ISBN:1565925807Amazon.com
The DocBook SGML specification allows publishers to mark up text content to be used in traditional print as well as on the Web. DocBook: The Definitive Guide examines and catalogs the entirety of the DocBook specification and will be useful to anyone who uses SGML to publish documents.
DocBook uses SGML to structure the contents of a book, identifying such elements as authors, chapters, headings, and so on. The heart of DocBook: The Definitive Guide lies in its full reference of over 300 DocBook elements, organized alphabetically (from "Abbrev" to "Year"). The syntax of each element is described, along with sample SGML code illustrating its proper usage.
This book assumes a working knowledge of SGML, though basic concepts are described during the introduction. Later reference sections present a wide range of DocBook "entities." (These are values that can be used to describe custom content within a DocBook document.) Character entities, codes used to describe diacritics and mathematical symbols, are also listed.
Later sections address DocBook customization, including removal of unused elements. As you might expect, no single publishing scheme employs every SGML element available; however, like any good reference, it includes a discussion of each element that could conceivably be used. Another useful section discusses the relationship between DocBook and XML, including the fairly simple conversion possibilities for cross-translating these markup types.
DocBook is a powerful way to distribute books, both in traditional print and online. Provided you have some knowledge of SGML, anyone who makes use of the DocBook specification will benefit from this worthy reference. --Richard Dragan
Topics covered: DocBook basics and SGML/XML; publishing books with DocBook; style sheet languages: FOSIs, DSSSL, CSS, and XSL; DocBook element reference; attribute entities; class entities; common entities; module entities; local attribute entities; mixture entities; module parameter entities; role attribute parameter entities; character entities; customizing DocBook; converting DocBook to XML./p>
Reviews From AMAZON.COM
Great reference to help you build your DTD...
If you are (like I am) in a situation where you need to serve two masters with a DTD you're trying to build (the online and the print world), after your first or second rough passes at putting it together yourself (there's a great many tools out there to help you in this, of which I personally recommend XMLSpy from Altova), then is when O'Reilly's DocBook will come in handy. The matter of the fact is that, no matter how much brain you put into the creation of a multi-purpose DTD: these guys thought it over several times a while before you, but granted that you might not have a use for a vast majority of the elements presented in DocBook, it will help get your feet out of the mud when in trouble and you don't know how to deal with a very particular situation.
The only "negative" part about it is that, with its print date of 1999, it is clearly outdated, but who cares, when even an outdated version of the standard will be considerably better than what you can come up with on your own!
Nice, but not really required
The problem with this book is never up to date with the latest and gratest DocBook stuff. You can download a copy of the reference guide for free, so why would you need a hard copy?
I think the main reason for buying this book is to say thank you to Norman Walsh, we has been the DocBook lead for ages, and we all know he does a great job. From that perspective, this book is definitely a must.