DocBook

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Definition

DocBook is a document standard popular for writing large documentation. It was originally created by software companies as a standard for technical documentation. However, since then, it has been adapted to many purposes.

The principle

“The core DocBook standard is the DocBook Document Type Definition (DTD) maintained by the DocBook Technical Committee in OASIS. The DTD defines the vocabulary of content elements that an author can use and how they relate to each other. For example, a book element can contain a title element, any number of para elements for paragraphs, and any number of chapter elements. Using the DTD and XML syntax, authors mark up their text content with tag names enclosed in angle brackets like <chapter>. The markup is similar to HTML, but with more tags and tighter rule” (DocBook XSL: The Complete Guide], retrieved 22:26, 4 June 2007 (MEST).

Docbook is interesting if you have:

  • Large quantities of content.
  • Structured content.
  • Content that needs to be interchanged among otherwise incompatible systems.
  • Content that you also want to process with a computer
  • Content to be rendered in multiple output forms and versions (HTML, PDF, PS, ...)

One can author docbook with any XML editor (see WYSIWYM), but there exist also near or full WYSIWYG solutions, e.g. FrameMaker.

DocBook can be customized to fit specific user's needs (requires the expertise of an information architect).

In education

Docbook is also used in education, e.g.

  • To write documentation and manuals, e.g. the schoolbus Project
  • To write course materials, e.g. in the Edukalibre project.

An example

The following code are bits from FOSS Government and Policy Primer (docbook xml) 

<!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.1.2//EN" "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/docbookx.dtd" [
]>
<book>
  title>Free/Open Source Software: Government Policy</title>
  <bookinfo>
    <publisher>
      <publishername>International Open Source Network</publishername>
    </publisher>
    <authorgroup>
      <author>
	<firstname>Kenneth</firstname>
	<surname>Wong</surname>
      </author>
    </authorgroup>
  </bookinfo>
  <preface>
    <title>FOREWORD</title>
    <para>Free software means software that respects the user's
    freedom. It means that users are free to run the programs as they
    wish, free to study and change the software (or hire others to do
    it for them), free to redistribute copies to others, and free to
    publish modified versions. As a consequence, users are free to
    share, and form communities to exercise effective control over the
    software they use. Free software may also be gratis, zero price,
    but this is not always the case.</para>
    [.....]
    <para>Richard M. Stallman</para>
  </preface>
  <preface>
    <title>PREFACE</title>
    <para>Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) has grown incredibly in
    the past few years. Once considered a hobbyist's toy, FOSS has
    grown by leaps and bounds and is now used widely throughout the
    world, even in critical environments such as financial systems and
    network backbones.</para>

    [ ....]

  </preface>
  [ ....]
  <chapter>
    <title>Introduction</title>
    <blockquote>
      <attribution>David Wheeler</attribution>

      <para>Briefly, OSS/FS programs are programs whose licenses give
      users the freedom to run the program for any purpose, to study
      and modify the program, and to redistribute copies of either the
      original or modified program (without having to pay royalties to
      previous developers).

     <footnote>
	<para>Wheeler, David, "Why OSS/FS? Look at the Numbers!" [home
	page online]; available from <ulink
	url="http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html">
             http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html</ulink>;
	Internet; accessed on November 7, 2003.</para>
	</footnote>
       </para>
    </blockquote>

    <para>The above quotation summarizes the guiding principles of
    FOSS - the freedom to use, understand, modify and distribute
    software. Seemingly a simple matter, today, these principles can
    have a profound impact on the economics and dynamics of the
    software industry.</para> [.... ]
  </chapter>
  [.....]
</book

Links

DocBook Schemas

Docbook schemas are available in several languages including RELAX NG, SGML and XML DTDs, and W3C XML Schema.

  • DocBook. The official home page for DocBook: The Definitive Guide. Includes downloads for various variants.

XSLT

  • The DocBook Project on sourceforge supports the open-source development of a variety of DocBook resources; in particular, the DocBook XSL stylesheets.
  • Docbook xsl (docbook wiki, a very short how to)

Tutorials

Manuals

  • The DocBook Wiki Contains most everything to start (Tutorials, Books, Documentation, Software, ...)!
  • Walsh, Norman and Leonard Muellner (1999). DocBook: The Definitive Guide. O'Reilly. ISBN 1-56592-580-7

Software

Any good XML editor (structure or wysiwyg editor) can be used to edit DocBook. Some vendors already include schemas and Stylesheet.

Other

  • RefDB, RefDB is a reference database and bibliography tool for DocBook SGML/XML documents. It allows users to share databases over a network. Finally something like this is emerging :) 6/2001
  • JReferences, is a tool to store and retrieve bibliographic references from a file or MySQL database. It reads BibTeXML, DocBook XML and RIS type references, and can output these and BibTex. A bibtex like alternative is also provided for DocBook. See BibTexML for details about the BibTexML standard and other tools

Links of links

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