DOCBOOK-APPS: FYI - David Merrill's email DocBook SGML Processor

[Dan York <dyork at e-smith dot com>]

FYI, David Merrill over at the Linux Documentation Project has created
a rather cool DocBook processing tool.  All you do is send a DocBook SGML
file (make sure it ends in ".sgml") as an attachment to an email message to:

  docbook@lupercalia.net

and his system will process the file into HTML and text (and OMF) and 
send you an email message back with information on how to retrieve the
files.  You can find out more information about the service at:

  http://www.lupercalia.net/dp.html

He developed this tool primarily because the LDP wants to move all of its
authors to DocBook, but found that one of the largest barriers (as most
of us unfortunately know) was getting authors set up to process DocBook into
HTML and text.  For many potential authors, this was a hurdle that got
in the way of them contributing to the LDP.

So David solved the issue with his processor. Originally it was just for the
LDP, but he has since opened it up to other Free Software and OSS projects.
(See his page for more info.)

Note, of course, that this just processes the documents using Norm's 
standard DSSSL stylesheets with some minor LDP modifications... so it
doesn't do custom stylesheets... but it's another tool that is out there
for the processing of DocBook.  (And thanks are due to David for making
it available.)

Regards,
Dan

-- 
Dan York, Director of Training        dyork@e-smith.com
Ph: +1-613-751-4401  Mobile: +1-613-263-4312 Fax: +1-613-564-7739 
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