The DocBook XSL stylesheets are a set of
XSLT
XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations) is a language originally designed for transforming XML documents into other XML documents, or other formats such as HTML for web pages, plain text or XSL Formatting Objects, which may subseque ...
stylesheets for the
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...
-based
DocBook
DocBook is a semantic markup language for technical documentation. It was originally intended for writing technical documents related to computer hardware and software, but it can be used for any other sort of documentation.
As a semantic languag ...
language.
Purpose
DocBook is a semantic markup language. That is, it specifies the meaning of the elements in a document, not how they are intended to be presented to the end user. It provides
separation between the content of the document and the visual representation. While DocBook is a readable markup language, it is not intended to be read by end-users in its DocBook form.
The purpose of DocBook XSL is to provide a standard set of transformations from DocBook to several presentational formats.
Output formats
DocBook XSL provides for transforms into the following formats:
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HTML
The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScri ...
, both as single pages and in a "chunked" format that outputs sections to different pages.
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XHTML
Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML) is part of the family of XML markup languages. It mirrors or extends versions of the widely used HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the language in which Web pages are formulated.
While HTML, prior ...
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XSL-FO
XSL-FO (XSL Formatting Objects) is a markup language for XML document formatting that is most often used to generate PDF files. XSL-FO is part of XSL (Extensible Stylesheet Language), a set of W3C technologies designed for the transformation and ...
, and from there, usually
PDF
Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...
*
Man Pages
A man page (short for manual page) is a form of software documentation usually found on a Unix or Unix-like operating system. Topics covered include computer programs (including library and system calls), formal standards and conventions, and ev ...
*
WebHelp
Web help
Webhelp is a chunked HTML output format in the DocBook xslt stylesheets that was introduced in version 1.76.1. The documentation for web help also provides an example of web help and is part of the DocBook xsl distribution. Its major features include CSS-based page layout without frameset, multilingual full content search, Table of contents (TOC) pane with collapsible TOC tree, Auto-synchronization of content pane and TOC. This web help format was originally implemented by Kasun Gajasinghe and David Cramer as part of the Google Summer of Code 2010 program.
DocBook XSL also has transformations to slide-like formats for HTML and XSL-FO.
EPUB
EPUB is an e-book file format that uses the ".epub" file extension. The term is short for ''electronic publication'' and is sometimes styled ''ePub''. EPUB is supported by many e-readers, and compatible software is available for most smartphones ...
support is currently experimental.
Configuration
DocBook XSL's stylesheets are highly configurable. Each of the different formats has a number of XSLT parameters available for simple customization. For example, the XSL-FO transforms allow the user to define the size of the pages. Additionally, the XSLT documents themselves are modular; it is possible for the user to add, change, or replace particular levels of functionality. This can allow DocBook XSL to process new documentation tags added to the standard DocBook, or to simply change how the XSLT's generate the resulting format.
References
External links
DocBook Project- SourceForge project maintaining the DocBook XSL and DSSSL transforms.
DocBook XSL Reference- Reference documentation for DocBook XSL transforms.
- HTML edition of book explaining the use of DocBook XSL.
Docbkx Maven Plugin- A Maven plugin based on the DocBook XSL Stylesheets, packaging everything required to target multiple output formats.
ant4docbook- an Ant task for DocBook.
Typesetting software
DocBook
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