[texhax] best way to create a short html or plain text document with a few references

[Uwe Lueck]

"Chris Ryan" <cryan at binghamton.edu>, 23.01.2011 06:31:42:
> For an onine

ah, "online"!

> class I am taking, I have to create a large number of short 
> (~500 word) essays, with references, and post them to our Blackboard 
> website. Blackboard offers a box into which to post the text. I believe 
> html source can be posted. The essays can't be pdf attachments.
>
> It's simple enough to just compose in a text editor, typing the 
> references at the end. And that's probably what I should do.  But I 
> already have a .bib file full of references, so I would like to use them 
> if possible, and not have to re-type them. Plus I thought maybe I could 
> learn some new LaTeX tricks.
>
> latex2html seems like overkill. And I don't know how to make it work 
> with BibTeX. All I really need as output is a single file, showing the 
> text and the references.
>
> I tried making the DVI file and then using dvi2tty: line breaks were 
> odd, and marked by asterisks. Required a lot of hand-editing after the fact.

First, I wonder whether one of the first entries in the Topical Catalogue Index could help you:

    http://mirror.ctan.org/tex-archive/help/Catalogue/bytopic.html#html

Moreover, I wonder whether another package that I may load up to CTAN next days 
would be useful for this purpose. It does not create any DVI, but writes HTML files 
directly by expanding macros made just for this purpose. 
TeX's typesetting machinery isn't involved at all. 
It reads what you type a little differently to TeX, but it's fast and simple.

Cheers, 

    Uwe.