DocBook is a content standard.
The DocBook documentation is managed by OASIS, and was last updated in 2016.
DocBook is a semantic XML schema designed for creating technical documents. Instead of focusing on how a document will look, authors use a set of descriptive tags, like
<chapter>
<para>Some text</para>
</chapter>
to describe the content’s meaning and structure. This separation of content from presentation is DocBook’s core principle.
The source files, written in XML, don’t contain any formatting information. To produce a final document, an XSLT stylesheet is applied to transform the DocBook XML into various output formats. This allows a single source file to be easily converted into a variety of outputs, such as a PDF for printing, HTML for a website, a man page, or an EPUB for e-readers. This makes DocBook an ideal solution for projects that require consistent, multi-format publishing from a single source, ensuring content remains structured and reusable across different platforms.
Strengths
- A single DocBook source file can be converted to many different output formats (Eg. PDF, HTML and ePub), ensuring consistency and saving time.
- As an open standard, DocBook isn't tied to any single software vendor. You can use a variety of tools to author, validate, and publish your content.
Limitations
- Writing in raw XML can be cumbersome and difficult for non-technical writers. The large number of elements and their specific rules can be confusing.
- The verbose nature of XML tags makes the source code hard to read and edit manually, especially compared to more lightweight markup languages like Markdown.
- its effective use often requires a sophisticated toolchain, including an XML editor, XSLT processors, and other utilities. This can be complex to set up and maintain