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How to run DocBook on a Windows PC

Author:   Michael Shook  
Posted: 4/26/2005; 3:59:09 PM
Topic: How to run DocBook on a Windows PC
Msg #: 402 (top msg in thread)
Prev/Next: 401/403
Reads: 411

I've been trying to figure how to convert DocBook XML documents to useful output on a Windows PC. There seems to be lots available for Linux, but not much for Windows. I've finally made some progress.

Cygwin seems to be the key. Cygwin is a Windows .dll that emulates the Linux API. It makes it relatively easy to port Linux software to Windows. The important thing is though, that a vast amount of Linux software has been ported to Cygwin, including it appears, lots of the Linux DocBook tool chain.

Cygwin is also an internet-based installation system. It's not very well documented, but a good start is here.

One thing I never found in Cygwin documentation but I finally guessed and just tried it and it worked: how to add additional software to your Cygwin installation once you've already installed it. The answer is, just run the Cygwin setup.exe again.

Once I figured that out I installed the DocBook 4.3 package and the toxml script that I'd discovered in the Linux documentation for DocBook. It worked like a charm for converting a DocBook xml file to html.

I'm still working on conversion to PDF and customizing the conversion.

Another recent find is css which will allow a DocBook XML file to be viewed with a contemporary browser.

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