The K Desktop Environment

Writing Documentation Using DocBook

A Crash Course



David Rugge

This document describes how to write KDE documentation in DocBook using the KDE DocBook package. There is also a guide to moving from the old Linuxdoc format to the newer and more flexible DocBook format.


Table of Contents
1. Introduction
1.1. Why DocBook?
2. The KDE DocBook Tools
2.1. Installing the Tools
2.2. Running the Tools
3. A Crash Course in DocBook
3.1. Anatomy of a DocBook Tag
3.2. The Structure of a DocBook File
3.3. Meta Information
3.4. Lists
3.4.1. The SimpleList
3.4.2. The ItemizedList
3.4.3. The OrderedList
3.4.4. The VariableList
3.4.5. The SegmentedList
3.4.6. QandASet
3.4.7. Procedures
3.5. Tables
3.6. Graphics
3.7. Links
3.8. Describing the Application's Interface
3.8.1. Examples
3.8.2. Command Line
3.8.3. GUI Interface Elements
3.9. Miscellaneous Useful Tags
3.9.1. Labelling Tags
3.9.2. Formatting Tags
3.9.3. Warnings, Tips, and Notes
4. Where to Go Next
4.1. DocBook and SGML resources