Re: AW: DOCBOOK: docbook suitable for book - creation ?

[Bob Stayton <bobs at caldera dot com>]

On Sun, Nov 17, 2002 at 08:02:33PM +0100, KMcLauchlan wrote:
> [stuff deleted]
>
> Every time I turn around, somebody is making 
> different claims for DocBook (and whether the 
> pure-and-godly way to do it is DSSSL or XSL, 
> or... whatever the other choices are).  One 
> minute I'me hearing that I could fire up 
> OpenJade and have finished product in half 
> an hour, and the next minute, I'm being told 
> that...  well, no, actually, that would only 
> give me an output file that I'd then have 
> to bring into some other system to produce 
> actual human-usable printouts, or cross-
> referenced and hot-linked PDFs, etc. 
> 
> One minute, its the perfect solution for 
> the single, busy writer in a small company, 
> and the next it's "oh no, I wouldn't take 
> that on unless I had a department of people, 
> including one or two who could dedicate 
> themselves full-time to DTD creation..."
> 
> So, what's the poop?  If I am producing quite 
> acceptable and timely output in (say) Frame, 
> BUT am moving to a platform where Frame is not 
> available, yet still need to produce docs that 
> are laid out to the company/marketing-dept. standards,
> AND keep meeting deadlines that are getting closer 
> and closer together every month...  is DocBook 
> (and OpenJade, or fill-in-your-favorite-solution) 
> the ideal solution for me?

Only you will know if DocBook is an ideal solution for you.
But here is some information to help you decide.

Setting up and using the DocBook tools to produce the
default output style is not too hard.  There are several
toolkits and tutorials for that, and the tools work on most
platforms.  You still have to learn XML or SGML markup and
the rules your document structure must follow.

Customizing the output style to meet company/marketing/academic
standards is not that easy with DocBook.  It requires
an investment of time in learning the stylesheets
and the stylesheet language (DSSSL or XSL).  That investment
may not be worth it for a small number of documents,
or a single author.

But once you have made the investment in the stylesheet
and processing environment, the system can be highly
productive.  DocBook is a batch processing system,
as opposed to an interactive processing system like
FrameMaker.  After tweaking the stylesheet, you can type
"make set" and regenerate a whole new set of books.  Such
automation is not as easy with FrameMaker.  On the other
hand, FrameMaker gives you an interactive environment
that lets you tweak each page of a book.  That's not
easy with DocBook.

So DocBook is most effective when you have a lot of content
using the same standardized stylesheet, and you don't need
to tweak each page.

-- 

Bob Stayton                                 400 Encinal Street
Publications Architect                      Santa Cruz, CA  95060
Technical Publications                      voice: (831) 427-7796
The SCO Group                               fax:   (831) 429-1887
                                            email: bobs@sco.com