Publishing from the Command Line

Publishing from the command line enables you to automatically publish one or more books in a batch or as part of a scripted or scheduled process. Author-it will even create the command line parameters for you - meaning you don't even need to look up the correct syntax.

Open the Publishing window and select the Books and output formats you wish to publish.
Right-click and choose View Command Line.
A window appears displaying the Command Line parameters based on your selections. You can copy and paste the parameters as required.

Syntax

aitpublisher[.exe] libraryname [ /user /pwd ] [ /pub book|output[;book|output...] [/min] ] [/exit] (/returncode)

The parts of the command line switch syntax are:

Argument	Description

aitpublisher	The path to the Author-it Publisher program.
libraryname	The type, name and path of your Author-it Library (.adl) file. Author-it will open this library when found. For example: `/jet"C:\Program Files\AuthorIT V4\Data\Libraries\Sample.adl"` -or- `/sql"AuthorIT2\|server1"`
user	User account to sign into the Author-it Library database.
pwd	Password used to sign into the Author-it Library database.
/pub	Tells Author-it to publish documentation in the specified library using the book and output list.
book	The ObjectID of the book you want to publish in the library.
output	Specifies the output(s) you want to publish. This parameter is the sum of the format identifiers, where: Word Document = 1 Windows Help =2 HTML = 4 XHTML = 8 HTML Help = 16 Java Help = 32 Oracle Help = 64 PDF = 128 DITA = 256 XML = 512 Author-it Website Manager = 1024 To publish Word, HTML, and HTML Help you would add 1 + 4 + 16, and specify 21. To publish all outputs you would specify 2047 which is the sum of them all.
/min	Tells Author-it to minimize during publishing. An icon displays in the Windows Taskbar while it is running.
/returncode	cause the publisher to return a "return code", as follows:
	0	if publishing was successful
	1	if an error or warning occured during publishing (including the cancel button being selected)
	This allows automatic publishing to be used in a batch file and the success or failure can be used to branch in a batch file, as follows: `PUBLISH.BAT` `@echo off` `echo Starting Publisher - Book 5830 to WinHelp` `"C:\Program Files\AuthorIT V4\AITPublish.exe" /jet"C:\Program Files\AuthorIT V4\Data\Libraries\MyLibrary.adl" /pub"5830\|2;" /exit /returncode` `If ERRORLEVEL 1 GOTO RET1` `echo Publishing has worked` `GOTO END` `:RET1` `echo Publishing has failed` `GOTO END`
/exit	Tells Author-it to close and exit after publishing is complete.

Note: When used, these arguments must be in a command line to run the Author-it Publisher. The statement must all be on the same line.

Example:

An example of a valid command line that runs Author-it, loads a specific JET library, publishes all outputs for a book, and exits, may look like:

"C:\Program Files\AuthorIT V4\aitpublish.exe"/jet"C:\Program
Files\AuthorIT V4\Data\Libraries\Sample.adl" /pub"275|1023"
/min /exit