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1. Introduction

Some Acronyms:

  1. SGML - Standard Generalized Markup Language

  2. XML - Extensible Markup Language

  3. RTF - Rich Text Format

  4. HTML - HyperText Markup Language

  5. PDF - Portable Document Format

The objective of this document is to setup OpenJade to convert DocBook 3.2 and 4.2 Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) and Extensible Markup Language (XML) documents to HyperText Markup Language (HTML), Rich Text Format (RTF), and Portable Document Format (PDF).

1.1. Copyright and License

This document is Copyright 2001 by Saqib Ali. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is available at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html.

1.2. Credits

All praise is due to Allah, The Lord of the Worlds. All credits go to Allah. Any mistake in this document is my own fault.

Additionally, I would like to acknowledge the following people for their valuable contributions to this document:

  1. Eric Safern - For updates related to Cocoon and JRE. http://www.timebytes.com/

  2. Greg Ferguson - for very helpful hints/suggestions on the docbook mailing list

  3. Kristin Thomas - For the initial review of this document.

  4. Luc de Louw - For suggesting the HTMLDOC (PDF -> HTML) section.

  5. Lloyd D Budd - For suggestions on improving most of the sections of the document.

  6. Andrew Shugg - For fixing errors in the ver 2.0 of this document. Neep Consulting

1.3. What is DocBook?

DocBook is a document type definition (DTD). A DTD defines the syntax of a document. DocBook describes the types of structure and formats to use in technical documents. It is commonly used because of its simplicity and completeness.

A DTD defines the syntax of a document - essentially it is a 'rule book' that describes the sets of tags and attributes that will be used to describe specific kinds of content. So DocBook is a "rule book" that is used for writing documents. Every tag that is used in writing the document, must be defined very specifically and formally in the DTD.

1.4. What is DSSSL?

A Document Style Semantics and Specification Language (DSSSL) defines how to convert an Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) document into a human-readable viewing format such as HTML, RTF and PDF.

1.5. What do we need?

The tools needed to set up OpenJade for converting SGML and XML are:

NoteNote
 

All of these packages are free and available for download on the net. The next chapter explains how to download these packages.

1.6. Assumptions

This document assumes that you have the following already installed on your system.