[Gllug] docbook vs latex

[Richard Jones]

On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 02:33:41PM -0500, Craig Millar wrote:
> I have a small documentation project on the horizon and it seems like the
> perfect opportunity to hone my LaTeX skills. But I've been wondering a little
> about docbook of late, though yet to actually do anything with it. What would
> you use, and why?

What I would use depends on a number of things:

(1) What sort of content?

Any amount of mathematics would lead me immediately to use LaTeX.
There would be no other consideration for such a project.

(2) What's the output format?

LaTeX is good for DVI and printer-ready copy.  For output which is
predominantly targeted at the web, DocBook/XML, or pure HTML + CSS.
To generate manpages, we use POD every time.

(3) Who else will need to collaborate on the document?

... and what are they familiar with / capable of editing without
breaking things?

(4) How good is to toolchain on the system I'm using?

The DocBook/XML toolchain sucked for a very long time.  It seems to be
a bit better now.  I'd definitely test this *before* embarking on a
new document.

- - -

FWIW I wrote a doc using AsciiDoc the other day, and it wasn't too
bad, although the quality of the output is fairly horrible (could
probably be improved if I spent a bit of time editing the CSS).

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones
Red Hat
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