User Guide #

DAPS (DocBook Authoring and Publishing Suite) helps technical writers to author and publish documentation written in DocBook XML. DAPS is a command line based software for Linux* and released as open source.

The DAPS User Guide is a comprehensive guide for technical writers using DAPS. It guides you through creating, editing, managing and publishing your documents—be it a short article by a single author or a large documentation project written by multiple authors.

Authors: Tanja Roth and Stefan Knorr

Contributors: Thomas Schraitle and Frank Sundermeyer

Publication Date: 05/11/2021, Version: 3.1

About This Guide

Target Audience
Available Documentation
Feedback
Documentation Conventions
About the Making of This Document

1 System Requirements and Installation

1.1 System Requirements
1.2 Installation

2 Conceptual Overview

2.1 Supported DocBook Versions
2.2 Key Features
2.3 DAPS Configuration
2.4 Defining Documentation Projects
2.5 Directory Structure
2.6 Key Files
2.7 Basic DAPS Syntax

3 Editing DocBook XML

3.1 Basic Structural Elements
3.2 Choice of Editor
3.3 Spell Checking
3.4 Checking Links to Web Pages
3.5 Profiling—Support for Document Variants
3.6 Keeping Track of Your Documentation Project
3.7 Further Information

4 Generating Output Formats

4.1 Validating Your XML Sources
4.2 Basic Syntax for Generating Output
4.3 Supported Output Formats
4.4 Advanced Output Options
4.5 Pretty XML Formatting
4.6 Putting the current Date and Time into the Target Document

5 Image Handling

5.1 Supported Image Types
5.2 Source Images and Generated Images
5.3 File Name Requirements
5.4 Referencing Images
5.5 DAPS Commands for Managing Images

6 Modularizing Documentation Projects

6.1 Splitting up Documents into XIncludes
6.2 Declaring Entities in a Separate File
6.3 Profiling—Support for Document Variants
6.4 Combining Entities and Profiling

7 Review and Translation Processes

7.1 Including Remarks or Draft Watermarks in the Output
7.2 Creating XML Big Files

8 Packaging and Deploying Your Documentation

8.1 Creating a TAR Archive with All Sources (Including Graphics)
8.2 Generating a Distributable HTML Archive
8.3 Generating Desktop, Document, or Page Files

9 Customizing Layout of the Output Formats

9.1 Modifying Individual XSLT Processor Parameters
9.2 Specifying the Layout for ASCII Text Output
9.3 Customizing the DocBook Stylesheets

10 Configuring DAPS

11 Troubleshooting

Glossary

A Migrating Existing DocBook Projects

B Editor-specific Information

B.1 Emacs—Macros for Inserting DocBook Elements
B.2 Editing XML/DocBook Files with the Vim Editor
B.3 jEdit—Spell Check on the Fly

C What's New?

D GNU Licenses

D.1 GNU General Public License
D.2 GNU Free Documentation License

List of Figures

3.1 Example Output of daps linkcheck

List of Tables

4.1 DAPS Output Commands and Formats
6.1 Output of Example 6.4
6.2 Output of Example 6.4 (Without Profiling)
6.3 Output of Example 6.5
6.4 Profiling Attributes (DocBook) and Profiling Parameters (DAPS)
6.5 Output Variants of Example 6.15 / Example 6.16 Combined With Example 6.14

List of Examples

2.1 Required Directory Structure
2.2 Build Directory
2.3 MAIN file of an Article (DocBook 4.x)
2.4 MAIN file of an Article (DocBook 5.x)
2.5 Basic DC File for an Article
2.6 MAIN file of a Book (DocBook 4.x)
2.7 MAIN file of a Book (DocBook 5.x)
2.8 DC File For a Book with Custom Layout
2.9 MAIN file of a Set (DocBook 4.x)
2.10 DC File For a Book in a Set
2.11 DC File For Another Book in the Same Set
2.12 DC File for a Set
2.13 DAPS Syntax
3.1 Default Output of a File Listing DAPS Command
3.2 Pretty-printed Output of a File Listing DAPS Command
4.1 Parser Output For Validation Errors (xref to unknown ID)
4.2 Example for implementing the dbtimestamp tag in an XML File:
4.3 Example for implementing the dbtimestamp tag with a customized format:
5.1 Image Reference in an XML File
5.2 Default Output of an Image-related DAPS Command
5.3 Pretty-printed Output of an Image-related DAPS Command
6.1 Separate Entity File entity-decl.ent
6.2 Referencing A Separate Entity File
6.3 Referencing Entity Files Within an Entity File
6.4 Product-specific Profiling (One Attribute)
6.5 Product-specific Profiling (Multiple Attributes)
6.6 Profiling PI in a DocBook 4.5 File
6.7 Profiling PI in a DocBook 5.0 File
6.8 XML File With Profiling Attributes (DocBook 4.x)
6.9 MAIN file With PI for Profiling (DocBook 4.5)
6.10 MAIN file With PI for Profiling (DocBook 5.0)
6.11 DC File with Profiling for Home Edition
6.12 DC File with Profiling for Professional Edition
6.13 DC File with Profiling for Professional Edition (OEM Version)
6.14 Separate Entity File with Profiling Attributes (DocBook 5.0)
6.15 XML File with &productname; and &productnumber; Entities (DocBook 4.5)
6.16 XML File with &productname; and &productnumber; Entities (DocBook 5.0)
9.1 Adjusting the Layout of Variable Lists
9.2 Best Practice File Hierarchy
9.3 General Customization Layer
B.1 A varlistentry Element

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All information found in this book has been compiled with utmost attention to detail. However, this does not guarantee complete accuracy. Neither SUSE, LLC, the authors, nor the translators shall be held liable for possible errors or the consequences thereof.

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