Sphinx pdfbuilder format not resolved, probably missing URL - pdf-generation

Question

I am trying to generate a pdf using rst2pdf, but keep getting the error "format not resolved, probably missing URL or undefined destination for target".
I use sphinx to generate the .rst files and am able to generate the HTML output just fine.
To generate the pdf I followed the instructions at: https://gist.github.com/alfredodeza/7fb5c667addb1c6963b9
Directory Structure:
- sphinxtext
* docs
** source
** build
* test.py
Conf.py:
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
#
# Test documentation build configuration file, created by
# sphinx-quickstart on Fri Jun 30 12:08:40 2017.
#
# This file is execfile()d with the current directory set to its
# containing dir.
#
# Note that not all possible configuration values are present in this
# autogenerated file.
#
# All configuration values have a default; values that are commented out
# serve to show the default.
# If extensions (or modules to document with autodoc) are in another directory,
# add these directories to sys.path here. If the directory is relative to the
# documentation root, use os.path.abspath to make it absolute, like shown here.
#
import os
import sys
sys.path.insert(0, os.path.abspath('..\..'))
# -- General configuration ------------------------------------------------
# If your documentation needs a minimal Sphinx version, state it here.
#
# needs_sphinx = '1.0'
# Add any Sphinx extension module names here, as strings. They can be
# extensions coming with Sphinx (named 'sphinx.ext.*') or your custom
# ones.
extensions = ['sphinx.ext.autodoc',
'sphinx.ext.coverage','rst2pdf.pdfbuilder']
# Add any paths that contain templates here, relative to this directory.
templates_path = ['_templates']
# The suffix(es) of source filenames.
# You can specify multiple suffix as a list of string:
#
# source_suffix = ['.rst', '.md']
source_suffix = '.rst'
# The master toctree document.
master_doc = 'index'
# General information about the project.
project = u'Test'
copyright = u'2017, m.a.'
author = u'm.a.'
# The version info for the project you're documenting, acts as replacement for
# |version| and |release|, also used in various other places throughout the
# built documents.
#
# The short X.Y version.
version = u'1.0.0'
# The full version, including alpha/beta/rc tags.
release = u'1.0.0'
# The language for content autogenerated by Sphinx. Refer to documentation
# for a list of supported languages.
#
# This is also used if you do content translation via gettext catalogs.
# Usually you set "language" from the command line for these cases.
language = None
# List of patterns, relative to source directory, that match files and
# directories to ignore when looking for source files.
# This patterns also effect to html_static_path and html_extra_path
exclude_patterns = []
# The name of the Pygments (syntax highlighting) style to use.
pygments_style = 'sphinx'
# If true, `todo` and `todoList` produce output, else they produce nothing.
todo_include_todos = False
# -- Options for HTML output ----------------------------------------------
# The theme to use for HTML and HTML Help pages. See the documentation for
# a list of builtin themes.
#
html_theme = 'alabaster'
# Theme options are theme-specific and customize the look and feel of a theme
# further. For a list of options available for each theme, see the
# documentation.
#
# html_theme_options = {}
# Add any paths that contain custom static files (such as style sheets) here,
# relative to this directory. They are copied after the builtin static files,
# so a file named "default.css" will overwrite the builtin "default.css".
html_static_path = ['_static']
# -- Options for HTMLHelp output ------------------------------------------
# Output file base name for HTML help builder.
htmlhelp_basename = 'Testdoc'
# -- Options for LaTeX output ---------------------------------------------
latex_elements = {
# The paper size ('letterpaper' or 'a4paper').
#
'papersize': 'letterpaper',
# The font size ('10pt', '11pt' or '12pt').
#
'pointsize': '10pt',
# Additional stuff for the LaTeX preamble.
#
'preamble': '',
# Latex figure (float) alignment
#
# 'figure_align': 'htbp',
}
# Grouping the document tree into LaTeX files. List of tuples
# (source start file, target name, title,
# author, documentclass [howto, manual, or own class]).
latex_documents = [
(master_doc, 'Test.tex', u'Test Documentation',
u'm.a.', 'manual'),
]
# -- Options for manual page output ---------------------------------------
# One entry per manual page. List of tuples
# (source start file, name, description, authors, manual section).
man_pages = [
(master_doc, 'test', u'Test Documentation',
[author], 1)
]
# -- Options for Texinfo output -------------------------------------------
# Grouping the document tree into Texinfo files. List of tuples
# (source start file, target name, title, author,
# dir menu entry, description, category)
texinfo_documents = [
(master_doc, 'Test', u'Test Documentation',
author, 'Test', 'One line description of project.',
'Miscellaneous'),
]
# -- Options for pdf output -------------------------------------------
pdf_documents = [('index', u'rst2pdf', u'Sample rst2pdf doc', u'Your Name'),]
# index - master document
# rst2pdf - name of the generated pdf
# Sample rst2pdf doc - title of the pdf
# Your Name - author name in the pdf
test.py
class Test(object):
'''
Test class
'''
def __init__(self,**kwargs):
"""
Constructor
"""
def some_func(self,a,b,c,d,e,f,g):
"""
Function that does something TEST
:param a: Identifier
:param b: b
:param c: c
:param d: d
:param e: e
:param f: f
:param g: g
:type a: int
:type b: float
:type c: float
:type d: float
:type e: float
:type f: float
:type h: float
:returns: Test obj
:Example:
>>> test=Test()
>>> test.some_func(10, 42164., 0.0, 0., -132.0, 0.0, 0.0)
"""
self.a=a
self.b = b
self.c = c
self.d = d
self.e = e
self.f = f
self.g = g
return self
When building as html I see the following warning: checking consistency... C:\PATH\docs\source\modules.rst: WARNING: document isn't included in any toctree
My index.rst file:
.. Test documentation master file, created by
sphinx-quickstart on Fri Jun 30 12:08:40 2017.
You can adapt this file completely to your liking, but it should at least
contain the root toctree directive.
Welcome to Test's documentation!
================================
.. toctree::
:maxdepth: 2
:caption: Contents:
test
Indices and tables
==================
* :ref:`genindex`
* :ref:`modindex`
* :ref:`search`
My test.rst:
Test Module!
================================
.. automodule:: test
:members:

Answer 1

This has now been resolved in rst2pdf via PR 619.
You can install the version of rst2pdf that has this fix by doing this:
$ cd {some directory where you keep 3rd-party projects, e.g. ~/projects}
$ git clone https://github.com/rst2pdf/rst2pdf.git
$ cd rst2pdf
$ python setup.py install

Answer 2

If you are still getting this message in 2021, it likely means rst2pdf can't figure out where one or more of your links is pointed. For example, I had in-page nav links in my .rst code like this that were ok when building HTML but causing the error referred to by the OP during PDF generation:
`Back to top ↑ <#top>`_
The most reliable solution seems to be to remove these in-page links.
Alternatively, you could just convert these implicit links to raw html blocks like below, which could be a solution if you can get rst2pdf to render raw html using xhtml2pdf (this isn't working for me, but perhaps someone else can get it).
.. |top| raw:: html
Back to top ↑
|top|
Note that in this alternative solution, the in-page links probably will not work in most PDF viewers, so this is really only a solution to get .rst files to compile to both PDF and HTML (as the OP asked), rather than one that will allow identical behavior.