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I've built Docbook-based single source systems at three companies
(including my current employer), and it is an excellent choice for what
you want to do. Docbook is indeed a somewhat complex markup scheme, but
remember that you won't use most of the tags. They are there to support
a wide range of documents, including SDK guides, command reference
guides, and the like. You'll mostly use the structural elements (book,
chapter, section) the various list-type elements, procedure elements,
and tables. Don't go the simplified Docbook route unless you're sure
that it contains everything you need. You may find yourself very
limited in what you can do.
All of our writers used specialized editors. XMLSpy, Epic, XMetal, and
Syntext are great choices. All of those editors will "guide" writers by
showing what tagging choices are valid at any location in the document.
Epic has a great add-on formatter for PDF and online help, but it's
expensive. In all three systems that I've built, we've used the Modular
Docbook Stylesheets (which are open-source and free) along with the XEP
PDF formatter (which is quite inexpensive). We currently use that set
of tools to create PDF, RTF, HTML, and Oracle Help output formats. We
bought the server version of XEP ($2,300), but you can buy single CPU
versions of the formatter for around $200.
What you should know is simply that you'll need someone to set up the
tools and do any customizations that you require for formatting in any
of the output media. This requires the ability to write XSLT code, the
ability to understand XML FO (formatting objects), and a reasonable
grasp of a scripting language such as Perl, Python, etc. You can do
without having someone with those skills if you buy a turnkey solution
from one of the companies that make editors, but such solutions are
expensive.
You'll also want some sort way of storing and versioning the XML
source. You can buy a content management system, or you can use your
company's source code control system, such as CVS, Perforce, MKS, etc.
I've always used the source code control system as it makes it easier to
automate the "document build" along with the code build.
Cheers,
Bill Lawrence
Kate Stout wrote:
Hi all -
I'd like to single source several documents, that my company plans to
produce. There will be a User Guide, a Tutorial, and possibly some
other manuals. Some material is reused across the various documents,
so that would be shared amungst the documents. Some documents will be
produced as pdf, others as an web in html, and some may be both.
I'm considering using creating the document components in docbook,
then using xslt transforms to create the various required output formats.
Bunch of questions
1) Has anyone here used the docbook DTD before, & if yes, what was the
experience like? I'm a little concerned because it's a fairly complex
markup scheme.
2) What tools have you used to do the documentation editing? Did you
"handcode" or use a specialized editor?
3) What tools did you use for xml transforms?
4) Tell me what else I should know, I'm sure there are questions I
haven't thought to ask ;-).
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