Thursday, August 25, 2005
Writing documentation to a different beat
I make no bones about the fact that I when it comes to preparing documentation, I prefer to use either FrameMaker or DocBook. But for some jobs, Frame and DocBook border on overkill. But there a several smaller, simpler tools out there. I'm particularly fond of three markup-based tools.
The first is AurigaDoc. About a year ago, I wrote an article on AurigaDoc for Newsforge.com. which describes it's features and functions. To give you a short introduction, Aurigadoc is a Java application that uses a stripped-down XML vocabulary for formatting documents. And it can output files in 10 formats, including HTML, PDF, HTML Help, and JavaHelp.
Another interesting format is AsciiDoc. AsciiDoc is what I call a "markup-less markup language." Instead of using tags to define the presentation of elements in your document, you use spaces and special characters. After you write your content, AsciiDoc can convert it to HTML or DocBook. With DocBook, you can then transform the file to PDF, RTF, HTML, HTML Help, or any other output format that DocBook supports.
Like AsciiDoc, aptconvert is a markup-less markup language. As I mentioned in another Newsforge.com article, aptconvert is a quick and dirty typesetter. While not really meant for larger documents, aptconvert is great for shorter ones like FAQs, technical articles, and whitepapers.
The first is AurigaDoc. About a year ago, I wrote an article on AurigaDoc for Newsforge.com. which describes it's features and functions. To give you a short introduction, Aurigadoc is a Java application that uses a stripped-down XML vocabulary for formatting documents. And it can output files in 10 formats, including HTML, PDF, HTML Help, and JavaHelp.
Another interesting format is AsciiDoc. AsciiDoc is what I call a "markup-less markup language." Instead of using tags to define the presentation of elements in your document, you use spaces and special characters. After you write your content, AsciiDoc can convert it to HTML or DocBook. With DocBook, you can then transform the file to PDF, RTF, HTML, HTML Help, or any other output format that DocBook supports.
Like AsciiDoc, aptconvert is a markup-less markup language. As I mentioned in another Newsforge.com article, aptconvert is a quick and dirty typesetter. While not really meant for larger documents, aptconvert is great for shorter ones like FAQs, technical articles, and whitepapers.
