This is a little how-to for using the reStructuredText plugin inside gedit.

• Python: version >= 3.3 (-> use mcepl/reStPlugin for Python 2.x)
• Docutils and Pygments: sudo apt-get install python3-docutils

• Choose the right source for your version of gedit from the releases on GitHub. With git you can checkout the corresponding tag (e.g. git checkout gedit-3.8).

  gedit-3.8

  3.8 <= gedit < to 3.10

  gedit-3.10

  gedit >= 3.10 (3.18 has been reported to work fine)

  gedit-3.22

  gedit >= 3.22 (3.22.1 tested successfully on Ubuntu 17.10)

• Put reST.plugin file in gedit's plugins directory. The standard one should be ~/.local/share/gedit/plugins/. Alternatively, the global directory is something like /usr/lib/gedit/plugins/ or /usr/lib/<architecture>-linux-gnu/gedit/plugins/.
• Copy the whole reST folder into the same directory.

You should then obtain something like this:

.../plugins/
        reST.plugin
        reST/
            __init__.py
            makeTable.py
            etc.

• Follow the instructions in syntax/README.rst to activate syntax highlighting. (Note that recent versions of gedit already ship with this included. Check the language mode drop-down in the footer bar of gedit's editor window.)

Activate the plugin via Edit / Preferences / Plugins and check the checkbox next to reStructuredText Preview.

The plugin is now activated, and you should have a new panel inside the bottom pane named reStructuredText Preview. If you don't see the panel on the bottom of the editor window make it visible via Burger menu > View > Bottom Panel.

Prior versions versions of this plugin had more features (manual reloading with Ctrl+Shift+R, export to HTML, LaTeX and LibreOffice formats). See the July 4, 2014 version of this README.

If you want these features in again please get your hands dirty and make a pull request. The refactored code base of the current version should make this more easy than ever. Your contribution is appreciated!

• API docs for gedit plugin development

If you're not totally happy with this plugin try the following editors for quick and free solutions of editing reStructuredText files:

• rsted (online reStructuredText editor)
• ReText (reStructuredText and MarkDown editor)