Platypus is an easy-to-use page layout and typesetting system.

Inspired by technologies such as TeX, Platypus adds new features and, especially, ease of use to the generation of documents of all kinds. Input consists of text files with embedded formatting commands. These files are converted by Platypus to PDF. (HTML is under active development. ODF, Microsoft Word, and e-Book formats to be added).

Platypus is available at no charge under the Apache open-source license. See the download links to the left. It requires only Java 6 to run.

Features in the current release include:

• support for all TrueType and OpenType fonts
• bold, italics, underline, strikethrough
• foreign characters (enough for French, German, Spanish, and commerce)
• left, center, right alignment and justified text
• customizable page size
• customizable margins
• multiple customizable columns
• indented/unindented paragraphs
• page-number footer
• debugging features

If you would like to be advised about milestone releases, place yourself on the announcement mailing list (typically fewer than 8 emails/year) by sending a request to: platypus.announce @ pz.org.