RE: DOCBOOK: Choice of environment for working with Docbook?

[Jean Jordaan <Jean at mosaicsoftware dot com>]

Hi Gershon

Thank you very much for the trouble you took with your reply. I've
interspersed my comments below .. 

> Summary:
> I recommend you use XML rather than SGML version of DocBook for your
> needs.

I have no problem with this, other than that I haven't played with XML
yet. I did do a TEI SGML edition of some volumes of poetry. But it
looks as if the tools are geared to handle the step to XML. 

> Depending on your documentation needs, you may need to create a
> subset or extension of DocBook. 

Most probably a subset.

> You need not purchase their DocBook Application--you can create your
> own. If you are familiar with SGML/XML markup, FOSIs and DSSSL, it
> will cost you very much less than 15000 Euros to set up. 

While the acronymns aren't quite a foreign language, I'm not on
terribly intimate terms with them. I do think I'm adept enough to seek
out and tweak the available docbook2whatever scripts out there. It
will be rather "by the seat of my pants", though. 

> Company B had a very small budget, so we used WordPerfect9 for
> authoring and publish via Jade and DSSSL stylesheets. 

This is probably most like my initial setup, though at present I'd
slot in Emacs for authoring. I saw something called S4/TEXT [1], which
pushes Word into the authoring slot. Having struggled with Robotext,
which also inhabits Word, I'm not sure that I'd like to try that.

[1] http://www.i4i.com/biz_s4text.htm

> The main reason for using SGML was because they required single
> sourcing to produce different versions of the document using
> conditional processing. 

This would certainly be true of us as well.

> I also use Omnimark to convert from Word to XML.

Does Omnimark handle native Word format? (!) Or are there intermediate
steps?

> For your purposes, one or more copies of Epic Publisher and Epic
> Editor for the rest is all you need (provided you already have Adobe
> Acrobat installed on the Publisher computers).

This sounds about right.

> You certainly can train Word people to work with Epic. I suggest you use a
> qualified Arbortext trainer for this. 

I'll look for one in South Africa :)

Thanks,
-- 
jean@mosaicsoftware.com                        . ... .... ///\\oo//\\\
Technical Writer