DocBook Xsl: The Complete Guide (3rd Edition) [Paperback]

Bob Stayton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2005 | ISBN-10: 0974152129 | ISBN-13: 978-0974152127 | Edition: 3

DocBook XSL: The Complete Guide (3rd Edition) by Bob Stayton is the definitive guide to using the DocBook XSL stylesheets. It provides the missing documentation to realize the full potential of DocBook publishing. It covers all aspects of DocBook publishing tools, including installing, using, and customizing the stylesheets and processing tools. The book is suitable for new users just getting started, as well as more advanced users needing a complete reference. It is thoroughly indexed and cross referenced so you can quickly find what you need. The 3rd Edition adds 35% more pages and brings it up to date with the current software.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

What is DocBook? DocBook is a collection of standards and tools for technical publishing. DocBook was originally created by a consortium of software companies as a standard for computer documentation. But the basic "book" features of DocBook can be used for other kinds of content, so it has been adapted to many purposes.

A DocBook file contains no information about how to format it. That information is kept in a separate stylesheet file. The most powerful and flexible stylesheets for DocBook are the DocBook XSL stylesheets written by Norman Walsh. These free stylesheets can produce HTML and print output from the same DocBook files. DocBook XSL: the Complete Guide provides complete information for using the DocBook XSL stylesheets. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Inside Flap

Says Norman Walsh, Chairperson of the OASIS DocBook Technical Committee and author of the DocBook XSL Stylesheets:

"The DocBook XSL Stylesheets are probably the most commonly used tools for transforming DocBook documents for print or online presentation. And this book is the best way to gain a thorough understanding of the stylesheets.

"Bob is a long-standing contributor to the stylesheets themselves and a generous and diligent participant in the DocBook user community. This has given him keen insight into the areas where authors and stylesheet writers are most likely to stumble.

"As someone who cares a lot about DocBook, I think it would difficult to overestimate the value of DocBook XSL: The Complete Guide. I'm confident it will make the stylesheets accessible to a whole new community of users."

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 560 pages
• Publisher: Sagehill Enterprises; 3 edition (February 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0974152129
• ISBN-13: 978-0974152127
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,671,036 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Indispensable, October 30, 2003

By 

Michael L. Smith (Tokyo) - See all my reviews

This review is from: DocBook Xsl: The Complete Guide (Paperback)

With this book and "DocBook: The Definitive Guide" in-hand, I
really can't imagine any other DocBook guide you'll ever need.

The book thoroughly covers just about every possible aspect of
DocBook publishing (that is, generating HTML, PDF, HTML Help, man
pages, etc. from your DocBook XML source) -- from general tool
setup down to the level of stuff like fine-tuning content of
headers and footers, title pages, cross-references, indexes, etc.

I have reviewed and used it a lot, and tried hard to come up with
suggestions for Bob for topics that should be added to it. But I
rarely manage to find anything that it doesn't already cover. When
I have a DocBook publishing question, I can almost always find the
answer in this book.

And if you're not familiar with the author, here are some details:
in the DocBook world, Bob is basically "The DocBook Answer Man" --
he is the most active contributor to discussions on the
docbook-apps mailing list (where DocBook publishing and tools
discussion takes place) -- patiently answering "How do I..."
questions posted by new users and following up on DocBook XSLT
stylesheet bug reports.

He's also a member of the DocBook Technical Committee, responsible
for overseeing refinements to the DocBook vocabulary, and he's a
major contributor to development of the actual DocBook XSL
stylesheets themselves.

Which is all a roundabout way of saying that this guy knows his
stuff, and in buying and using this book, you'll be benefitting
from a wealth of knowledge and experience with DocBook that you'll
not find anywhere else.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must-have for all serious docbook users, June 1, 2004

By 

peraldus (Bern Switzerland) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: DocBook Xsl: The Complete Guide (Paperback)

I purchased that book as soon as it came out: I just knew I'd need it some day. That day came three weeks ago and I got into the book with a vengeance. I needed to utterly customize the docbooks stylesheets and produce 12'000 different pdf's in four languages out of a huge documentation DB. With the book next to me it was a breeze. Extremely well written, knowledgeable, accurate, just verbose enough to get the point across and and and.

Beware: this is a book for people who are already very well versed in docbook in general, and in XSL in particular.

One does wish the author would have offered ant versions of his scripts as well as Make versions. But that's a matter of taste.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A DocBook Implementer's Best Friend, October 14, 2003

By 

Karen Koldyk (Calgary, Alberta, CANADA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: DocBook Xsl: The Complete Guide (Paperback)

This book needs to be beside the computer (and I do mean RIGHT beside) anyone who is attempting to support or modify docbook applications for the first time. Do that, and you may just be able to put away the extra strength excedrin. Without it, you might have a few problems......

Here's why:

Last year, I had the pleasure of implementing docbook for a large company down in Oklahoma. However, I didn't know much about XSL at the time or for that matter docbook; other than how to markup documents and make changes to the DTD. In other words I was a rookie. I had two tools at my disposal; the definative guide and docbook documentation. Any developer would understand what a rookie who is trying to muddle through docbook documentation is trying to go through..... I had a bit of consulting from Arbortext but other than that I was on my own. The definitive guide has very little information on publishing XML information and barely even mentions XSL. Thus, my modifications consisted of looking at existing code and attempting a patch job. Even with the training I'd had on XSLT it did not help me to find files that I didn't know existed. This book solves that problem and gets you off the ground running.

While the book is NOT a tututorial on XSL is does give a brief overview on the subject. This book talks about implementing XSL in a docbook environment as there are plenty of books in the market that teach you how to code XSL. An understanding of XML is expected and knowledge of docbook is certainly helpful. Topics covered include how to find docbooks XSL stylesheets (or obtain them for free, if you don't already have them)and tells you how to set them up, customize them for your environment, use special stylesheet output features and work with docbook options.

In short, if you need to learn how to implement XSL in a docbook environment; get this book in your hands and don't let it go. It's too valuable a commodity!