Hello, nancyb:
I'm going to explain you, as easy as possible, what is DocBook and
for what you can use it, in any case, don't hesitate to request for
any clarification, I'm here to help you until you get the desired
results.
The concept is really simple, you write the documentation in a
standard format (DocBook) that doesn't specify anything about font
types, font sizes, italic, margins or any other "visual" attribute,
you just tell how the document is organized, for example, you create
chapters, titles, lists, illustrations, notes, etc. What does it mean?
It means that you are specifying how the information is "organized"
instead how the information "must look".
When you finish your document, then, it's time to show it to the
world, that is, "transform it" to something readable by humans, so you
need to apply a "transformation" to your document and this is the
process that adds the "visual" attributes and produces a result in a
viewable format, for example, PDF, HTML, PS, etc.
You can follow the DocBook development through this two websites:
OASIS DocBook TC
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=docbook
DocBook
http://www.docbook.org/
The last one is the website for the official guide of DocBook, I
suggest you to read it here:
DocBook: The Definitive Guide
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/docbook/chapter/book/docbook.html
A very interesting starting point to know more about DockBook is the
"wiki", a system that gathers a lot of information from DocBook users:
The DocBook Wiki
http://www.docbook.org/wiki/moin.cgi/
Why DocBook?
http://www.docbook.org/wiki/moin.cgi/WhyDocBook
Although there are tools to convert from other formats to DocBook, I
suggest you to start writting from scratch, or copying and pasting
existing documents into the editor, because converters generate a lot
of trash that makes uneditable the results, in any case, here is a
list of possible conversion tools:
Convert Other Formats to DocBook
http://docbook.org/wiki/moin.cgi/ConvertOtherFormatsToDocBook
To write DocBook documents, any XML editor is valid, but you need to
know some of XML, I have been looking for an XML editor to write
DocBook documents without XML knowledge for a long time in the past
and the best, in my opinion, is XMLMind XML Editor:
XMLmind XML Editor
http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/
You can download the standard edition to try before buy:
Download Standard Edition
http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/download.shtml
Here is the direct link to the more appropiate version if you are a Windows user:
Windows auto-installable binary distribution, bundled with a private
JavaTM 1.4.2 runtime.
http://www.xmlmind.net/xmleditor/_download/xxe-std-25-setup.exe
Once you setup the editor, two easy steps to start writting your book:
-File | New... | Select the DocBook Book Template
-DocBook | Convert Document | Convert to HTML...
Of course, you will need to read more about the editor to master it
before writting a book, but it's very easy and it has a very good
online help.
I know that DocBook seems weird and complex the first time, but once
you write your first document and know that you can publish it
anywhere in almost any format, you will see the real benefits of
DocBook.
Please, don't hesitate to request for any clarification.
Regards. |
