override those Sphinx usually puts into the generated .texi files.

  • Keys that you may want to override include:

    'paragraphindent'

    Number of spaces to indent the first line of each paragraph, default 2. Specify 0 for no indentation.

    'exampleindent'

    Number of spaces to indent the lines for examples or literal blocks, default 4. Specify 0 for no indentation.

    'preamble'

    Texinfo markup inserted near the beginning of the file.

    'copying'

    Texinfo markup inserted within the @copying block and displayed after the title. The default value consists of a simple title page identifying the project.

  • Keys that are set by other options and therefore should not be overridden are:

    'author' 'body' 'date' 'direntry' 'filename' 'project' 'release' 'title' 'direntry'

New in version 1.1.

Options for the linkcheck builder

linkcheck_ignore

A list of regular expressions that match URIs that should not be checked when doing a linkcheck build. Example:

linkcheck_ignore = [r'http://localhost:\d+/']

New in version 1.1.

linkcheck_timeout

A timeout value, in seconds, for the linkcheck builder. Only works in Python 2.6 and higher. The default is to use Python’s global socket timeout.

New in version 1.1.

linkcheck_workers

The number of worker threads to use when checking links. Default is 5 threads.

New in version 1.1.

linkcheck_anchors

True or false, whether to check the validity of #anchors in links. Since this requires downloading the whole document, it’s considerably slower when enabled. Default is True.

New in version 1.2.

Options for the XML builder

xml_pretty

If True, pretty-print the XML. Default is True.

New in version 1.2.

Footnotes

[1](1, 2) A note on available globbing syntax: you can use the standard shell constructs *, ?, [...] and [!...] with the feature that these all don’t match slashes. A double star ** can be used to match any sequence of characters including slashes.