RST Conversion Utilities

Once you have your RST file created you can convert it into other formats using two different utilities that can be installed for free on Windows, Mac, or Linux:

Docutils

https://docutils.sourceforge.io/

Pandoc

https://pandoc.org/

Of the two, I prefer Docutils. I only use Pandoc to convert RST to plain text for Project Gutenberg, but it can also be used to create web pages, Tex documents, etc. just like docutils does. I suggest trying both to see which you prefer.

Converting an RST file to TEX is simple:

rst2latex book.rst > book.tex

To actually publish a book with LaTex you'll need to install the TeX document production system. This can also be downloaded and installed without cost for Windows. Mac and Linux.

http://www.tug.org/texlive/

Once you've done that you can run this command to generate a PDF from the TEX file converted from your RST file:

xelatex book.tex

The PDF generated is not quite what you'll need for a print-on-demand book interior. The page size will be wrong, it will lack front matter like a table of contents, etc. You'll need to hand edit the TEX file to convert it to the format you'll need. Fortunately that isn't too hard.

Stay tuned.