The following is a collection of links to macro and mark-up languages, their associated processors, and several mark-up converters. The links are to Google searches, as I am lazy and the items are in varying states of being supported. One missing from the list below is zoem.
| aft |
almost free text
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| arfg |
pipelined meta-language employing m4, text-block diversions, and eperl
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| AsciiDoc |
translate (customizable) text format to HTML and [sic] DocBook
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| Aptconvert |
convert almost plain text
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| BHL |
brute (plain) html latex
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| BlogMe |
mark-up with embedded lua
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| chakotay |
chakotay/chpp
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| deplate |
wiki-like document markup for LaTeX/HTML output
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| Dita-XML |
Darwin Information Typing Architecture
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| DocFrac |
DocFrac
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| doclifter |
translate troff requests into DocBook
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| docutils |
process plaintext documentation into HTML, LaTeX etc
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| EmPy |
embedded python [in text]
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| etset |
ETset, translate ISO 8859 Etext to LaTeX, HTML, PML, or ASCII
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| FunnelWeb |
literate programming and macro processing
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| gellmu |
generalized extensible LaTeX-like markup
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| gema |
gema, the general purpose macro preprocessor
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| gpp |
gpp, generic preprocessor
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| grutaxt |
grutaxt, a plain text to HTML converter
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| hsc |
HTML s*cks completely [sic modulo s/*/u/]
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| HtmlPrag |
permissive HTML parsing and emitting capability to Scheme programs [sic]
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| htlatex |
hypertext LaTeX
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| info |
GNU info, from the folks that abhor man pages and love topic splatter
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| jamal |
Jamal, Just Another Macro Language
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| latex2html |
latex to html, on my system a 17032 line Perl-script
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| latex2man |
latex to man
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| latte |
latte
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| LMNL |
Layered Markup and Annotation Language
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| m4 |
a Unix macro processor
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| makefaq |
exports makefaq format to HTML, txt and DocBook
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| man2html |
man to html
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| ManEdit |
edit man pages with an "integrated XML interface"
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| manServer |
convert manual pages to HTML
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| ManStyle |
documentation for HTML and PS from a simple XML format
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| Markdown |
A (plain) text-to-html conversion tool
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| MHT |
A macro processor for rendering HTML
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| ML/I |
A general purpose macro processor
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| MML |
text markup language based on setext
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| mp4h |
m4 based macro processor for HTML documents
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| mtex |
manual TeX [by Mike Sofka]
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| mtex |
manual TeX [by Compaq]
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| No-Tags Markup |
no-tags markup, a few unobtrusive characters
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| otl |
from user-specified syntax to user-specified mark-up
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| pod |
plain old documentation (Perl's documentation format)
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| PolyglotMan |
parses and maps troff source to other devices
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| p4 |
beyond cpp and m4, probably perl-programmable
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| PYM |
PYM (A Macro Preprocessor based on Python)
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| rest2web |
integrates with docutils and reStructuredText/HTML
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| reStructuredText |
reStructuredText, not unlike aft and pod
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| SDF |
Streaming Document Format, XML saves the day
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| setext |
Structurally enhanced text (old, I believe)
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| SLiP |
SLiP - a Sorta Like Python shorthand for XML
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| smartHTML |
smart HTML
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| STX/structuredtext |
structured text, one of the elders
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| t2t |
text to (HTML) table translator
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| tei |
text encoding initiative
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| tex4ht |
TeX for hypertext?
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| textile |
Web text generator
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| troffcvt |
translator for troff to various other formats
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| txt2docbook |
simple text format, docbook output
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| txt2dw |
converting ascii to xml, IBM-developer-works-inspired
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| txt2tags |
txt2tags, not unlike reStructuredText, aft, and pod
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| WebCompile |
An HTML macro-processor
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| wlatex |
web LaTeX?
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| WML |
Website Meta Language
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| xfpt |
xml from plain text
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| yodl |
yet oneOther Documentation Language
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| ZML |
wiki-style formatting plus alternative XML syntax
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Although I have not used it, the gema language seems well thought-out and powerful. It transforms text by applying pattern transformations, so it is not tied to a single syntax.
Christopher Browne has a section on macro languages: http://linuxfinances.info/info/macros.html
There is a section on converting to/from HTML at http://www.hypernews.org/HyperNews/get/www/html/converters.html
You might also be interested in these Freshmeat tags: text-processing, Markup, macro+text.
The Debian text section http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/ has many interesting entries, and so has the OpenBSD Ports textproc section http://openports.se/textproc/.
The following wikipedia page links to this humble page, presently (and unrelatedly) needs cleanup, and mainly has a comparison of various fairly free-style mark-up languages. For example, *bold* is typically bold, /italic/ may be italic, [[...]] denotes a hyperlink, =...=, ==...== denote first and second-level headings, and so on. I do not very much like this style of mark-up as it seems fragile. For example, white-space is significant in many different ways. It introduces a large amount of syntax and hard-wired conventions, has poor escape mechanisms, usually lacks the power of macros and is hard to extend. Anyway, the page is this.