A viewer for ReStructuredText documents that renders them on the fly.
Pass the name of a ReStructuredText document to restview, and it will
launch a web server on localhost:random-port and open a web browser.
Every time you reload the page, restview will reload the document from
disk and render it. This is very convenient for previewing a document
while you're editing it.
You can also pass the name of a directory, and restview will recursively look for files that end in .txt or .rst and present you with a list.
Finally, you can make sure your Python package has valid ReStructuredText in the long_description field by using
restview --long-description
Usage: restview [options] filename-or-directory [...]
| -h, --help | show this help message and exit |
| --version | show program's version number and exit |
| -l PORT, --listen=PORT | |
| listen on a given port (or interface:port, e.g. *:8080) [default: random port on localhost] | |
| --allowed-hosts HOSTS | |
| allowed values for the Host header (default: localhost only, unless you specify -l *:port, in which case any Host: is accepted by default) | |
| -b, --browser | open a web browser [default: only if -l was not specified] |
| -B, --no-browser | |
| don't open a web browser | |
| -e COMMAND, --execute=COMMAND | |
| run a command to produce ReStructuredText on stdout | |
| -w FILENAME, --watch=FILENAME | |
| reload the page when a file changes (use with --execute); can be specified multiple times | |
| --long-description | |
| run "python setup.py --long-description" to produce ReStructuredText; also enables --pypi-strict and watches the usual long description sources (setup.py, README.rst, CHANGES.rst) | |
| --css=URL-or-FILENAME | |
| use the specified stylesheet; can be specified multiple times [default: html4css1.css,restview.css] | |
| --report-level REPORT_LEVEL | |
| set the "report_level" option of docutils; restview will report system messages at or above this level (1=info, 2=warnings, 3=errors, 4=severe) | |
| --halt-level HALT_LEVEL | |
| set the "halt_level" option of docutils; restview will stop processing the document when a system message at or above this level (1=info, 2=warnings, 3=errors, 4=severe) is logged | |
| --strict | halt at the slightest problem; equivalent to --halt- level=2 |
| --pypi-strict | enable additional restrictions that PyPI performs |
Use a Python command-line tool installer like pipx or uv
uv tool install restview
