Writing documentation with DocBook-XML 4.2 |  |
Writing documentation with DocBook-XML 4.2 | |
The DocBook software runs only under the Linux operating system. Also, the process of document creation is much, much easier with a validating XML editor. For an emacs-based validating XML editor, see XML document authoring with emacs nxml-mode. If all else fails, you can always use a regular text editor, but you will have to type every character of every tag yourself.
The make system is a great timesaver in carrying out the steps of the DocBook document development cycle. Refer to the man page for make if you are not familiar with this product.
Here is the procedure for setting up your directory:
Create the directory with mkdir if it does not already exist.
Use the cd command to move to the directory.
Copy this “tarball” archive into the directory:
cp /u/www/docs/tcc/doc/docbook42xep/tcc.tgz . |
Unpack it with this shell command:
tar -xvzf tcc.tgz |
This adds three necessary files to your directory:
Makefile operates the make utility to rebuild your output HTML, PostScript, and PDF files.
model is a skeletal DocBook XML file to serve as the initial contents of your DocBook document file.
logo.gif is the TCC logo in GIF format, which appears on the top right corner of all TCC publications. Feel free to replace this with your own image if you're not writing an Official TCC Document.
Edit the Makefile. Find the line that looks like this:
TARGET = your-document-base-name-here |
and replace the part after the = with the name of the file you will be creating, without its .xml suffix. For example, if you are writing a manual on stunting trees, you might name the source file bonsai.xml. In that case, you would replace the line above with:
TARGET = bonsai |
Rename the model file as your starting XML file. To continue the previous example:
mv model bonsai.xml |