Chapter 1. Introduction

1.1. Requirements

DocBook Publishing describes the framework for publishing with DocBook. It describes how you can easily create a publication or an article in many different formats. You can either read this article online or download (see chapter 12 ) it in several formats. This framework is based on the work of many people who contributed many parts and made it available to a larger audience as Open Source. Special thanks to Mark Pilgrim who inspired me to write this article because of his publications especially Dive Into Python. I have done nothing else than making it work under Windows and in German with all necessary tools. I use it myself: This article was certainly written with DocBook Publishing .

Again: This article is not about DocBook itself (see links to other sites below) but about the description of a setup how to run it in practice. You can also download all necessary tools (also as binaries) from this WebSite; so it should not be a problem to set up your own system enabling you to successfully write documents with DocBook.

1.1. Requirements

It is important to understand that this framework is not a WYSIWYG solution or "Click-clack" application (a Windows application operated by mouse click). Articles are rather written in soucecode in DocBook ( XML) and then compiled. This might remind you on the good old TEX times where a document was written in the same way.

If you are afraid of using command lines, I can only recommend to use the common Office tools and keep your hands off this approach.

You should be familiar with XML and XSLT basics so that you will not become confused even by the easiest topics. All other information is described in this article so that you will be successful in a very short time.

DocBook Publishing

Chapter 1. Introduction

Table of Contents

1.1. Requirements