docbook: Thread: What are the top-level types of Docbook documents ?

I understand that 'book' is a top level type, so you declare it:

<!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook V4.1//EN">

But are there others with different sizees, fonts and layouts ?

Is 'article' a top level type ? or does 'article' have to be nested 
within a book declaration.

Also, for a HOWTO, what is preferred ? I assume for longer and lengthier 
ones its definately 'book', for HOWTO's do you prefer 'article' or 
'book' or just don't really care either way ?

Thanks.

On Fri, Sep 13, 2002 at 03:14:57PM -0700, Ol' Dirty Chinaman wrote:

> Is 'article' a top level type ? or does 'article' have to be nested 
> within a book declaration.

No, you would declare one or the other.

<!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook V3.1//EN" [

[...]
 
> Also, for a HOWTO, what is preferred ? I assume for longer and
> lengthier ones its definately 'book', for HOWTO's do you prefer
> 'article' or 'book' or just don't really care either way ?

'article' probably best fits a HOWTO. I think if you looked at source
for most (all?) HOWTO's, they'd be 'articles'. Book might be more
fitting for a 'Guide', where you are more likely to have 'chapter'
type subdivisions of the document. Though conceivably you could get
very similar looking finished docs with either, depending on
stylesheets, markup, etc.

-- 
Hal Burgiss
 

On Fri, 2002-09-13 at 15:14, Ol' Dirty Chinaman wrote:
> I understand that 'book' is a top level type, so you declare it:
> 
> <!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook V4.1//EN">
> 
> But are there others with different sizees, fonts and layouts ?

Not sure what you mean by sizes.  Fonts and layouts are handled in the
processing of the markup, defined in the stylesheet.

> Is 'article' a top level type ? or does 'article' have to be nested 
> within a book declaration.

Yes.  Article and book are the two usual suspects.  Anything else can be
included as an entity, such as chapters and appendices, however if these
are included as separate files, they are handled differently.  

For example, if I used the DOCTYPE book and I wanted to create separate
files for separate chapters and just insert them into the main book, I
add an ENTITY under the DOCTYPE defining the chapter and filename.  But
when I actually create the file for the chapter, I do not begin with a
DOCTYPE, simply start tagging the chapter as though it were already in
the main document. 

> Also, for a HOWTO, what is preferred ? I assume for longer and lengthier 
> ones its definately 'book', for HOWTO's do you prefer 'article' or 
> 'book' or just don't really care either way ?

You can see exactly what I'm talking about if you go to
www.oasis-open.org/docbook/documentation/reference/html/docbook.html, in
section 2.4 (that is, Chapter 2, Section 4), "Physical Divisions:
Breaking a Document into Physical Chunks."  If you continue to read from
there, you will find the information that immediately follows it to be
helpful as well.

I haven't seen anything outside of Article and Book for DOCTYPE, and I
guess you have to decide, based on the size and structure of your
information, what divisions seem appropriate.  

Any questions feel free to holler!

Tabatha

-- 
Tabatha Persad
Web: www.merlinmonroe.com
Linux Documentation Project Editor (http://www.tldp.org)
Gnu Writing Movement Contributor (http://gwm.gnu.org)
Linux Counter Area Manager US:wa (http://counter.li.org)